Last weekend was a warm one in the Chicago area and on that Friday afternoon the fan on the high ceiling in my living room failed to work. I tried to turn it on several times Saturday to no avail. I replaced the 9 volt battery in the remote control and tried again several times on Sunday, but the fan would not budge. On Monday morning, I reached for the remote once again and these words came to my mind as if someone was whispering them in my ear, “You know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.” My response as I pushed the buttons on the remote control was, “And the definition of faith is continuing to act with expectation of great blessings from God.” The fan started right up as though there had never been a problem and has worked fine all of this week. I have no idea what the problem was or why it suddenly works again, but it just might be God’s way of teaching me to continue to expect small miracles and great things from Him.
There were times in my younger years when something like that would have caused me to become so frustrated that I would have given up long before Monday and probably hurled the remote across the room or into the trash can. I don’t think it is age that has mellowed me. I think I am finally beginning to understand what the Holy Spirit has been trying to teach me for decades. I wonder now how many times I have given up when one more try would have done the trick. I pray that you are a much faster learner than I have been, because the peace that comes with faith in Christ and positive expectations is breathtaking.
In this world where it seems most people have little or no expectations and as a result are seldom disappointed, our faith in Jesus Christ allows us to live with great expectations. That is just another way that we are in the world not of the world. Peter wrote, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus from the dead. Now we live with great expectation.” (1 Pete 1:3)