What Are You Expecting?

The Enemy Doesn't Get to Set the Agenda for Your Life

This week I briefly told this story on Tipping Point:

Several years ago, Karen and I took a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our anniversary. It should have been one of the best weeks of my life.

It wasn’t. I hardly enjoyed a minute of it.

I had just been through one of the most difficult years of my life. There wasn’t anything dramatic or public, but I just felt like I had been hit with one thing after another for twelve straight months. I can’t say I was knocked flat, but I was surely worn down. Joy was barely a flicker.

Karen knew. She’d watched it. Somewhere over the Pacific she reached over, patted my hand, and asked if I was okay.

I told her the truth. I said, “I think I’m just waiting for the next shoe to drop. I feel like something bad’s about to happen.”

Then I stopped talking and sat there looking out that little window at the ocean. And while I sat there quietly, the Lord spoke to my heart. I can’t say it was an audible voice. It was more like that inner voice every believer learns to recognize, and the words were as clear as any I have ever heard:

Fear is expecting the devil to move.

Faith is expecting Me to move.

That’s all I heard. It was two short sentences. But I have to tell you, those words set me free instantly.

I began reviewing in my mind all that had happened to me that year. I’d taken so many hits that I just expected more to come. The devil had beaten the joy right out of me. So there I was on my own anniversary trip, waiting on him to take one more demonic shot at me.

It Wasn’t My Theology

Some people hearing that story might assume the wrong thing about me. But it wasn’t that I had stopped believing in God. My doctrine was as good as it had ever been. In fact, if you had stood me on a church platform that week and asked me to preach on the faithfulness of God, I would have been able to do it without notes. And I would have meant every single word.

So if my theology wasn’t the problem, what was it? My expectation was the problem.

That’s a huge difference that a lot of Christians can’t see. That’s why a lot of believers truly love God but still live with a dark cloud hanging over them. Your belief tells you what is true. But your expectation tells you what you expect to happen next. It’s entirely possible to have your belief right while your expectations get hijacked.

You’re already expecting something happen. I mean everyone is expecting something. Nobody has a neutral vision about tomorrow. You go to sleep and wake up with an opinion about how everything is going to happen that day. You might not say it out loud, but you’ve already thought it.

So you do expect something. But what are you expecting? Who do you expect it from?

Fear Loves to Forecast

Once I heard those two sentences from the Lord, I started noticing something. I noticed that fear seldom talks to me about the present. Instead, it talks to me about the future. It tells me what is going to happen. Every fear I ever experienced was actually predicting a future for me that hadn’t even happened yet.

Fear loves to forecast a bad future. It’s always happy to report bad news. And it always delivers that bad future to your mind with complete confidence. It’s not going to go well for you. That medical test is going to reveal something terrible. Your money is going to disappear. Your kids are going to abandon you forever. And that fear is so certain it is right. It speaks with absolute authority. Even though you know fear has been wrong most of the time, you still believe what it is whispering to you. And it works. That’s because fear takes your faith and points it in the opposite direction from God.

Did you know fear doesn’t come from your own mind? The apostle Paul said it plainly:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear,

but of power and of love and of a sound mind”

(2 Timothy 1:7).

Did you catch where Paul says fear comes from. It’s not your own weakness or your personality. You didn’t become a worrier because your mom was one. Paul clearly says what fear is: It’s a spirit.

That’s why I have often said that fear is a prophet spirit from hell. The devil sent it to give you a negative report about your future. He has reasons for doing it. He wants to goad you into making fear-based decisions that will destroy you. The devil wants to rob you of every blessing God has ever promised to you. I want you to read this and hold onto it: The enemy can’t give you a bad future. God has already chosen you and decided your future will be beautiful, victorious, and blessed. The devil knows that, so what he is trying to do is get you to stop believing in what God has promised. The enemy wants you to panic so he can get you to wreck your own future.

If you will listen to Paul and accept that fear is a spirit, you’ll stop trying to figure it out and simply take authority over it. You don’t have a sit-down conversation with a spirit of fear. You call it out, rebuke it in the name of Jesus, and command it to go away.

These Are God’s Times

A lot of Christians tell me that they watch the news programs, and they’re disturbed by what they see. They’ll tell me they don’t know how much more bad news they can take. But I want to give you a different way to think about it. These times belong to God. The devil isn’t in control. I want to encourage you. There are more people coming to Christ right now than at any other point in history. You might not see it in our own nation because people have turned from God, but in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, the Holy Spirit is breaking through and people are getting saved. If you don’t believe me, just search the internet. God is moving everywhere.

At the end of His Great Commission, Jesus gave us a promise:

“and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Did you see that? He’s going to be with us until the very end. Even when things are difficult, He’s going to be right here with us.

Be Honest with Yourself

I want to encourage you to ask yourself this question, and then answer it honestly:

What am I expecting to happen next?

I’m not asking you what you believe about God. I suspect if you’re reading this that you already believe in God. I’m asking you to consider what you actually expect to happen in your marriage, with your finances, with your health, or in a complicated situation you’re having with a family member. If you’re honest, you probably know the answer in about half a second. Now ask yourself if you believe the answer that came so quickly to your mind.

If the answer you thought about was a bad one, I want you to know that doesn’t make you bad Christian. You’re most likely tired and worn down. Like I said at the beginning of this article, I’ve been exactly where you are. I would just encourage you to deal with it before you're on your anniversary trip to Hawaii.

God isn’t mad because you feel worn down. He sat next to me on an airplane and gave me two sentences that changed his life. Let Him sit next to you right now. He has something to say to you about your expectations.

The devil doesn’t get to set the agenda for your life. You belong to Jesus. Now ask God what He is about to do? Expect miracles. Look for blessings. Hold on to hope.