Guide Your Mind-Guard Your Heart-Grace Your Tongue预览

Do you recall the singular excitement that anticipating Christmas brought into your heart when you were a child? Even now, decades later, I look back and am reminded of the trouble that I had falling asleep as I contemplated the delicious delight that belonged only to Christmas morning. 

For many of us as adults, the years have quickly flown by, and it can often seem as if there is less and less to truly anticipate in life. No longer do we look ahead; instead we look back with longing for what used to be. 

For a Christian, anticipation is so much more than an emotion; antic­ipation is the unwavering expectation that God’s goodness will write the end of all our stories. While we wait, while we hope, and while we expect God’s goodness to manifest in our lives, our faith will grow to gigantic propor­tions! While we are longing for a prayer to be answered or for a hope to become tangible, we often find ourselves wrestling with God “in the wait.” However, that is the place where our anticipation can be most beautifully refined and most powerfully transformed. Receiving the strength of the Lord is the joy of the wait! 

Strength over­powers worry, and joy diminishes dread, while you bind yourself to the nature and the character of God Himself. Genuine hope has the powerful capacity to banish worry from one’s mind and to neutralize fear in the depth of one’s soul. Hope triumphs over despair and gives a dazzling brilliance to even the dreariest of times spent “in the wait.” 

God has been to your future, and it is good because He is good! It’s time for you to lay aside the weight of your past, to bury the devastation of your disappointments, and to gain fresh strength for the days that are ahead. That’s anticipation.

Personal Application: How will you kindle anticipation of God’s goodness and grace in your life?