Expectant
ex·pect·ant| ikˈspekt(ə)nt | adjective – having or showing an excited feeling that something is about to happen, especially something pleasant and interesting
One of the amazing things about children is their level of expectancy. It bubbles up in and then overflows from them. Often we talk about this reality by referring to it as a “childlike” wonder. The simple truth is that children are often amazed at the world around them, and they expect amazing things to happen. Even in the things that adults might find mundane, normal, or plain, kids find real surprise and delight.
Candles on a birthday cake… blasé, right? Not to a 3-year-old.
The wind blowing through the trees… utterly normal, right? Not to a 5-year-old.
A new pair of shoes… completely practical, right? Not to an 8-year-old.
Childlike wonder is the innocent and pure expression of expectancy. G.K. Chesterton reflects on it when he says,
“The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.
It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE.”[1]
If God, as Chesterton notes, does not exult in monotony, then why does my expectancy of him grow weary? Is it because he is distant or tired of me? Certainly not. Instead, perhaps it is because my childlike wonder of what God does has been worn down by the cares of this world. The mystery here is that we are not called to be oblivious or unaffected by the cares of this world. Instead, we are to see them, be present to them, and be fully expectant of God to intervene. One of the keys to a healthy, growing, and abiding relationship with God is expectancy. He wants to show up in our lives. He never tires of showing up. Every day he says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon to remind us of that truth.
God loves you.
God delights in you.
God does not tire of showing up in your life.
Do you have an expectant heart that looks to see God each and every day? Let us be like children and not grow weary of being expectant.
[1] G.K. Chesterton, “The Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy (The Christian Heritage Series; Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1908/2020), 61.