Phil Rowlands

Hello, my friends,

Often, we can get so caught up in expectations, our goals, and how we are going to achieve them that we drift further and further away from the centre—a place of peace and rest. We need to live in gratitude while having an expectation of God's goodness, but without anxiety or a bent on striving or getting into dead works. This always leads to a disquieted soul.

When we look at the world around us, it's a pretty ungrateful one. You just have to look at the way people treat each other and how the commerce of the world is underpinned by greed and the brainwashing of people into thinking that their lives are insufficient unless they have the next best thing lined up for acquisition. So often, people can't find solace in the mad rush of the world and how it works; it's a vacuum that never lets up if you submit yourself to it.

First things first, if you think your life is insufficient in Christ Jesus, and He needs to add this or that for you to be sufficient for all He has for you, well, that way of thinking needs to change. Otherwise, it will seep out through all the areas of your spiritual life and your natural life as well. Our Father did a great job when He regenerated you and made you a new creation. He made you complete and fully loaded for all that He has for you in this life. Life is just a matter of waking up each day and saying yes, Lord, and He leads your day, especially in prayer.

Once you understand how complete you are in Christ, and there is just a wonderful gratitude in you for God who called you into that completeness, well, then you can start to look around you and apply that to your natural surroundings. It goes like this: being thankful for all that you have around you—friends, family, children, a home, a car, a job, income, food on the table, etc. Often, we can get so distracted by how challenging life can be and what we think we don't have, and we lose sight of being grateful for all we do have.

Gratitude really comes into its own when you find rest in Christ Jesus, when you no longer believe that you need to perform for God in any way, other than the natural and organic outworking of our new creation life within us. Once a revelation of peace and rest is embedded within us, especially our hearts and minds, we can then look out upon our lives around us and see with humility and rest all the things we are grateful for.

Often, life isn't what we want it to be; there is sickness, illness, hardships, famine, poverty, and persecution. Paul speaks about his hardships that he experienced for decades as he ministered the gospel in the early years of the church age. We have to always still find that place in our hearts and say, “Okay, Lord, things are a bit different from how I would have imagined them, but you are Good, and I trust you.” Do we still fear? Yes, we do, but He lifts us from it. Do we still get anxious? Yes, we do, but He lifts us from it. Do we still despair? Yes, we do, but He lifts us from it. Things only endure for a time, and then there is a new day, new emotions, new experiences. All we can do is keep on resting in Christ and living in the peace of heart that He left us with.

I think expectations are healthy, as long as they are grounded in the unforced rhythms of grace, as long as they are framed as “not my will, but yours, Lord,” as long as they are not about storming the gates of heaven and banging on heaven's door to try and twist the arm of God or badger God into doing something you think He will do with a mindset of, “If I persist, He will do it. He will get up off His throne and go, 'Okay, then, because of your great faith, I will act when I ordinarily wasn't going to.'”

When we are praying with an expectant heart in grace, we are co-labouring with Christ and joining in on what the Spirit of God is doing. It's the unison of His life and work in us and His glorious love and compassion for us that institutes the outworking of our faithful prayers. When we pray in the spirit, we are praying in hope, as in not hoping for as we see it in an earthly mindset, but hope being a word of completion, a job done, God saying, “I will do that because I put it in you that I was going to do it through encouraging you to pray in such a way, in such a fashion, with such reverence and such boldness.”

Our expectations need to be that God is a good, good Father, and His ways are higher than ours. He always knows what is best, and He always knows what we need and what is right for us. We often don't get what we think we want, and that needs to be okay and well with our souls because He has a glory in place that defies our intelligence; it is above our pay grade. He blesses what He blesses in a way that He chooses. Yes, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing, and that covers a multitude of potential outcomes, but it is according to His will, His plan, and His purpose for us because it is all wrapped up in Christ, all because of Christ, and the big picture is only one that God can see from the top. We just see lots of disjointed pieces sometimes from our perspective.

Have you ever looked back at certain seasons or situations in your life and seen all the connectivity of it all and how it all worked for the greater good according to the wonder of what your life is to your Father in heaven? You think to yourself, “I'm glad that it worked in that way, even though it didn't seem okay at the time, but the goodness of God prevailed, and He triumphantly brought me through. He made a way where there seemed to be no way, and I praise Him for it and give all the glory to Him for it.”

So be blessed today, my friends, and fill your hearts with gratitude, gratitude under fire, gratitude when all seems like it's not quite right, and trust in Him. Even if you have those weak moments as we all do, we know that undergirding all that weakness is the strong arm of the Lord, as His grace and power are made manifest in our weakness, in our humanity. Let the Lord of Lords and King of Kings just love you so deeply today as you meditate on gratitude for Him and the life He has for you, and have an expectation in His love for you and that He provides everything you need for life and godliness because you are a son and a daughter of the Creator of all things, and you are the beloved of a wonderful, good, good Father.

Phil