Hope

I have given up. 

And I'm so full of joy about it.

I have thrown away all the weight of expectation that I have carried my whole life. I count it all as lost. 

There's an expectation that is good and holy. The kind where you get chills and feel like you might come out of your skin with anticipation and wonder.

But then there's the kind that hangs around your neck. This is the kind of expectation that will drown you faster than almost anything else could. It is a heavy, dark expectation, and it can take on a lot of different faces.

The face that stares at you in disappointment. The one that says, "You aren't good enough, didn't you expect to be better? Didn't you think you'd have it figured out by now? Kind of looks like you failed." 

The face of disapproval. It glares at you, not satisfied by your performance, your physique, your personality. It finds you wanting. I have found that this face so often looks just like my own, screwed into a frown, castigating myself for my lacking. 

The face of despair. The other two have driven the features into an almost permanent droop. They have beaten you into expecting nothing. Not that you don't have expectations, but that you expect no good thing, want no good thing, hope for no good thing. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Psalm 43:5

So, I've given up. I'm tired of these same faces and same voices, this expectation that pulls me under and threatens to drown me with its weight. I'm throwing it off my neck, because bondage is not what I am called to.

Instead, I'm choosing to hope. Not hope that circumstances change or that I become a better person. But I choose to hope in the One who has declared salvation over me. 

He is greater and more mighty than any expectation I could have for myself. I expect much of Him because He has given much. He has consistently delivered more than any of us could ask or imagine. In what greater thing or person can hope be found?

My expectations have brought me nothing but death. But the hope of the Lord is full of life. I lay up these heavy expectations of mine on the altar and instead receive a different sort of weight of expectation. An expectation that anchors me, allows me to be freely bound to the One that will deliver.

And this giving up brings fullness of joy.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15:13