A Year of Expectancy

I've come across quite a few people lately who choose a word or phrase or prayer to mark a year of their life with. With all the the things I've been working on lately, I feel the need to try this out. I had plans to post my "word" the other day, but as I sat feeding Levi in the middle of the night God gave me a new word. Here's a somewhat condensed version of all that is going on in my head and heart:

For the last month I was sure that what I was going to strive towards in 2009 was being more "intentional". I feel like all too often I float through my days without doing anything of real purpose. My life is "boring" in most aspects. I'm too tired and stretched too thin to live out any passion as a wife, a mother, and a Christian. I don't like that. As much as I don't like it, though, all my thoughts over the past several weeks have been focused on what I can do to change it. Now, I know there are things that I do need to do, but I've realized I was getting it all wrong (which is not all that uncommon for me).

I have never been one to feel like God has spoken to me. I have felt His guidance in certain directions and He has given me peace about certain decisions, but I've never had Him speak a word to me...until Thursday night. You see, I've have been digging deeper in the Word and learning about what it means to be obedient to God. I'm also reading a book called "What Happens When Women Say Yes to God" and gaining a lot from it on the aspect of obedience. That said, I was working hard to focus some thoughts in my half-awake, mostly groggy state and I heard God say to me "Be expectant". I had no initial response to that. There was no "conversation". I don't even really remember where my thoughts went after that.

The next day, as I read my book, I again encountered this idea of being excpectant as these words literally jumped off the page at me: "Live in expectation of experiencing God and hearing his voice". All my life I've had a relationship with God on some level. More often than not it's been a fairly shallow one. The reason is, I don't expect God to do anything for me or with me, because I'm just me. So, I end up trying to do everything on my own and miss out on experiencing all that God has for me. My heart must become expectant for what God wants to do with me, for me, and through me.

As I've prayed about this the last couple days I've figured out, for me, being expectant will mean:
Counting on answered prayers.
Looking forward to my time in the Word.
Resting assured that God will meet me when I come before Him.
Anticipating changes in my heart and mind.
Awaiting ministry opportunities.
Preparing for Christ's return.
Listening for God's voice.
Finding more passion.

I'm already excited about some things that God is placing on my heart. I expect that He has great things in mind...