Stewarding Our Expectations

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11:17-34 (NIV)

Both Mary and Martha said the same thing to Jesus when He arrived after the death of their brother Lazarus. “Lord, if You had been here, he would not have died.” You can hear the unmet expectation in their words: We expected you to be here earlier. 

Jesus checks their expectation so compassionately and skillfully, essentially saying, “Lazarus will rise again. You all only saw Me as a miracle worker, but now you will be able to see me as the resurrection and the life. You've watched me operate only on this side of the veil in temporality, where life is being lived, but now I'm going to show you the reach and length and height and depth of my power and authority, as I reach past the veil into death itself.”

Here's what I want you to consider today: Faith is not a license to ignore the need to steward your expectations.

You can believe Jesus for anything, believe Him for everything, make all of your requests known to Him. But the story of these sisters teaches us that faith has to be stewarded by us to consider Jesus's fulfillment of prophecy and His obedience to God's will, not just our personal desires and passions.

Faith is the license to believe God-size things, but it has to be stewarded by us to ensure that we don't let our personal expectations become bigger than God's will in our lives. You can believe God for big things, but it has to be stewarded enough that your expectations don’t make you forget that God is sovereign.

Faith is not a license to let our expectations run wild and unchecked with no filter, no strainer, no auditing, no accountability. You have the right to ask for whatever you want and believe God for it, but that does not give you the license to think your expectations should always be met.

Jesus does not have to treat your expectations as an eternal urgency, because sometimes His sovereignty trumps your expectations.

What expectations do you need to steward today in light of God’s bigger plan?