expectations...

"If God always met my expectations, He'd never have a chance to exceed them." - Steven Furtick

I've written 26 blog posts in the last year (this makes 27)... and the first 25 had 524 views total... including my farewell to MU post that was a blog-high at 156. Those 25 posts averaged nearly 21 views each and if you take out the one farewell post it drops to an average of 15 views per post. I've been okay with that. I don't even share most of my posts on facebook or twitter because I'm not sure I want to attract people to the crazy ramblings in my head. I took a risk a couple of weeks ago and linked my latest rant to facebook. It caught on a bit and within a couple of hours I had 200 views. Two weeks later and it's been checked out 539 times... more than the 25 previous posts combined. That's pretty cool to think that many people came and checked out my blog, but it left me a bit speechless for the last couple of weeks unsure how to follow that up.

Normally I don't think a whole lot about what I post here because I figure the people who read it know me... and hopefully love me unconditionally. :) An extra 500 people checking it out could backfire if I share too much or criticize too much. I already keep pretty high expectations for myself, but a blog that actually gets read could raise the stakes a bit. I opted to keep doing what I've been doing and share what's on my heart.

Steven Furtick is doing a sermon series at Elevation Church on the Expectation Gap. The series description sums it up... "We all live in a gap. The gap between what we expect and what we experience. It's where our dreams die and passions fade. It's often the birthplace of our frustration, disappointment, and discouragement. But there's a solution. There is a way to reconcile this space between. In this series we learn about the Expectation Gap – and the God who is able to bridge it all."

During the first week, Furtick taught about when others don't meet our expectations. This past Sunday was about when God doesn't meet our expectations and this Sunday will be about when we don't meet others' expectations. I've taken away so much from the first two weeks, but listening to week two's "Even Now Somehow" really struck me in a new way today. 

Furtick mentioned his father-in-law went to the 1984 Orange Bowl when Doug Flutie's hail mary beat Miami. Everyone talks about that moment as one of the most memorable moments in sports. Furtick's father-in-law said he almost missed it because the game had been so crowded and he was looking to leave early. He almost missed one of the top sports highlights because of an unruly crowd. 

There's no point in me regurgitating Furtick's sermon... you should listen to it in its entirety, but I started to think about how many things I might have missed or could miss if I'm always ready to leave early. Sometimes we go through difficult circumstances that have us running for a way out when God wants to take us through it. A crowded football game seems so silly, but I think it's a simple example of letting our current circumstances distract us from what God has planned for us. Sometimes we spend so much time drowning in the mess that we miss God pulling us out of it. Let's not miss it...