EXPECTATION

Today is the start of the new Millennium.  School at Beeson starts at eight o’clock Monday morning.  I expect it will be a great class.  Much will be expected of us.  There is always uncertainty of trying to do what the professor expects. My whole community, family, and church expect me to do well.  There is hope for everyone if a poor country boy does well.  That’s expected though! January 1, 2000.

I wrote this paragraph in a devotional book, Front Porch Tales, that I got for Christmas from our eldest son Andy in 1999.  This book became an inspiration for the articles you read.  The devotion was titled Expectation.  It is the expectation of John the Baptist’s birth and the song, which his father sang.  Philip Gulley writes, “. . . that expectation is a blessing, not a curse.  It is a beautiful thing when people expect something decent of you.”

At the time I was meditating on this probing thought, the world was breathing an inkling of relief after being in panic mode for several months.  Remember Y2K.  Corporations, businesses, banks, and utilities spent mega bucks trying to avert a major meltdown of the civilized world of the computer its massive web of control.

I remember bank presidents in Clanton asking the preachers to tell congregations not to make large withdrawals from the banks.  One Clanton resident withdrew $150 thousand dollars.  One banker said that if certain people knew the man’s name, that that man’s life would be worthless.

One member of the church I pastored worked on a power company’s building in downtown Birmingham trying to update the computer infrastructure to avoid meltdown, as electrical outage would be catastrophe.  Expectation of calamity controlled the minds of people around the world during the Y2K scare.  Mass panic was imminent.

Fast forward twenty-two years and we discover that most people laugh at the folly of Y2K, remember the awfulness of 911, dread the terror of COVID as the panic of world destruction looms even greater today.  If one listens to the media, it is DOOM, DESPAIR, and AGONY on me.  We hear about the financial collapse of nations around the world and the expectation that America is ripe for financial collapse clouds our judgment.  We see the moral decay of Europe and witness the deterioration of our great nation with each new song, video, commercial, or fashion design and wonder how low we can sink in moral degradation.

I believe that God created you and me for these times.  I revisit my calling from time to time.  I remember sitting at the dinner table studying the Bible when God directed to preach the truth.  Most people do not believe me, but I am by nature a shy introvert.  God is the reason that I do not appear that way today.

I never expected to be a preacher, especially a director of missions.  I knew that the Lord expected me to use the talents and gifts that He blessed me.  I never expected that I would be a writer of articles that have become a blessing and inspiration to those who read them.

I wanted to quit the University of Montevallo, especially after I made an F ++ over a C-- on my first English 101 paper.  The F was for grammar and the C for content.  I even had to attend the Harbert Writing Center just to learn how to write.

Every Monday I wanted to quit but I was reminded that the family had too much money invested in me.  It made me realize that too many people depended on me.  Remember what I said about expectation.  Many times, I did not believe that I could make it, but I knew the Lord kept providing my every need and increased my abilities.

Along about the time I began to feel a “burnout” bearing down on me, I realized that I expected more from myself than God, family, my church, and the community did.  After my freshman year, I made the dean’s list.  I expected to graduate sigma cum laude, but a geography class and European history class crushed that expectation.  I thought about it.  I was working full time at the cement plant, taking twelve hours of classes, pastoring a church, and trying to raise a family and I was expecting to make straight A’s.  Then I realized who cares if I make straight A’s.  It was my expectations, no one else’s.  I made straight B’s that term, which is not shabby since I only attend one computer class and took tests for the others.  I got a reprieve from the University because the cement plant would not work around my schedule.  I had a high enough grade average that I did not have to attend classes. That’s another story!

When the Lord reminded me of my long-term goals, I started enjoying school and making better grades.  The Lord increased my belief, and my expectations became a blessing.

It is this attitude I need when facing the uncertainty of the world and the certainty of God.  When I think about COVID and the threat of government control, I am reminded of the father of the child with a foul spirit that the Disciples could not help.  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief (Mark 9:23-24 KJV).

I believe, no I expect, believers to make a difference.  “It is a beautiful thing when people expect something decent of you.”