THE LAST RIVER MILE

In these troubled days, it seems to me that we’re losing many things I thought we were to value and protect: civility, statesmanship, collaboration, trust, compassion, respect, and hope, just to name a few. Maybe I’m over-reacting, but maybe not. I do think, though, that we’ve lost our grip on positive expectancy. How much do I think that my day today will be substantively and surprising different than the previous day? Or do I assume the same basic elements and events will be in place just like they were yesterday? Do I click on the news believing something positive and hopeful is taking place, or do I assume the same left/right finger-pointing and blaming will continue from the day before? If I am a Jesus-follower, how did I approach worship yesterday? Did I expect something out of the ordinary to take place? Or did I assume the songs, the prayers, the sacrament, and the message would all be done in the same order and in the same way as the Sunday before? Is my life characterized by expectancy, or by the presumption of the same old same old every day?

The earliest days of the Jesus-following movement were marked by uncommon signs and wonders. (See Acts 5:12-16, for example.) This was not showy, televangelist, raise-money-for-jets kind of stuff. By all account these were powerful, humbling indicators of a welcoming, loving God, made known in Jesus the crucified and risen. Early followers of Jesus seemed to live with a daily expectancy that a risen Jesus would do something big, uncontrollable, and inexplicably wonderful.

We were once a part of a church in which the leaders made a bold, prayer-fueled decision to practice what they called expectant worship. Rather than just doing things in the same order and in the same ways each Sunday, they chose to envision and plan weekly worship as if it was fifty-two stand alone events every year. They wanted all who worshipped each Sunday, whether long time church members or people new to faith, to come saying, “I wonder what God’s going to do in worship today?” It was far from a perfect process, and things didn’t change overnight. But in the end lives changed, people encountered Jesus, strangers were welcomed into the Body of Christ, and new hands-on serving ministries were born. Many factors played into this, but the core atmosphere was expectancy.

I don’t believe signs and wonders aren’t happening. It’s that we aren’t conditioned to see them. We see what we choose to see. How would it be different if I chose to believe that God is at work and I chose to expect to see God at work? What if I approached my day with expectancy?

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.