“Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.” - Oswald Chambers
Make room for Christ. This sounds like such an easy command that we should be able to do it blindfolded and backwards. Yet I am too quick to make room for myself instead. I am the proud owner of a planner bursting at the seams, sticky notes of every color, and perfectly labeled alarms and reminders. I’ll forget a task or deadline over my dead body.
However, the truth is that even if I have my day planned out to the second, God can burst in at any moment in any way. I can plan and predict until my fingers turn blue, but my plan is not the one that ultimately prevails. Only Jesus’ does.
Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. - Proverbs 19:21
We get our minds so fixated on expecting God to show up in a certain way, accomplish a certain thing, heal a certain area, or fix a certain person. But God deserves more than just a certain thing or area. He deserves it all. He deserves everything. We don’t need to look for God in a specific way, we just need to look for God, period.
This is the best way to make room for Christ. Be expectant of Him. When you are expecting someone over, you prepare. Our Lord is no exception. We don’t need to make our beds and clean the kitchen, but we do need to pray with expectant hearts and know that He has already told us that His ways are better and higher than ours, and that nothing can stop a movement of God. So we might as well expect Him, and get on board with whatever He is about to do.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55: 8 & 9
But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God. - Acts 5:39
Don’t place God in a box. Let Him surprise you. Don’t remove the element of surprise from your relationship with God. He will move when it pleases HIM, not you, and that might be when you least expect it or when it’s inconvenient for you. It is far better to be uncomfortable and advancing the Kingdom than complacent and so far gone that Satan doesn’t even feel the need to worry about you.
I would rather be locking eyes with Jesus with the devil on my heels than a stranger to Jesus untouched by the devil.
So don’t approach God with specific expectation, approach with ambiguous expectation, knowing your God is capable of anything far greater than we could ask for or imagine.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us - Ephesians 3:20
