A lot of people sense that God has something more for them, yet they just settle. They start to feel stuck in the mundane and don’t know how to get to where God is calling them. The challenge comes down to living with expectancy. What keeps us stuck in settling for average revolves around our expectancy. This week we are going to talk about How to live with expectancy when life doesn’t go the way you expect
1. Read 2 Kings 5:1-9. Can you share a time when you expected events in your life to go differently than they did? What did you do about it? How did it turn out for you?
2. Read 2 Kings 5:10-12. Naaman goes, I will do anything for healing, but I won’t do that. If you’ve walked with God any length of time, you know that sometimes He asks us to do the one thing we absolutely don’t want to do because we think our way of doing it, handling it is better. We have all had times when God’s plan for our life was different than our own. Looking back, can you now see how God’s plan was better than I you had done things your own way?
3. Referring to the previous three verses, the two words “I thought” threaten to keep him from the extraordinary things God wants to do in his life. He had a preconceived idea of how it was going to happen. We have the privilege of looking at the whole story of Naaman. Can you see how bad things could have turned out for him if he had chosen to act on how he thought things should go? Can you see how that can work in your life too?
4. Read Isaiah 55:8-9. What do these verses tell us about God? Knowing this about God does it help you to trust Him more?
5. Read 2 Kings 5:13-15. When Naaman finally lowers himself into the Jordan, it isn’t just a physical descent. He is lowering himself in obedience to God’s word spoken by the lips of Elisha. And here’s a fascinating detail: when Naaman rises out of the waters of the Jordan, his skin appears “like that of a young boy” (2 Kings 5:14). Naaman didn’t just have his leprosy removed; he was made better than if he hadn’t had it at all. Have you ever witnessed God doing such a work in someone’s life to make things better than what they were before?
6. "When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do BUT on what God said he would do.” (Romans 4:18 MSG) The odds were completely against Abraham and Sarah to conceive, just as they were for Naaman to be healed. But despite the circumstances, Abraham and Naaman believed anyway. They both expected God to fulfill His promise and do the impossible. Is there an area in your life right now where you need God to do the “impossible”?
-Do you really believe that God can do incredible things in you and through you?
-Do you really believe that God has a plan for you?
-Do you really believe that God has the power to do immeasurably more than you think or imagine?
-Do you trust that God can turn your finances around, your marriage around, your family around, your job situation around, your health around, your business around?
7. We don’t trust that God is as good as he says he is, as powerful as he says he is, and as gracious as he says he is. We don’t trust that he wants to work good on our behalf. It takes faith, a yielding of your will to say, “but God.” When was the last time you got your hopes up and took a step of faith, trusting that God could do the impossible?
8. Your expectancy reflects what you believe about God. If there's nothing you’re believing God for that's extraordinary in your life, there's a good chance all you will experience is the ordinary life. When was the last time you prayed a bold, audacious prayer because you really trusted that God could do it?
Are you expecting God to move in extraordinary ways?
Are you open to what God has planned, even if it’s not according to your plans?
Are you willing to keep dipping even when it seems like nothing is happening?
What is the one thing about which you would say, “I will do anything God asks me to do—as long as it is not that”?