There is a road near our house — residential, winding and lined with trees — that seems to lead to all the places we frequently go. It’s a shortcut we discovered soon after moving to our neighborhood that provides a bit of peaceful forest scenery before spilling out onto a busy highway. We traverse its multiple speed bumps several times a day.
There’s nothing special about this road: on one side of it lies the campus of a retirement community; on the other, a handful of large homes, set back a ways from the street. This is a favorite path of dog walkers and joggers and the occasional high school track team. It’s a popular place; there’s a reason for those multiple speed bumps.
But the tall, ancient trees that line this well-used street cast it — and its frequent visitors — into shadow and secrecy that only deepen with the setting of the sun. That’s when the other passersby emerge, the four-legged ones.
Out of the woods stumble countless squirrels and chipmunks, small families of deer and the not-so-infrequent fox. Groundhogs, too, pop up now and again, and I can only guess at the other creatures that wander across that simple street in my absence: opossums, coyotes, raccoons.
The presence of all these creatures took me by surprise the first, second, tenth time I drove that route in the darkness of the early morning. I’d gasp each time I saw a pair of haunted eyes blinking out of the blackness, shadowy limbs creeping about in the low light.
But now, I expect it — as I likely always should have. I drive that road in those predawn hours knowing there are creatures to my left and to my right. When they make themselves known, when they scamper directly across my path, I nod and smile.
I was expecting you, I think. What a wonderful thing to see.
I wonder about this disposition of expectancy and how it might nuance our spiritual lives.
Do we really believe God will show up, that God is here dancing within our midst? When we pause in prayer, are we grasping for God’s Spirit, or are we aware of our constant dwelling within it?
Our prayer might be like the dark, winding road near my home, well-trodden by familiar faces but still lined by that which is wild and untamed. We don’t know what might step out of the shadow, but we know something will — and as a result of that expectancy, we keep our eyes open, we seek out that visitor, we drive slowly because we’re more concerned with noticing than we are with arriving.
The analogy only gets us so far. But I wonder: If we spend time this week expecting God, will we encounter God in new, surprising and wild ways? Will God take our waiting, outstretched hand and usher us along?
I think so. Because I believe a disposition of expectancy is one that mirrors our God who is always expecting us, who is always prepared to embrace us, to surprise us, to step out of the shadows and surround us in light.
Our God who sees us, nods, smiles and says, “I was expecting you. You are a wonderful sight to see.”
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