If we are not diligent, we tend to water down our expectations to the level of our disappointments. Pastor Kris Vallotton says it this way, "When your memories are greater than your dreams, you've already begun to die". To be a "believer" is just that, to be a believer!
It is potentially a wild privilege to be a believer in a culture of unbelief. The vacuum that unbelief creates is an astonishing opportunity for people of faith to step forward with the clarity of a contrast. (I'd like to refer you to a couple of my previous blogs on this matter; "How Dare We be Powerless" and "Too Much Faith".) In Matthew 24:14 Jesus makes it clear that before any kind of an "end" to anything, that God seeks someone who will clearly preach the Kingdom of God as a witness and demonstration. In another place (Luke 10:9) Jesus told His disciples to heal the sick and tell them that the Kingdom came near enough to do the healing. This tells me that the Kingdom of God holds explosive spiritual treasures waiting for the hungry, curious, insatiably and voraciously eager seeker who comes with irresistible desire.
But remember, it is impossible to be cautious and extraordinary at the same time. What disappointment is worthy of carrying for another day that will lock you into a truncated and marginalized vision of God? What failure has you frozen in time in an endless analysis of what went wrong? If you keep focusing on yesterday you are going to make your tomorrow look like your past.
Try this on for size; Jesus lived as one man completely fixated on the reality of the Kingdom of God in the face of the One World Government of His day. He never signed a petition against Rome, much less obsessed with its very real evil. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38) and, today, Rome is better known for being the headquarters of the world's largest church. Good overcame evil. If it did it once, it can do it again. Sign me up for that team.
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