Expectancy is not pride, but faith that God is who He says He is!
Have you ever felt like it's arrogant to ask God to do things when you pray to Him? For example, maybe you have thought that you can't ask Him to heal you when there are so many others who need healing? As if His power to heal is limited. Or maybe you want to pray for someone else to be healed, or receive provision, but you feel like you don't have the authority to request such things from God. You may even feel like your bothering Him and wasting His time. I have felt like this often, and because of that I have often prayed very safe prayers. I would not say prayers expecting God to actually perform miracles, and I would tell myself it was because I was being humble. Truthfully, it was because I didn't believe that He would actually do the things I was asking Him to do. I was not approaching Him with the expectancy that He was fully able and willing to give good gifts to His children for the glory of His name.
After being confronted with an idea from some other believers that God actually wants us to pray and act as if we are expecting miracles and breakthrough, I decided to go to His word and see what it had to say on the matter. I found myself reading one of my favorite stories in the bible. It's the story in Mark 2 where a group of men have a friend who is paralyzed. They want to get their friend to Jesus to be healed, but Jesus is teaching in a house and there are too many people in their way to get to Him. Since they cannot carry their friend through the crowd, they decide to take another route. These men cut out a hole in the roof of the house, and lower their friend to Jesus. The word says that when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the Paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
That man picked up his mat and walked out of that place fully healed, because his friends had the audacity to believe that Jesus is who He said He is. They believed it so strongly that this group of men knew that if they got their friend to Jesus, their friend would be healed. They acted in persistence in accordance with that belief. What's amazing is that Jesus didn't look up through the roof and say, "What in the world are you guys doing! Can't you see that I'm teaching here? Are you trying to twist the arm of God? What makes you think I would heal your friend before everyone else here who needs healing? How arrogant of you!"
Yet, this is how I found myself praying, as if I was expecting such a response. I would pray as if God was angry and annoyed with me approaching His throne. The truth is that the Kingdom of God is at hand! God is an amazing, loving Father that longs to bring heaven to earth. Because I am washed by the blood of Jesus, I now have full access to Him. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in me. And it is not my Father's will for people to walk around broken and hurting. It is my Father's will to usher His children back into the kingdom. It's His will to heal, restore, and poor out His love in ways that are beyond our human comprehension.
This is true for every single person who has been washed by the blood of Christ. As He is, so are we in this world! You have the Spirit of the living God dwelling inside of you, which is utterly amazing! But the real question is, what are to doing with it? Are you reaching out to others with expectancy? Are you acting as if you know full well that God longs to heal, restore, and pour out His love on people through you, so that He can bring them home into a loving relationship with Himself?
What roof do you need to cut a hole into today? What is that thing in our life that you have been looking at and saying, "The line is too long. There is no way I can get to Jesus. I don't want to bother Him." If you truly believe that He is who He says He is and will do what He says He can do, your expectancy will carry you up on the roof and you will gladly cut out a hole to get to Him. Expectancy is not pride. It's faith that God is who He says He is!