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  • B January 15 2023
May 9, 2019
“Optimism of Grace”
 In the story in Acts 9, the folks who lived in Joppa sent for Peter with expectations that he would heal their good friend, Tabitha.  They had heard that Peter had healed a cripple, and they thought he could help them.  They had lofty expectation or ‘high hopes’ (the old song).
 But…Expectations are scary because they can set us up for disappointment.
How so?  I know of people who have been so disappointed with life that they have gotten to a point where they have no expectations…really, they are spiritually dead.  Perhaps something like that has happened to you at some point in your life?
 Perhaps you prayed with all your heart that a loved one would be healed, even cured, but they got worse, they died…were you upset with God?  Did that experience change the way you prayed?  Did you keep praying, or did your disappointment convince you that prayer was a waste of time?  ‘Why expect anything from God,’ I’ve heard people say, ‘he isn’t listening?’
 What does life look like when we lower our expectations of God?  Do we miss out on anything?  Frederick Buechner cautions us against closing ourselves off and trying to protect ourselves from life's suffering: "The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from."
 Jesus instructed us to ask, and we will receive.  If we don’t ask, how will we ever receive?  If we ask we ask in hope, and hope is the expectation of promises answered.’  Hope is the optimism that grace supplies.
 The assurance that ‘God is up to something in our lives’, is grounds for hope. Hope is about expecting light when you are surrounded by darkness.  Robert Wall uses a lovely phrase to describe what underlay the request of the widows for Peter's help: they lived and moved out of "an optimism of grace."
 Blessings,
Pastor Mike

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