What If Your Expectation Needs an Upgrade?

At the beginning of 2026, God gave me a word.

And honestly? It frightened me.

Expectation.

Soon after, I embraced it. I looked up the definition, reflected on what I expected for the months ahead, and began thinking about what it meant to live with expectation.

Then March came.

Somewhere along the way, I got caught up in simply doing what I needed to do to get by. I stopped expecting and slipped back into just receiving life as it came, like I had before.

But lately, this word has come back.

It feels like it keeps finding me, bringing reminders when I’m least aware.

So here I am again, asking:

What is expectation really?

Many of us were taught to be grateful for whatever life gives us because “it could always be worse.”

And while gratitude is important, there is also a life of expectation, a place where we remind ourselves of God’s truth. His character. His awe. His glory. A place where we aren’t blinded by doubt or reservations. A place where our dreams are still big because we remember who God is and trust that He is able to move in ways beyond what we can imagine.

The truth is, somewhere along the way, many of us had our expectations snatched away.

We witnessed injustice.
We experienced spiritual abuse.
We endured broken trust.
We faced disappointments that changed the way we saw life.

It’s not that we don’t believe.

It’s that we’re not always sure how we’ll recover if we take the risk of believing big again.

So instead, we play small.

We become grateful for the minimum.
We settle into complacency.
We confuse being satisfied with being safe.

And listen, satisfaction is a gift that greed will never know.

I’m not saying we should become ungrateful. But I do believe God desires for us to lean on Him as the Father He is: to believe that He will provide, guide, and move on our behalf in ways that reflect His goodness.

And before we talk ourselves out of a blessing, maybe we’re being invited to shift our perspective.

Release the guilt.
Release the fear.
Release the belief that you somehow failed because you couldn’t see what was coming.

Release what is blocking you and allow God to show you how to dream again.

How to hope again.

How to expect again.

You don’t have to protect yourself from disappointment because God has already proven that He can hold you.

Don’t hold yourself back simply because you’re uncertain.

Give yourself permission to live again, to dream bigger and expect more from the God you serve.

I love the reminder that expectation is rooted in trust of His character, not wishful thinking. It’s not about believing God will do whatever we want. It’s about trusting that God will do what He has promised because of who He is.

So take a look around.

He may have already surprised you in ways you haven’t noticed yet.

Here’s to a year of more expectation.

Heart Work

Take some time to reflect:

What expectations have I lowered because of past disappointments?
Where have I stopped dreaming because I’m afraid to hope again?
What would it look like to trust God’s character in this season?

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