Great Expectations

What do you write in your first post of the year?

Many subjects come to mind, like new year resolutions, determining the right goals to focus on, revisiting your passions, rediscovering purpose or relationships that were once lost. And the list goes on.

Today, I want to share my thoughts about some words that I’m reflecting on, words like ‘Expectations, Actions and Consistency’.

What are your expectations for this year?

I am expecting great and mighty things to define my year. ‘Great and mighty’ in terms of the impacts those things will have on me and on others.

To make the right impact, I have to look at who and what my focus is on. ‘Great and mighty’ does not describe things that are here today and gone tomorrow, rather it refers to things of eternal consequences and things that will outlive me.

What is that cause that you can commit your time, resources, talent and energy to? What difference can you make to someone in need this year? What is in your hand – that talent or gifting – and what will you do with it?

A few days ago a young disc jockey took his life leaving behind his family. He posted his farewell message on social media and over five hundred people liked it. No one read between the lines and no one figured out that he was saying his final goodbyes. In hindsight, many people admitted they liked his post without actually reading it. Some only saw what they had missed after the sad news was broken.

Sadly too many of us miss important clues that could be the difference between life and death, freedom and oppression, loneliness and friendship for others.

Rather than just having expectations of material things and personal success, how about having an expectation that this year, we will pay more attention to people – our colleagues, neighbours, families, friends and the people we come across on a daily basis.

A smile or an acknowledgement could be all that someone needs to remind them they are not alone, a cup of coffee for a homeless person could be the reminder that they are seen, loved and not forgotten. A knock on your neighbour’s door could be what brightens and banishes loneliness that day.

It’s time to have some expectations that are unquantifiable in material terms.

Actions

What actions will you take once you’ve figured out your expectations?

Making friends with your neighbours will require action. Coming alongside an elderly person will need you to get a move on. Getting the homeless person off the street will take some doing.

Whatever we want to accomplish this year will require us to be proactive. We need to define the right actions that will take our expectations from dreams to realities.

Many of us have good intentions at the start of a new year. Some people call them resolutions, but good intentions remain just that until we take actions.

Consistency

This can help take the results from our actions to an extraordinary level. It could take time to see results but we must keep going.

Consistency is what will get us over the line – consistent kindness, consistent loving, consistent friendship, consistent relationship building, consistent courtesy, consistently reaching out, consistently declaring the truth over a situation and consistently encouraging yourself and others.

It’s important to have great expectations, but we must apply consistency to the right actions if we are to see phenomenal results that will outlive us.

At the end of the year, I want to be able to look back and say 2019 was a great year filled with great and mighty stories of transformed lives, nations being changed and people being redeemed.

What will your story be at the end of 2019?

Thanks for reading and sharing my weekly post with others. I pray for a year that is beyond amazing for you all. See you next week.