In a country church in the 1950s, the preacher invited people to share their testimonies. Most of them recited the same words they gave the week before.
Dear Brother Johnson stood and said, “Satan has been after me all week. Bless his holy name.” Nobody laughed, but a few people smiled. They understood what he meant.
A gray-haired lady near the back grabbed the pew in front of her and slowly pushed herself up. “Well, I’m new here,” she said in a feeble voice. “I don’t got much to say. Truth is, I’m not the person I want to be. God knows, I ain’t the person he wants me to be. But thank God, I’m a far cry from who I used to be.”
After a chorus of amens and hallelujahs, the preacher said, “You know, great expectations can be a bad thing. We hear so much about what God wants to do in our lives, we expect miracles right away. Then we look at our faults and failures, get discouraged and want to quit.” He looked at the lady near the back. “Mrs. Sullivan, thank you for a wonderful introduction to today’s message. Our expectations can be great when we remember that God’s not finished with us yet.”
The preacher opened his Bible to Matthew 14. “Let’s look at what happened to Peter after his great expectations took him out of the boat and he walked on the water.”
With great expectations, we can have an even greater fear of failure. At what point do we need to reach out to Jesus so we can keep walking through the storm?