Life doesn’t always work out like we want it to.

We love the idea that God is in control. It we secretly struggle with that idea. It isn’t that we doubt his ability to control, intervene, that his will is accomplished. It’s that most often we don’t recognize what he’s doing in the process.

Hab 2:2 Without a vision the people perish.

Notice it says without a vision, not without vision. A vision is a focal point. Vision is the act is seeing.

A vision is not in seeing but in focusing. Our vision at Freedom is authentic relationships, real experiences, and lasting freedom. Our vision is focused on accomplishing what God told us to do in Liberty County. As long as we are focused on what he told us to do as we’re being led by him, we’ll experience life. But when we get focused on what we can see, we perish.

Same for you.
What has God told you to do? What’s your purpose? What’s the focus this season of your life? If you are experiencing “perishing” in your life, have you gotten so focused on vision that you’ve missed the vision?

Are you so busy trying to see it that you’ve stopped accomplishing it?

God isn’t always going to move like you want him to. I’ve learned that when I can’t see what he’s doing that it’s a reminder to focus on him and the vision.

Our vision can potentially work better with certain things. Things like a building. But potential doesn’t necessarily mean the fulfillment can’t happen without it.

This is where our expectations have to be wrangled.

What do you do when your expectation and your reality don’t match?

1. Check your expectation.
Proverbs 10:28 The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.

Righteous expectations bring joy but wicked ones bring what? There’s that word perish again. What does perish mean here? "To cause your courage to fail."

What is a righteous expectation? A godly one? Yes. How about this: an expectation that does not have built into it things you want.

Expectations that are godly are ones that have embraced whatever God wants and however he wants it. They are expectations that are focused on God and the vision he put in your heart. The result is JOY.

2. Look at the right things.
Bad news: there will be plenty of times in your life where you simply cannot see what God is doing. Good news: that is 100% on purpose. If you knew the road he was going to take you on, you would’ve quit out of fear.

Exodus 13:17 Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt."

There’s not a better verse to explain what I was talking about before with vision. When you base everything you do off of what you can see, you’re going to be paralyzed with fear, lose your confidence, and never experience joy.

What would’ve changed had the Israelites chosen to trust God and focus on what he was doing rather than what was going on around them?

If you want to create more problems and a more difficult experience, focus all of your attention on what you can see and completely ignore the vision.

3. Choose to trust.
Genesis 22:5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

What a better statement of trust in God than “we will come again to you.” You see, Abraham knew both sides of this coin. He knew what trusting what he could see could accomplish: Ishmael. He couldn’t see the son come at his expectation. In a moment of fleshly impatience, he panicked. His wife, too.

When you trust only what you can see don’t be surprised when even those around you lose confidence in the vision.

He endured some perishing in that experience. He’d also learned what trusting the vision could accomplish. Isaac was born and joy resulted.

Trusting the vision and the vision giver moved the ball forward.

You can trust or panic but you can’t do both. Worrying is proof that you are the source, that you are the fixer, that what you can see is what will make it all come together.

Trusting is proof that God is the source, that he is the fixer, that what you can see doesn’t matter because it is God that makes it all come together anyway.

That is where we are today as a church. This issue with our building is out of our hands and may be a one week problem. It may be a one month problem. But a building does not make or break the vision. The building serves the vision, not the other way around. We’ll still gather. We’ll still connect. We’ll still do meetups. We’ll still be a family.

But whether this is a week or month, whether we can see God moving or not, we are going to check our expectations at the altar, we are going to look at the right things - the vision, and we are going to trust God no matter what.

That is what we are doing in this moment at Freedom.
What are YOU doing right now in your own life, in your own situation?

When you’re starting to worry, simply say this to God:
- My expectation is in your ability to accomplish your word and that’s it.
- My focus is on what you’ve told me to do and nothing else.
- And even when it feels impossible, I trust you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?