Did the squeeze bottle ruin everything?
Remember the days before Heinz Ketchup came in a plastic bottle? You don’t? Well, I do because I am old. The squeeze bottle destroyed one of the great life lessons from everyday rhythms. We used to have glass bottle that ketchup came to our homes and restaurants in. We would shake, cap the top and pop the bottom, uncap and then turn the bottle upside down. 37 minutes later we could begin eating because we finally had enough ketchup on our plate, our burger or our hotdog (or, if you were my Mammy, on your spaghetti) to begin your meal.
The Heinz corporation even exploited this colossal misuse of man’s productive time by co-opting Carly Simon’s 1971 Billboard hit Anticipation for ads in the late 70s and early 80s. But, the driving phrase – “Anticipation, it’s making me wait” became part of the cultural lectionary.
Carly wrote the song, in a mere 15 minutes, while waiting on Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date. He was late. It made her millions of dollars, so there is something to be said for anticipating.In the 40 years since 1980 we have replaced anticipation with frustration and maybe we are not the better for it. We are hurriers now.
We do not anticipate what we are without and seize the waiting as a practice of grace and richness. We just want whatever it is that we want and we want it five minutes ago, or yesterday, whichever better suits our appetite.
Let’s hearken back to the lessons of anticipation. A favorite passage from the Bible comes from the pen of Solomon in his compilation of Proverbs, a collection of words to live by. It reads from The Passion Translation like this, “When hope’s dream seems to drag on and on, the delay can be depressing. But when at last your dream comes true, life’s sweetness will satisfy your soul.” I am aggravated at the term ‘the delay can be depressing.’ Do you agree?
Maybe? Well, unless it isn’t.
This is where anticipation comes in.
· Anticipation is what you feel on December 21 and Christmas is still going to wait until the 25th to dawn. Anticipation is that feeling you have in the seventh month of pregnancy when you have been ‘expecting’ for 33 weeks but you are waiting for that 39th week to realize a new birth.
· Anticipation is that feeling a 15-year-old has two months before turning 16 and earning a license to operate a 2,000 lb. machine that will move her where she and her friends want to go, when they want to go, and not have to wait for a taxi-parent ride.
· Anticipation is that feeling between what is and what will be when you have absolute confidence in what is going to happen.
· Anticipation is the emotion of faith.
If you have a wish, a hunch, a desire or a mental image of a preferred ‘next happening’ in your life but that wish has not converted to hope (confident expectation) and/or hope has not converted to faith (unshakeable conviction) of what’s next, it can be depressing.
How do you avoid that?
I avoid it, and am inviting you into this arena, when I am confident in a supernatural, overcoming, informed certainty that God’s will is not a mystery but a definite communication.
There are certain assertions that God has made about life and his intent for us that are to be trusted implicitly. But, few people move into that ethereal kind of place where they agree with God, profess that kind of confidence and begin to address their obstacles that naturally are going to be present with a supernatural power that has been given us.
Why? We are much more moved, impacted, influenced and guided by what we see, taste, touch, smell and feel than we are by what is unseen, untouchable and unprovable.
My goal in life is to move you from the seen to the unseen. From the tangibly empirical to the spiritually experiential. To a place where our life is governed by promise and possibility more than whatever will be will be.
I can only do that by inviting you to explore, discover and experience God’s relational message, heart of compassionate partnership and proximate presence. Only there do you realize that faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.
As the writers of The Voice translation of the Bible communicate the passage in the letter to Jewish followers of Jesus (Hebrews 11), “Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen.”
Assurance + Conviction = Anticipation, the now but not yet excitement of knowing what is next. And, remember, God is perfect (complete, whole, together) but He is not in a hurry. You don’t have to be either. Be anxious for nada!
Care to explore more? I’d like to give you my free three-session course on learning to live by faith and not by sight.
Here is what you will discover for the benefit of your soul’s peace and growth…
· The Core of Faith: Where Faith Originates
· The Course of Faith: Where Faith Takes You
· The Convinced Faith: When Faith Is Your Way of Life
Write me – phil@philunderwood.com, subscribe to my spiritual coaching group EPIC FAITH ONLINE. I look forward to walking with you into faith… in fact, I anticipate it!
Phil Underwood
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