Whenever I grow impatient, or think I know best and forge ahead from my own strength, the results are never optimal. It initially may feel good. Hey, at least I’m doing something. But later, when things go wrong or my actions led to unexpected consequences, I begin to doubt if I made the right decision. 

Choosing to live with expectancy rather than expectations doesn’t mean we accept situations passively. Or pretend everything is sunshine and roses. Not at all. But we step into it with God. This requires the humility to accept the fact that we don’t know how things will ultimately work out. Thankfully, the future isn’t constrained to our list of potential outcomes. Where we see looming problems and limited options, He sees an exponential range of possibilities. 

There is an ocean of difference between expectations and expectancy. 

Expectations indicate a sense of what should be. It is how we expect things to go, often veering into entitlement. If circumstances don’t go the way we want, we feel cheated, irritated, or even offended. It’s not fair. Change—especially change we didn’t ask for—is viewed as an interruption to our plans. Many of us have carried unmet expectations for years that we need to let go of. Doing so will release these toxic emotions over something we never should have counted on to begin with. 

Even after we step into the Freedom Realm, the enemy will taunt us and try to cause us to forget our true identity. His primary strategy is to isolate us from God . . . and each other. 

The Freedom Realm is a place where you can approach your life, relationships, and creativity with peace, joy, and passion. To be surrounded by people who live, love, and create from a place of freedom obtained from relationship with God, to have a place at the table, to savor the stories of others, and to celebrate your talents as a gift from the Creator. It is a feast for the soul.

Striving and control are necessary survival tactics. When resources are scarce, someone has to win and someone has to lose. One person’s victory is hard to celebrate when it is interpreted as your loss.

When in the Orphan Realm, you believe you’re alone and that life is totally up to you. It describes how you approach life—and the state of your heart. That’s why it’s possible to be stuck in this place even when surrounded by a loving family or caring friends.

What if all that has held you back isn’t your fault? What if you’re simply living in the wrong realm? We all spend our lives in one of two places. We can’t alternate from one to the other, like trying on a new pair of clothes. The two are actually in fierce opposition to each other. 

Aiming for what’s possible in your own strength sets the bar way too low. Why be limited by your current abilities? Simply achieving what’s possible is, well, boring. Congratulations for doing what you already knew you could do. Yet we’re often more comfortable deciding next steps based on our evaluation of options from a well-reasoned pros and cons list.

In the classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the young girl finds herself before two paths. She asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go. 

If your car has ever run of gas in the middle of nowhere, you’ll never forget the feeling of being stuck with no sign of rescue and an empty tank. 

“Pursue your dreams and bad things await.” 

Deep down, our nightmares are laced with this lie. They try to hold us back from our dreams. Life may not be what you hoped for, our fears whisper, but try to break free for something better and we will cut you to shreds. 

When we feel the world closing in around us, it’s easy to go into survival mode. We tighten our grip in an effort to not lose more. 

What would you see if you could stand outside your current circumstances? Stated another way, who would you be if the world didn’t tell you who you are? 

If God weaves specific talents into each of us, the question is why? What is His motive? I believe He gives each of us a particular calling so He can then spend time with us on that unique playground. This is a way for you and God to get to know each other better as you create together. 

For much of my life, I felt like I didn’t quite fit in. No one shared my interests or understood my dreams. But then I discovered a small group of kindred spirits passionately pursuing the very things that made me come alive. In the process, my heart began to reawaken. 

Perhaps you have been told you aren’t creative so much that you’ve started to believe it.

Doing so has enormous consequences…none of which are good. It denies how the Creator made you. It diminishes your specific gifting. And it closes a door to a future shaped by what you were born to bring into existence through your unique presence and talents. 

Could the God of all Creation have placed inside us, before we were even born, a homing device that ultimately would lead us back to him? In other words, could the one thing we’re most passionate about and skilled at doing also reveal the way to more life, love, and creativity? 

Some stories offer a way to unplug from reality. Yet the better stories usher us into a deeper reality. These kinds of stories rip a seam in the atmosphere so that the unseen starts to become visible. Think of it as a portal that provides a glimpse of God and His kingdom. Much like the parables of Jesus did.

Just as explorers travel to fantastical places in search of the unknown, stories can transport us to places where we can then see our own stories more clearly. They invite us into other worlds and, in the process, offer a new way of seeing our own world.