by Steve Chapman.
Anticipation: the action of anticipating something; expectation or prediction.
For me, it is the first cousin of expectation. When I start to anticipate, I start building expectations. I anticipated moving my mom would allow us to spend her final years reminiscing or catching up. What I didn’t expect was that dementia would take her mind and she would pass away without many conversations about the past. This year, we anticipated 20 UME Weekends. We budgeted for 20 regular Weekends with 15 couples. We didn’t expect Maryland to have a Weekend with six different languages being represented; we didn’t expect Australia to have back-to-back Weekends encountering 60 couples, and we didn’t expect West Tennessee and Alabama to successfully launch two new areas this year.
I think of God’s people anticipating that the Messiah would come and take away their struggles and pains and, in his spare time, slay the enemies that were giving them so much grief. They didn’t expect Jesus, teaching to turn the other cheek, forgiving beyond our concepts, hanging out with the sinners and lowly, and - more importantly - showing hospitality to strangers. I love the line in The Chosen when Jesus says, “get used to different.” I don’t think they anticipated that.
As we move into 2024, we anticipate this ministry reaching more couples, helping more marriages, and doing the same thing we have experienced in years past. However, in our quest to expect what we think, let us be in the spirit of expecting the unexpected. Anticipating God’s presence, but expecting miracles. Let’s cry out to God for more. And anticipate more couples, more saved marriages, more community, more trouble, and more leaders, and expect God to surprise us like only He can.
Steve Chapman.
Executive Director
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