Anticipation: Reflections on the Word of 2012

Are you old enough to remember the classic television commercial for Heintz Ketchup?  I can still hear Carly Simon's smooth voice singing, “Anticipation, anticipay-yay-tion is making me wait. It’s keeping me way-yay-ay-ay-it-ing.”

It’s a good point, a difficult truth, really. Anticipation and waiting are inseparable, and sometimes insufferable, concepts. So what was I to learn of it in 2012? It’s not like waiting was a new concept to me. How would added anticipation contribute to the shaping of my soul?

According to dictionary.com, an•tic•i•pa•tion can be defined as “expectation or hope.” How fitting? A definition that works with my previous understanding!

Anticipation and faith must be first cousins. You’ve heard Paul’s description of faith in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (NKJV). Though anticipation’s relationship to waiting is less patient than faith’s. In the waiting place, faith has a solid belief, but anticipation moves beyond belief. It has a more emotional component at its core. Faith relies on substance. Anticipation engages imagination.

I found myself in another waiting place in 2012. Left to wonder. Trying to interpret my reality. It’s here that I discovered anticipation as a tool to reveal me.

The anticipation that engages imagination, stirs hope. It’s the stirring that makes the heart vulnerable.  

When the selfish heart is stirred, it demands. “Give me what I think I should have!” The self-centered heart is a bit more polite, it merely expects. “You said it would be [this way or that]…” However, the selfless heart is open to wonder with giddy, childlike curiosity. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Why does this revelation matter? Since anticipation stirs hope, it’s important to remember that hope is the vehicle by which grace is delivered. Hope is the energy that makes grace possible. So when anticipation reveals the heart, it also reveals its capacity to deliver grace. What anticipation reveals in the heart determines how well we move with the unforced rhythms of grace.

So what do we do with what we know? The temptation to simply quit hoping is strongest when my heart is revealed as selfish or self-centered. Why bother if it isn’t going to turn out like I want or expect? Truthfully, it’s simply another one of my attempts at control. And control is self-protecting. I have to let anticipation move me, allowing it to find release.

Ultimately, selfless anticipation imagines the existence of infinite possibilities. It serves as inspiration to make the next step. Offering hope when it’s easier to abandon. Giving grace when it’s easier to judge. Knowing that there is something meaningful in the wait, no matter how long it takes.