anticipation

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Anticipation Is Making Me Late, And Keeping Me Waiting

Anticipation is a great motivator and will help you plow through something you don’t really want to do. 

Anticipation is making me late and keeping me waiting

Though sometimes anticipation can make time seem to go really fast because you are so focussed on it, usually anticipation makes time seem to go very slowly.

It all depends on what you have to do before you get to what you are anticipating.

As a kid, I remember Christmas morning being something I anticipated for weeks in advance. But let me tell you, Christmas Eve seemed to last forever, like time was standing still.

The word itself reminds me of a Carly Simon hit song from 1971. The chorus went like this: “Anticipation is making me late, it’s keeping me waiting.”

It’s like that for me today. 

I’m anticipating going for my first mountain bike ride of the year at my local mountain bike club. 

But before I get there, before I even make sure my tires are pumped and my gears are shifting smoothly, I have to get a few things done, including finishing writing this blog post. 

While I’m sitting in my family room, staring at my iPad, with a keyboard on my lap, I’m really visualizing the course out at the farm.

It looks so different depending on when you ride. Early in the spring when the leaves are still not fully developed, it is brighter and you can see more of the terrain around the path.

In a week or two, the leaves will provide shade to ride under and the path will appear to be all that is highlighted. 

Later in the fall, with brown leaves all around, it will be difficult to even see the path underneath.

With our new social isolation measures, there will be rules to follow, even though most of the time when I bike, though there are over 1000 members, I rarely come across other bikers. And when I do, it is only for a flash, as I glide past them or they whisk by me. 

As long as the trees can’t get COVID, I will be safe from potentially getting the virus on the mountain biking trails. It’s just getting to them that’s the issue. 

And the more I think about riding, the more I anticipate it and that is making me late, keeping me waiting.

As painful as it might be for me right now, if we never anticipated anything, we wouldn’t make plans. We wouldn’t get excited about what is coming up. We wouldn’t dream about what is to come. 

When I was a youth pastor and my junior high girls were anticipating a week at summer camp, or a weekend retreat, they would jump up and down wth big grins on their faces, saying things like, “just 6 more sleeps!”

Anticipation is a good thing. Sometimes we think it’s killing us but it really keeps us going. It motivates us like it is motivating me to finish writing this post.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think we anticipate being with God in heaven all that much. If we did we would have a very different outlook and response to the world around us. We would be less caught up in solving the issues of the day and more concerned with how to best leverage the present circumstances to bring about Christ’s return and our eternity in heaven. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How would anticipating being in heaven change your present mindset and actions during this time? Leave your comments and questions below.  

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All Anticipation, No Results

My anticipation didn’t live up to the actual results of my activity.

Flying a drone in Canada in the winter is sporadic at best. There are so many factors that work against being able to take your drone for a spin.

There are weather conditions including wind, rain, ice, snow and cold – the cold is deadly on drone batteries. If you are not careful, the battery can give a false read to the controller and cause the drone to fall out of the sky. 

Cold is also a factor for the person flying the drone. In November I flew it in about -5 C for 13 minutes and Lily had to take the controller out of my hands because I was so cold I couldn’t move my fingers.

With all the opposition to flying a drone in winter, when you get a chance to get it up in the air it’s pretty exciting. 

The other day the forecast was +4 C and sunny. 

I had to work but I was anticipating that I would get a chance to fly my drone at the end of my work day before the sun went down. 

… And that’s another factor against flying drones in winter in Canada: the sun sets very early in the winter, at about 4:30 pm right now. 

So I raced against time to get my work done, and get to a safe place to fly my drone. 

With all the anticipation, I was most looking forward to the video I would capture. I wanted to do a fly over of some wooded areas and get shots and video looking down on the tops of trees. 

My anticipation was high in the afternoon while I was working, and when I was driving, parking the car, and even as I was getting my drone out.

I was in such a hurry because the sun was going down fast that I didn’t put my gloves on to fly and so I experienced a little pleasure and pain all at the same time. 

It reminded me of my childhood when we would go skating on the Humber River and end up being so cold that we would actually walk home in our skates. Our hands were too cold to untie our laces, our feet were almost frozen off, and we would carry our boots and sticks home tucked under our arms. 

It was brutally painful. And the pleasure? Well, we were out on that river the next day doing it again, so there was obvious pleasure involved.

By the end of my flying session, I was anticipating looking at the video I had shot and editing it on the computer. 

I could hardly wait as I drove home because I thought I had captured some great shots. 

The first thing I did when I got home was upload the footage onto my computer. And when I did, what a letdown! 

I had apparently not fully pressed the record button on take off, so it didn’t record. When it landed, I had pressed the button to stop recording, not realizing that I was now only starting to record. All I got was a few seconds of pavement footage!

… I’m already anticipating the next time I will be able to take my drone out. 

Here’s the thing: You may not anticipate it, but God anticipates the next time you will spend with Him. You may take it for granted, you may see it as a duty, but God anticipates each quiet moment He has with you in His presence. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you anticipating right now? Leave your comments below.

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My Family Christmas Is Filled With Anticipation and Expectation

Every trip we take is packed with anticipation and expectation.

It doesn’t matter how long the trip will be or what kind of trip it is, these two elements are stuffed into everywhere we go.

Let me explain …

As I write this piece, it’s 6:30 am – about an hour and a half before we leave for our annual trip to Toronto for my side of the family’s Christmas.

We’ve made this one-day, 3 hours there and 3 hours back trip for the last 21 years in a row.

And I am anticipating the trip. … I think my blood pressure was up a little today just knowing that we will be leaving soon.

I woke up this morning before my alarm – which doesn’t happen too often – which is another indicator of my anticipation.

I’ve been thinking of what I have to do, and the timing for getting everything ready to leave on time.

We have anticipation for every place we go, even if it is going to the corner store for milk.

The other element is the expectation. Here is where the trip gets interesting. This expectation is based on and feeds off of our history, experience and knowledge.

For instance, today when we leave I have 21 years of experience making this trip at this time of year. So when I see or hear of possible road conditions, I immediately think of several trips that had the same conditions.

Last night it was snowing and the roads were pretty greasy. That type of snow on the roads will make for a more stress-filled trip.

It brings to mind our trip in 2004 when there was only one lane of traffic and every car was in single file going 40 km’s per hour.

Well, that was until a bus blew by us going 100 and I realized that was our only chance to make it. I plowed over the ruts, got in the bus’s tracks and left the traffic in the dust … I guess I should technically say we left the traffic in the snow.

Last night the snow stopped at about 1 a.m.; the road crews should have cleared the highway of snow by now.

So my experience tells me today’s trip will be a little less stressful and a little quicker.

When the roads are clear, my expectations change and it impacts my anticipation.

I know when we have to leave, and what I need to gather together to be ready to leave, and at what time I need to do various things to be ready to leave on time.

I have my anticipation and expectation locked for this trip.

Wait! Stop the presses! My son just texted me; I have to pick him up right now.

Wow – everything has suddenly changed and my mind and emotions have to adjust to reset my expectation and my anticipation.

Here’s the thing: Every time we pray to God, it is like a trip we take with Him. We approach God with anticipation and expectation. But God is all-knowing and all-powerful; He may change your expectations and your anticipation in a flash. Don’t try to figure God out or put Him in a box; just go with the conditions and trust Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: In what ways have you put God in a box? Leave your comments below.