Expectancy and Expectations

To expect is defined as "to wait for; to look for; to have a previous apprehension of something future, whether good or evil; to entertain at least a slight belief that an event will happen. Expect, in its legitimate sense, always refers to a future event." – Noah Webster

In the modern sense, to expect is defined as "to look forward to, but also to presume, to take for granted or demand." – OED Expectations are prospects, especially of success or gain. Expectancy is defined as "the act or state of expecting; expectation." An expectance is "something expected; hope; a looking for with pleasure." – Noah Webster

Living in a state of fervent expectancy of the good is how you can always be ready for a miracle. Expectancy is an abstract principle, a law of being, and a virtue. However, an expectation may reveal a taint, especially when you expect someone else to do for you what you could and should do for yourself.







Edna Lister on Expectancy and Expectations

To achieve success, you can’t back down when your first effort does not bring the quick results you expected. – Edna Lister, November 6, 1939.


To be good is to be as God on earth. You are good when you act as He acts. When you aim to be as perfect as possible always, you are good. Then others are happy because you allow them to do all the talking and never contradict them. – Edna Lister, March 5, 1941.


You never need to push, shove, demand or expect. – Edna Lister, July 3, 1941.


You cannot draw from your account with life unless you have already deposited as praise, divine substance and effort in exact proportion to what you expect from life. – Edna Lister, October 8, 1941.


When you grow into that expectant attitude that looks for a miracle every moment of every day, then you shall truly have miracle after miracle and miracle upon miracle. Remember, if you want something you lack, or if you have something you do not want, you are not expecting your real desire fervently enough. – Edna Lister, November 5, 1941.


Be irresistibly, rapturously expectant. – Edna Lister, May 26, 1942.


Do not expect to earn your Christos Degree for free. – Edna Lister, December 1, 1942.


Let expectancy thrill you until you grow wings of Light on earth. – Edna Lister, May 25, 1943.


Don’t expect any help of a personal nature. Share the common necessary work. If you pick up for another, you receive no credits for so doing, but do it just for love. If another asks you to do a personal favor, be certain that in doing so you do not make him soft. – Edna Lister, July 2, 1945.


Impersonal love loves without ever asking anything for self, expecting or demanding love from anyone. – Edna Lister, September 27, 1945.


A half-solved, carelessly worked problem brings no results. How can you expect to fulfill the laws if you leave one out? Edna Lister, October 12, 1945.


Most of your grief and resentment come from your demands and expectations of other people. – Edna Lister, May 16, 1947.


God expects you to give up all self. – Edna Lister, June 12, 1947.


Go to the Source for all your needs. When you learn to expect nothing from the world, all you need shall come. – Edna Lister, November 15, 1947.


Your expectancy of miracles shall create your desires speedily. – Edna Lister, February 13, 1953.


Spiritual theft includes illegal demands and expectations. – Edna Lister, Now Is the High Time, December 6, 1953.


God can’t set aside law to please you, and taking advantage of His good nature by expecting Him to do so is dishonorable. – Edna Lister, Religious Slavery or Freedom? November 27, 1955.


You can love anyone with compassion, no matter what grade he occupies. When you do not expect understanding beyond the soul’s present grade, he is happy. – Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, 1956.


The "little self" lives by demands, expecting life and other people to do all the giving, all the adjusting, all the agreeing. – Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, 1956.


Expectation must follow prayers, and the Power does the work. Expect and receive the miracles when the subconscious mind bows before the throne of the I AM, rolling away stony opinions and prejudices, the hardness of heart. – Edna Lister, April 3, 1957.


Expecting another to live in your grade charges a debt of blame to him, which you pay, and fastens him to your coattails for you to pay his debts until he reaches your "exalted" grade. How foolish. – Edna Lister, January 12, 1958.


Salvation will not come when some expect it to, and sooner than others think. – Edna Lister, June 19, 1958.


You must live in a state of fervent expectancy under soul conquering. – Edna Lister, What Is Symbolism? October 6, 1959.


Cast your net of expectations on the right side, the up side of the boat. – Edna Lister, Feed My Sheep, November 22, 1959.


Expect the Father’s o’ershadowing and His everlasting arms to uphold you. – Edna Lister, Increase Through High Prayer, July 3, 1960.


You have absolutely no right to expect anything of anyone at any time. – Edna Lister, January 1, 1961.


If you once look as though you’ve been to the Mount of Transfiguration, your family will expect you to continue to be perfect. – Edna Lister, Whither Thou Goest, October 22, 1961.


Expect to stand alone, and depend on no one but God. – Edna Lister, Heaven, a Place to Fill, April 10, 1962.


Expect to be reprimanded for your transgressions of law. It is necessary. – Edna Lister, May 3, 1962.


You cannot expect all desires to be fulfilled if you have held out bits of self to the self. – Edna Lister, February 9, 1964.


Each is responsible in his or her own right, not expecting, let alone demanding one thing of any other, especially those we call loved ones. – Edna Lister, August 30, 1964.


You may expect nothing from anyone on the outside. No expectations of any kind, of anyone else, are legal. – Edna Lister, March 29, 1965.


Substance is always ready to manifest on your spoken word, but you must be fervently expectant to bring it to pass. – Edna Lister, October 20, 1966.


Every word you speak is Light, Power and Glory, but don’t look back or expect credit for sowing the seed to open the vibration. – Edna Lister, The First Seven Magnitudes, November 8, 1966.


Do not expect one thing of your loved ones. – Edna Lister, December 4, 1969.


When you are caught up in the Spirit, you can expect anything. Expect miracles. – Edna Lister, Three Acts of Creation: Earth, Heaven, and the Source, December 16, 1969.


God needs our ascension, and is counting on us to fulfill that expectation. – Edna Lister, Undated Papers, 1933-1971.


Never expect another to do for you what you could do for yourself. – Edna Lister, Undated Papers, 1933-1971.

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New Testament on Expectations

Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh. – Matthew 24:44.


Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. – Luke 12:37-40.


Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. – Luke 21:34‑35.


The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. – Romans 8:19.


Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. – James 1:4-8.

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Old Testament on Expectancy and Expectations

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. – Psalm 62:5.


Fear is nothing but a betraying of the help which reason offers; the fearful expectation within, being less, counts the ignorance more than the cause which brings the torment. – Wisdom of Solomon 17:12.


God is not someone among (other) beings, rather He is far superior. Not that He is (simply) superior, but His essence does not partake in the emanations nor in time, for he who partakes in an emanation was prepared beforehand. Time was not apportioned to Him, since He does not receive anything from another, for it would be received on loan (for he who precedes someone does not lack, that he may receive from him; rather, it is the latter that looks expectantly at Him in His Light). – The Apocryphon of John, Codex III, 1.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884 – 1971
The original Christian Pioneering Mystic,
Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of expect: Latin expecto; ex and specto, to look, that is, to reach forward, or to fix the eyes.


Expectancy is an abstract principle.

Expectancy is a law of being.

Expectancy is a soul virtue.

An unwarranted expectation may reveal a soul taint.


References

The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary: 2 volumes. Oxford University Press, 1971.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, editor. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981.


Related Topic

See Faith