Knowing What To Expect

Knowing What to Expect

You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.

Proverbs 19:21

Did you know that knowing what to expect gives you power? It’s true. Psychologists call it “cognitive control.” With even a small bit of information about a situation we feel more in control and have better outcomes than those who don’t have it.

Consider a simple experiment conducted on women entering a supermarket. Each group of women was given a long shopping list on which they were to select the most economical purchase in the store for each item. One group was told, “While you are carrying out the task, the store may become crowded. So if you feel a little anxious while you’re shopping, that may be why.” That was it. That’s all the added information they received. The other group of shoppers didn’t get this information. But that little piece of knowledge seemed to make a big difference. The informed group got more shopping items correct, was more satisfied with the store, and felt the experience was comfortable. The uninformed group felt stressed, missed items on their list, and didn’t like the experience. Having information about a situation, as this study and many others have shown, frees people from “searching for explanations” and empowers them to give their attention and energy to the task.

This scenario pales in comparison to the knowledge God wants us to have—the information he provides to give us the upper hand in life. He says it plainly: “Here on earth you will have many trials” (John 16:33). You can expect them. Problems rain on all of us. Nobody gets through this life without troubles. “I have told you all this,” he says, “so that you may have peace in me.” In other words, by knowing what to expect, we have “cognitive control” that brings about direction, focus, strength, and contentment. When we take God at his word and understand that trials will simply be part of our lives, we can also take him at his word to bring us peace in the midst of the trials.

[Hope] means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it in his way and in his time.

—Eugene Peterson