Expectancy grounded in the law of seed time and harvest is what keeps me from quitting, no matter how dark the season gets.
Giving up has never seriously crossed my mind, and I think I know exactly why: I expect things to change. That expectation isn't wishful thinking. It's grounded in something concrete enough that I'd bet my life on it, and in many ways I have.
Romans 8:25 puts it plainly: if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. Patiently and confidently. That combination removes anxiety from the equation. When you genuinely know that what you need is coming, and that God knows both what you need and when you need it, there's nothing left to be anxious about. The waiting becomes purposeful rather than desperate.
I've been preaching since 1981. From those earliest messages, I was already pointing toward something I hadn't seen yet. Why? Because God had told me it was coming. I had been in the middle of the charismatic outpouring, watched my father pastor in Florida during that season, seen the signs and wonders and the harvest of souls. It was extraordinary. And I still knew there was more. I couldn't explain how I knew. I just knew. Anybody who's ever been in that place understands it: you know you're right, even when you can't fully articulate why.
I am fully expecting all that God has promised.
One of the things that trips people up is insisting that what God does next has to look like what God did before. It won't, necessarily. God isn't limited by our categories, our history, or even our imagination.
Our imagination, when you think about it, is entirely built on reference points. Ask a child to draw an animal that doesn't exist, and everything they create will be assembled from animals they've already seen. We can't imagine beyond what we've experienced. God doesn't have that constraint. He made the crocodile, the elephant, and the platypus, and none of them look anything like the others.
So when people grow disappointed with the move of God, it's often because they had a specific picture in mind. This is what revival looks like. This is how it will come. God isn't held to that image.
God is going to pour out His Spirit on all flesh — sons and daughters, young and old, everywhere you turn.
I watched this principle play out in a way I'll never forget. Years ago, I took a team of about thirty people, including teens and a couple of young kids, to a Caribbean nation for over a month. We ran six services a night across different parts of the island, and during the day we had four- and five-hour prayer meetings. No TV, no cell phones. Everyone was just immersed in the presence of God.
When we returned, I brought some of the team up on a Sunday morning to share what had happened. One of them was a twelve-year-old boy named Aaron. He came up to the microphone and started simply enough: the food was different, he said. And then the Holy Ghost hit him.
Aaron prophesied for ninety minutes nonstop. He grabbed the microphone, walked around like he'd been doing it for decades, and spoke with authority. In those ninety minutes, we saw every emotion associated with the move of God. People ran forward and fell on their faces asking to be saved. Others were filled with the Spirit. People were healed. Joy broke out. All of it, flowing through a twelve-year-old boy.
Then he walked back over and handed me the microphone. I held it back up to him. He said, "Well, like I said, the food was different, but I really don't know what else to say. I'm just kind of drawing a blank, Pastor Todd."
He had no idea what had just happened. He had stepped completely over into God's presence, yielded himself entirely, and God had taken over. It was a sign and a wonder. And it didn't look like anything Aaron had ever seen before, because he had no template for it. That's exactly the point.
What God will do with a yielded vessel is absolutely amazing.
If expectancy were just optimism, it would wear out. But mine is anchored in something that doesn't change: the law of seed time and harvest.
Psalm 119:165 says, "Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." That word "offend" in the Hebrew means to stumble. Great peace, such that nothing causes you to stumble. I used to wonder which law the verse was pointing to, given how many laws fill the Old Testament. Then the Holy Spirit clarified it for me: the law He instituted when He set the world in motion. Genesis 8:22 lays it out directly: while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
The sun has risen every single morning in recorded history without one exception. Seasons cycle without fail. These are not suggestions. They are laws. And the law of sowing and reaping operates the same way.
"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease." — Genesis 8:22
Because I know what I sow, I know what's coming back to me. I sow victory, blessing, acceptance, love, and peace. So I expect to receive exactly those things. Not because I'm blindly optimistic, but because that's how the law works. Whatever you sow, you reap. This earth is a greenhouse.
That's why I can say: I expect victory. I expect blessing. I expect acceptance. I'm not surprised when the Uber shows up after I called it. Same logic. I called it, it's coming.
Dark seasons are real. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But they don't suspend the law.
Joy comes in the morning. The text doesn't say dark forever. You might be in the middle of a difficult time right now, a very difficult time, but that season has an end. And the most important thing you can do while you're in it is keep sowing. Keep giving out what you want to receive. Because as you sow in the dark times of your life, others sow also, and the harvest keeps building.
There's a discipline that goes with this, and it's one I take seriously: guard what comes out of your mouth. High praises of God, not low-level curses. You decide which register you're going to live in. You don't allow something to come out of your mouth that's going to pull things in the wrong direction.
When I operate my life according to the Word of God, I know what to expect.
The word of God is less like an inspirational slogan and more like a recipe. Follow it precisely and you can predict the result. Get creative with it, and you're asking for trouble. I've had my creative moments. They didn't go well.
There's a practical dimension to all of this that goes beyond personal expectation. When you walk in the law of sowing and reaping, operating in love, peace, and blessing, people around you notice. They see the results of what God is doing in your life. And that's what actually draws people toward God.
During years of mass evangelism crusades, I never preached fear. All I preached was God's goodness: what He would do for people, how He worked on their behalf. Tens of thousands came to Jesus Christ. That's not an accident. It's his goodness that leads people to repentance, not fear of judgment.
Think about it this way: when you know someone is capable of great love but in this particular moment they're holding a belt, you don't want to run toward them. You don't feel like hugging them. God is not a belt-in-hand God. He's a God who wants to love you. When you tell of how He's blessed you, you create an expectation in others for that same goodness. And that expectation opens them up.
So I keep going. I keep sowing. I keep being patient and kind, even on the days when I really don't feel like it. Not because I'm naturally saintly, but because I know what's coming back. The harvest of what I've sown is on its way to me, press down, shaken together, and running over.
My strength for all of this isn't my own. Philippians 4:13 is a verse people quote casually, but I've leaned on it in real situations where the lights seemed to be going out. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That means I'm not in this on my own momentum. He brings me into victory. My job is to keep yielding, keep sowing, keep expecting. His job is to fulfill every word He's spoken.
He's good for all of it. Over thirty thousand promises in the Word of God, and He hasn't missed one yet.
