"I will direct my prayer to You, and I will look up."
—Psalm 5:3b

I love this short statement found in the third verse of Psalm 5. David is acknowledging in his prayer that he is directing his prayer to God and that he is looking up to the One he directed his prayer to. The word direct means to aim, as a marksman would take aim to shoot an arrow at a specific target. His aim is with intention and purpose. That’s how our prayers should also be, with intention and purpose. And then I love how David chose to "look up." He was expectant because he knew the greatness of the One he took aim at.

Think about expectancy, and how God values expectancy. I believe the Lord highly esteems expectancy in a believer’s life, because spiritual expectancy is based on biblical faith, trust, and hope.

Have you ever noticed the difference faith and hope can make in your prayers? The conscious decision to "look up" raises the bar of expectancy. Definition of expectancy: the state of looking forward to the coming or occurrence of. The definition sounds a lot like the definition Hebrews 11:1 gives us of faith: "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see" (NLT).

I think that oftentimes when we pray, we can allow the circumstance of what we are praying for to become the main focus of our attention, instead of making the main focus the One we are praying to—and instead of "looking up." If we shift our focus and attention from circumstances and situations to Him, then the expectancy barometer begins to rise. David raised his head, looking up to God for the answer to his earnest requests.

Now, there is another word that is like expectancy; it’s presumptuousness. I think that much of the "name it and claim it" mentality is rooted in presumptuousness instead of expectancy, which is based on the biblical hope and faith that is founded on the greatness of God.

C. S. Lewis said, "True faith is never found alone; it is accompanied by expectation." I believe the Lord wants to stretch and expand our expectancy or "looking up" to Him. One of the ways this is accomplished is by having a broader understanding of the greatness of God. How tight is your grasp on the fact that He "is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you could ask or think, according to the power that works within Him"?

Consider this picture:

An angel dressed in workman’s clothes came announcing that the Lord was coming in half an hour to bring blessings to us, so we should be prepared and make sure to be out in the street with a container to catch the blessings He was bringing. All were excited, eagerly awaiting the Lord’s visit.

At the appointed time, there appeared a giant truck—the huge kind of dump truck where the tires are bigger than a standing man. The angel was driving and the Lord was sitting shotgun. We could see their smiling faces in the side mirrors as the truck was slowly backing up toward us. We could hear the beep—beep—beep as the driver was careful to slowly maneuver it toward those of us who were waiting.

I caught a glimpse of the driver as he came closer and he viewed us through his rear-view mirror and then turned his head toward the Lord. It was as though the driver was hesitating, but I saw the Lord nod His head as the truck continued to make its way closer to us.

As the truck came nearer, its bed began to slowly incline. We were right there as the tailgate flung open and the blessings were poured, dumped on us. We were buried in blessings. And there we were, holding our containers to catch them. Most of us were holding teaspoons; some of the more mature were holding tablespoons. We had expected teaspoon blessings and the Lord was delivering dump truck blessings!

How true that can be of us. The Lord wants to pour out His riches, His spiritual blessings to you and me. Is our puny expectancy limiting or hampering what He has in store for us? I wonder how often we have missed blessings because our expectancy wasn’t the "exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you could ask or think" kind of expectancy.

Do you think that the Lord wants to expand your expectancy of Him?

Then let’s practice what David did: "I will direct my prayer to You, and I will look up."