Expect The Rain

Some mornings demand more than coffee. They ask for courage tall enough to face long delays, honest enough to name doubt, and steady enough to keep praying anyway. We lean into a simple but disruptive idea: faith grows stronger when hope turns into expectation. Not wishful thinking, but a clear-eyed trust that God is present, powerful, and already at work even when results lag behind our timelines.
We start with a short encouragement drawn from Mark 11: have faith in God. Then we open a small-town scene where weeks without rain push people to a prayer meeting. Everyone arrives with need; one eleven-year-old arrives with a bright umbrella. That vivid picture reframes the whole conversation about belief. It’s the difference between asking and preparing, between maybe and yet. From there, we unpack Hebrews 11:1 and give it everyday language: faith makes real what we expect and becomes evidence before evidence shows up.
If you’ve been wondering where God is or why the answer seems slow, this short, focused episode is for you. You’ll leave with a fresh picture of what it looks like to bring an umbrella to your own prayer meeting and a few next steps to match your prayers with preparation. If this encourages you, share it with a friend who’s in a long wait, subscribe for weekday boosts, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:10 Welcome And Daily Intent
• 0:35 Encouragement To Keep Believing
• 1:06 Teaching On Faith In Mark 11
• 1:35 The Town That Prayed For Rain
• 2:28 Hope Versus Expectation In Hebrews 11
• 3:02 Applying Expectant Faith Today
• 4:37 Closing Blessing And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Well, good morning and welcome. I would like to give to you this word of encouragement. Don't give up on what you've been hoping for, for what you've been believing for. I know that for many of us, we feel that our faith has been tested over the last while. And in that testing, we begin to wonder where God is and what he's doing and why things are taking so long. And I know that for you right now, in the situation that you are in, God is still with you. Don't stop believing for what you need God to do in your life. In Mark chapter 11, verse 22, Jesus spoke to his disciples and he said, Have faith in God. It was a very simple statement. Have faith in God, because when you have faith in God, then you will know and see his power and his works around you. That he will do things that you could not even believe. But when we are in situations where we are not seeing the answers as quickly as we want, it's very easy for our faith to struggle. I want to tell you this story this morning about a small town. There had been no rain for weeks, crops were failing. People were actually having to sell their homes and to move away because they couldn't survive on what they had left. The people of the town became very desperate and they went to the pastor of their church and said, We need to pray. We need to get together and pray and believe that God's going to send some rain because we really, really need it right now. So the pastor arranged to have a prayer meeting that coming Sunday night. As the people arrived for the meeting, he was standing outside greeting them and talking to them and hearing their words of encouragement for him and hearing their concerns about their situation and what they really needed and wanted and expected that God was going to be able to do. The people continued to talk across the aisles before the meeting started. The pastor walked up to the front, raised his hands to try to calm the crowd and silence them so he could begin. And he noticed sitting there in the very front row was a young eleven-year-old girl. Her name was Elizabeth. And right beside Elizabeth was a very large, very colorful umbrella. She'd opened it up and set it there on the ground right beside where she was sitting. The pastor smiled when he realized what the message of that umbrella was. He understood that this girl had more faith than anybody else who was there. No one else in the congregation had brought an umbrella. Everybody came to pray for rain, but the little girl had come expecting rain and expecting God to answer. That is the key difference for us when we're talking about faith. Much of the time when we're praying, we're hoping. Like a child hopes for a new bike at Christmas. Maybe it will come, maybe it will be there. But when we use the word hope in scripture, it doesn't mean maybe. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1. Faith shows the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. The word hope in there can be replaced and understood more clearly with the word expect. Faith shows the reality of what we expect. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. When we expect that God will do what he has said he will do, when we expect that God will do something miraculous and powerful, that's when our faith becomes real and powerful. So this morning, I encourage you with this. Don't lose your hope. Don't lose your expectation that God is going to work in your life and he's going to provide answers that you need, that he's going to move that mountain that's in your way, whether it be financial or in a relationship. Don't lose your hope. Don't lose your expectation that God is going to work in it because God is God and He is powerful and He is going to be working for you. Keep your faith up. Keep believing, keep expecting, and know that God is with you. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.