Last night, I watched my favorite basketball team go down in defeat as they battled for a championship. I have loved my team since I was a really little boy, even before they started to get good. And so, watching the last few minutes of their last game of the season, I was somewhat disappointed. But I say somewhat because I recognize that I hadn't really expected them to make it as far as they did. Sure, I knew they were a good team, but to be battling for a championship into the last seconds of the last game of the season was more than I had expected at the beginning of the season. For that reason, I can also say that I have a great deal of pride for my team and what they accomplished, which somewhat offsets the disappointment.
The thoughts and feelings I experienced in the above paragraph arose in me because of my expectations. Expectations have a funny way of getting into our lives. We're often wrecked when our expectations are not met. Or, if our expectations were much lower than what happened, we're overjoyed that things turned out much better. If our expectations happened to be pretty much on par with what happened, we tend to think that we had a pretty good read on the situation.
In life, it is inevitable that others will fail to live up to our expectations. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that most of us don't actually always know what we expect in given situations. Far too infrequently do we take the time to think about what we expect from a person, or a situation, or a context in our lives. And even more infrequently do we express those expectations to others. That is, until they fail to meet our expectations.
Have you ever been on the receiving end when you didn't fulfill someone else's expectations? Maybe it was the outburst of anger, or the words of bitter disappointment in you that came to light. Or perhaps it even led to the ending of a relationship. Their expectation was such that your failure to live up to it meant that they would move on to another. (By the way, I honestly believe this is the biggest reason people leave particular churches, because the church doesn't live up to their expectation, often without the people of the congregation even knowing what was expected of them.) Rather than dealing with you and their unmet expectations, they turn to another in hopes that the other will live up to their expectations.
Sadly, this sense of expectation often gets turned toward God, as well. How many people have left God because He didn't live up to their expectations? I would also argue that many of them didn't even know what they were expecting of God, much less if their expectation was realistic or not. We can expect things of God that we may not even be aware of, but we realize them when God fails to live up to the standards that we create for Him.
The thing that we take great joy in as Christians is that God has completely realistic expectations when it comes to us humans. He expects that we will be sinful, fallen, faulty human beings. He knows us. He also expects that we will have difficult hearing the word of forgiveness and restoration, since it's completely out of our hands. And yet, by His Spirit, God continues to whisper these into our lives and ears and hearts. God's expectation is that He will give what we need, and that His Spirit will continue to work on our sometimes deaf ears.
Our hope, as Christians, is that our expectations fall more and more into line with what God would have us expect. Yes, we'll fight with the sinful nature that wants more or other things than what might be realistic. But we also have the new creation in us, given through the water of baptism. That new creation wants to live by God's expectations, and to have God's eyes when we look at what we expect of others. So may God's Spirit continue to create and open those eyes within us!
The thoughts and feelings I experienced in the above paragraph arose in me because of my expectations. Expectations have a funny way of getting into our lives. We're often wrecked when our expectations are not met. Or, if our expectations were much lower than what happened, we're overjoyed that things turned out much better. If our expectations happened to be pretty much on par with what happened, we tend to think that we had a pretty good read on the situation.
In life, it is inevitable that others will fail to live up to our expectations. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that most of us don't actually always know what we expect in given situations. Far too infrequently do we take the time to think about what we expect from a person, or a situation, or a context in our lives. And even more infrequently do we express those expectations to others. That is, until they fail to meet our expectations.
Have you ever been on the receiving end when you didn't fulfill someone else's expectations? Maybe it was the outburst of anger, or the words of bitter disappointment in you that came to light. Or perhaps it even led to the ending of a relationship. Their expectation was such that your failure to live up to it meant that they would move on to another. (By the way, I honestly believe this is the biggest reason people leave particular churches, because the church doesn't live up to their expectation, often without the people of the congregation even knowing what was expected of them.) Rather than dealing with you and their unmet expectations, they turn to another in hopes that the other will live up to their expectations.
Sadly, this sense of expectation often gets turned toward God, as well. How many people have left God because He didn't live up to their expectations? I would also argue that many of them didn't even know what they were expecting of God, much less if their expectation was realistic or not. We can expect things of God that we may not even be aware of, but we realize them when God fails to live up to the standards that we create for Him.
The thing that we take great joy in as Christians is that God has completely realistic expectations when it comes to us humans. He expects that we will be sinful, fallen, faulty human beings. He knows us. He also expects that we will have difficult hearing the word of forgiveness and restoration, since it's completely out of our hands. And yet, by His Spirit, God continues to whisper these into our lives and ears and hearts. God's expectation is that He will give what we need, and that His Spirit will continue to work on our sometimes deaf ears.
Our hope, as Christians, is that our expectations fall more and more into line with what God would have us expect. Yes, we'll fight with the sinful nature that wants more or other things than what might be realistic. But we also have the new creation in us, given through the water of baptism. That new creation wants to live by God's expectations, and to have God's eyes when we look at what we expect of others. So may God's Spirit continue to create and open those eyes within us!
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