Recently I've discovered a word that I really don't like. It's the word "expectations" Other forms of the word are "expect" or "expected." This word and its many variations is everywhere.
Think about how this word has impacted your attitudes, actions and relationships.
• Did you get what you expected for Christmas? Was it all you expected it to be?
• Did the "big Christmas dinner" with family or friends meet your expectations?
• What about the new year? What do you expect it to be?
• What expectations do you have for yourself?
• What about your family, your friends, those you work with? How long is the "expectation" list for them?
• What about the economy. What expectations do you have?
• When it comes to God do you have the courage to admit that even with him you have expectations of how you should be treated and how he should respond to you?
Yes the word is everywhere. But consider the damage to living loved and loving that is done by this word's reality in our lives. How do you handle it when you fail to meet your own expectations? How do you deal with it when others don’t meet the expectations you have of them? How do you respond when someone doesn’t act as you expect them to? How do you respond when someone doesn’t treat you like you expect them to?
The reality is that you will at some point... in some areas.... with some expectations be disappointed. At some point you will disappointed in yourself. You won’t act like you desire to. You won’t live up to the standard you have. You won’t live up to the expectations you have of yourself. At some point in time people will disappoint you. They won’t act as they should. They won’t treat you as you expect. There’s a standard that you expect others to live up to & they blow it.
There isn't often that I can legitimately claim originality for anything and maybe I shouldn't do that here, but recently a thought went through my mind that rings true for where I'm at right now. The thought was this: The tyranny of dashed expectations are the demise of relationships. How many marriages have ended because someone didn’t live up to the expectations of their spouse? How many friendships lost because someone in that relationship didn’t do what was expected? How many have rejected God because he didn’t give or respond as expected? How many frustrations, discouragements & disappointments that we face are the direct result of the failure of someone to do, be, act or respond to you as expected?
You see I don't think it can be argued that the tyranny of dashed expectations are the demise of relationships. Just look at how we respond to others and life. It is all so graceless. And the reason that they are graceless is because the expectations we have that we believe others should live up to is based in selfish pride. I expect you to.... You haven't done as we expected.... You haven't met our expectations. Expectations are rooted in self and whenever our focus is on self we will fail to see the need to show grace.... that is until we are in need of it being extended to ourselves when we fail to meet the expectations that others have.
It seems to me that whenever you try to mix the failure to meet expectations with grace that it's like trying to mix oil and water. It just never seems to work. The performance treadmill of trying to live up to expectations has never worked when it comes to a relationship with Abba Father and so why would we think it would work with our relationships with each other? We are loved by him despite how we perform. That's grace. What would happen in our relationships and in our testimony if we responded to each other the same way? To respond to one another and to the world graciously for me is at the heart of what it really means to lived loved and love but so often it's the very way I fail to live. Thank you Abba for being so gracious! I wonder if I'll extend the same graciousness the next time someone fails to meet my expectations?
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