Expectations

Expectations are a dangerous thing in life.  We all have them.  We have them for ourselves, we have them for our families, friends, spouses, children and the list goes on. They can cause a lot of problems in relationships that's for sure. 

I first realized I had expectations when I was in CTO (Called to Obedience) with my husband.  During this time we realized what our expectations of each other were doing to our marriage.  Let's just say that we had reached the end of our marriage and this class was our last hope.

We learned a lot about ourselves and each other and how we were always letting each other down because of our expectations for each other.  They were soo high that we were never going to reach them.

The definition of expectation is this:

anticipation of something happening: a confident belife or strong hope that a particular event will happen

or

notion of something: a mental image of something expected, often compared to it's reality (often used in the plural)

Relationships are a blessing in life.  We learn to trust people over time as we place small expectations on them and then they fulfill that expectation.  We do this with ourselves, our family, friends, spouses and our kids.  It’s not a bad thing to count on others, but it is important that we don’t shift our entire expectation to them.

We are all human and we have to remember that God did not make us perfect.  We will always fail eachother and will always let eachother down.  That is life and there is no way around it.

 When we face difficult times, it can be tempting to turn our expectation to others rather than God.  The Bible says that when we are in need of a refuge it is better to trust in the Lord.   People can never fulfill our expectation the way that God can.  He is the Alimighty!

The Bible encourages us to look to “the God of HOPE”  who will “fill us with all joy and peace as we TRUST in him”   God is the one source of expectation that will never fail us.  He never lets us down.  We can go to Him with huge expectation; anticipating great things from Him and He is the only one who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever dare to hope for.  God not only meets our expectation, He is able to surpass it every time.  How crazy is that?  That makes me feel soo much love from Him!

No one can live up to all our expectations all the time.  Even as Darren and I have learned this and spent lots of time on it, we still have expectations but we also realize that the other will not reach it.

 When we are faced with this disappointment our response can either bring peace or anger. ”Gentle answer vs. harsh words”  I am not very good with this part but my life is always a work in progress.  As my blog is called, Daily Pruning.  That is God working non-stop in my life.  My mouth tends to open before my head has a chance to realize what is going on.

Proverbs 15:1  A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger

No matter how disappointing it is when someone we care about lets us down… harsh words never make it any better.  Afterwards we always feel sorry for my attitude and our words and this leads to a humbling apology both to God and to the person we are speaking to.   

So with all of this, just be prepared to be let down.  Know that you are not perfect and neither is anyone else.

We all fall short.  When someone is able to fulfill our expectation and encourage us we should appreciate it as a blessing in our life.  Not expect it.  When someone isn’t able to fulfill our expectation we should forgive it.  Just as through Christ, we too have been justified freely by his grace.  We all fall short. 

Romans 3:23-24  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.