Expectations

What is an expectation?

 

It's a bullet to the forehead.

 

It's not even a bulls eye because a bulls eye offers the opportunity for something different.

 

An expectation is an end all and be all.

 

It's a bullet to the forehead.

 

And we do it every day....

 

to our kids, our spouse, our parents, our friends....

 

We shoot 'em in the forehead with what we 'think' they should do or be or say.

 

But what happens when your child grows up and doesn't choose to go to college.... like you had planned?

 

What happens when he or she chooses to adopt when they could have biological kids.... like you had always imagined?

 

What happens when your adult child tells you that he/she is gay... like he/she does in your worst nightmare?

 

What happens when your precious child tells you that he/she is going to have a child and he/she isn't married.... like in your other worst nightmare?

 

What happens when that precious child of yours tells you that he/she is having a baby and will place that baby for adoption.... like you've never imagined.

 

What happens then?

 

What do you say? What do you do?

 

First, you freak out. Panic.

 

In every situation, you have an expectation... your own plan. Our expectations give birth to disappointment.... and one day, we'll all realize that...

 

Our plan doesn't matter.

 

The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.

Proverbs 10:28

 

Plain and simple.

 

YOUR. PLAN. DOESN'T. MATTER.

 

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

 

No one wants to hear it... and almost every one of us will fight it.

 

But every one of us, at one time or another, having to do with their child or a job or a spouse or something else, will be faced with the brutal, sometimes painful reality that...

 

Their opinion... their expectation.... doesn't matter.

 

That opinion or expectation doesn't change what is...

 

But sadly, it always changes our view of 'who' it involves.

 

That, is disappointment. The one word every child, every spouse, every employee is terrified to hear.

 

But here's the other reality...

 

It doesn't.

 

That sweet, beautiful, perfect baby boy.... that precious, gorgeous, smart baby girl.... is the same then as he/she is now...

 

except we change them with our expectations.

 

Our expectations change people in our mind and in our hearts.

 

And that's not ok.

 

Expectations kill....

 

they kill people's spirits and dreams and self-esteem.

 

Who wants to carry that weight on their shoulders?

 

Who wants to be responsible for that?

 

Expectations kill.... they kill as much as drugs or alcohol or bullets.

 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7

But maybe our expectations really only hurt us. How much more could we be and do and see and love if we could somehow turn our expectations into unconditional love.... For the person and not for anything else.....