Expectations are everywhere! From your grandmother’s insistence that you attend church three times a week, to your own decision never to darken the church door, we all have expectations that we believe are righteous, and that we impose both on ourselves and especially on others. These expectations arise from our culture, from the duly constituted authorities in the land, from our own background and upbringing, and for Christians, we believe they arise from Scripture. Expectations soon become an overwhelming mountain of duties and obligations that leave us gasping for breath as we try to dig out from under their demands. It doesn’t matter if our motivation is to please God, or to make others happy, or just to live what we think is a righteous life. The expectations we have for ourselves and others become exhausting. In fact, the more expectations we discover, and the more expectations we put on one another, the less likely we are to see those expectations met in life. Believe me when I tell you that expectations, especially unmet expectations, produce attitudes and conflict throughout our society, and maybe especially in the church.
This blog is an experiment in identifying expectations that go unmet and the attitudes they spawn in the lives of well meaning ‘pleasers’ in this world. Using personal stories, experiences, and reflections, I will ask questions and explore the sources of expectations in our lives. As our society seemingly descends further into chaos where, increasingly, ‘everyone does what’s right in his own eyes,’ I want to explore just whose expectations we are following and why. In a culture steeped in relativism and personal autonomy, whose expectations are, not just ‘righteous’ in their own minds, but true to the way things are? Is God a ‘player’ in deciding what’s a righteous expectation? Does the Bible present an objective morality that informs expectations for ourselves AND for society? How does freedom work with expectations? Am I free to reject the many ‘self righteous’ expectations shouted at me from cradle to grave by both the well-meaning and the hostile? I trust you will find these reflections on expectations informative and challenging, as we think through the ‘ought-s’ and ‘should-s’ of both everyday life, and the life to come.