“Not that we are
sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our
sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new
covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit.
For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 2 Corinthians 3:5-6
(ESV)
Expectations kill, yet they are inescapable. Behind every
human interaction there are expectations, even if they are subconscious. If I
smile at a stranger I have an expectation that they will smile back at me. If
they do, they have met my expectation; if they do not, they have failed to live
up to my expectation and it will bother me to one degree or another. I have
expectations of drivers on the road; I expect them to pay attention to their
driving and to be courteous, particularly to me. As with most expectations, this becomes more
evident when my expectations are not being met; for example, if they cut me
off, or don’t let me in when I need to get over, my ire over my unmet
expectations is particularly evident. I
expect people who are serving me in any capacity to behave in certain ways,
whether it’s in stores, restaurants, car repair shops; you name it, I have an
expectation for it!
We all have expectations of what a friendship should look
like, what family should be, how our spouses should treat us, how our children
should behave; and, when our children are grown and have children of their own,
we have expectations of how they should raise our grandchildren, and how they
should treat us. None of these
expectations are general, they are quite specific and are with us in every
moment of every single interaction we have.
We have expectations of government leaders and law-makers,
groups of people, classes of people, people of one race or another, one belief
system or another, one gender or another.
We have expectations of religions, denominations, churches, pastors, our
own church family and friends; and, of course, we also have expectations of
ourselves which, truth be told, we rarely meet.
In other words, at any given moment, everyone has
expectations regarding someone or something and, in most instances, those
expectations are not being met. Unmet
expectations lead people to frustration, anger, blaming, bitterness, sadness, guilt
and despair.
The issue is, Expectations= Law. All of our expectations are a result of the
Law being written on every human heart; whether one accepts the biblical Law or
not. In the book of Romans, chapter 2 verse
15, Paul says that even those who do not believe “show that the work of the law
is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their
conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” We expect because we all have a built-in
internal standard by which we measure everyone and everything.
The problem is, Law can only be that standard, that measuring
stick; it never was able to or meant to provide the means for change;
therefore, we have the entire human race running around with measuring sticks
and finding that no one and nothing measures up. Frustration, anger, blaming, bitterness,
sadness, guilt and despair abound, and no amount of explaining, reasoning and
knowledge can make us stop our endless expecting and measuring.
That is because the only answer to the Law written on every
human heart, is not to tell ourselves or others to, ‘do more’ and ‘try harder’
to measure up, but the Good News that Jesus Christ came and, on our behalf, met
every possible expectation and carried to the cross all of our failures to
measure up, where they died along with him.
And when he rose up from the tomb we, who believe, were raised with him
and now stand before the God of heaven and earth measured by the Law and found to
be perfect.
The Holy Spirit will then continue to remind us of the mercy
and kindness shown to us in Christ, as undeserving as we are, and will call us
to extend that same mercy and kindness to those around us when our natural
inclinations automatically pull out the measuring stick of Law (expectations)
and stand ready to condemn.
Will we ever completely escape our expectations here on
earth? Sadly, no; but my belief and hope is that the more we bask in the
knowledge of the grace which has been lavished on us by our Savior, the more we
will be compelled to lay down our measuring sticks and share that same grace
with others.
