Purpose

Escaping Expectations

I know I’m not alone when I say I hate to disappoint people. Like many others, I have this tendency to want to make other people happy. Thankfully, I have friends in my life who help make sure that I don’t get too carried away. One such friend regularly reminds me to have a mental makeover in order to make sure that I’m doing things for others out of a spirit of generosity not obligation. It definitely helps me stay sane.

Because of my desire to try to please people, I often find myself attempting to lower expectations. In fact, given the opportunity, I try to disavow them all together. I don’t want someone else to think I can do something or be someone that I’m not sure I’ve progressed to. So I strive to lower the bar, to set other people’s eyes on what I’m fairly confident is achievable. It’s my way of managing other people’s potential disappointment.

Sometimes we do the same thing with God. Especially for those of us who are blessed with having been raised in a church, we usually have a fairly good understanding of what God expects from us and what He doesn’t. In fact, He intentionally makes it difficult to obscure. “Follow Me” is what He said to the disciples . . . and its what He still says to today.

The simplicity of Jesus’ instructions don’t make them palatable. We know that we should give up all rights to ourselves and we also know how much we want to do our own thing. We know we should love others with a greater magnitude than we love ourselves yet we find ourselves sitting in judgment. We try to tell God, “no, Lord, don’t send me.” because we’re not sure that we’re up to the task.

Expectations, however, only seek to define that which has not yet been determined. If we fail to live up to God’s expectations, He’ll find another way to accomplish His purpose. When we evade God’s expectations, we avoid the risk of failure and the reward of obedience.

We can’t escape the expectations of others. But when we run from God’s expectations for our lives we disavow our chance to be involved with His agenda and to be used for His renown.

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Purpose

Trapped

The other day I got stuck between two people having a conversation and mentioned in an offhanded remarked that I felt trapped. Someone asked if I meant like a fish in a net, and I affirmed that the feeling was similar. Later, as three people discussed something about which I had absolutely no frame of reference I stated that I felt like a fish out of water. (Both of these remarks prompted an interesting discussion about what kind of fish I would be. A discussion that I was ill-equipped to have.) Without exactly meaning to, i had created an interesting parallel. Both times I was equated with a fish. Both times the analogy was apt.

Whether a fish is trapped in a net or happens to find themselves on shore, they are not in the environment that God intended for them. All the things that fish were created to do are not possible in either of those circumstances. In the first, the fish has had outside forces conspire to remove it from its natural environment. There is very little that a fish can do to affect change once they are in the net; the idea is to avoid it. In the second situation, the fish itself has acted to get outside of God’s plans. Following what it thought was a better alternative created a situation in which it was unable to survive. The fish probably doesn’t intend for that to be the end result. Nevertheless, it is.

Sometimes I think humans are not that much wiser. We let outside forces surround us and prevent us from following God’s plans. Or, we ourselves think we know a better way, and so we jump out of the ocean of God’s goodness, intent that there is a better life for us on the sand. There never is. God made us for one purpose – to give Him glory. Any time we act on our own we’re supplanting that purpose with our own desires. Anytime we do that, we’re trapped. We experience bondage, not freedom. We experience death, not life. We seek to do our own thing, and than find that our own thing is not worth pursuing. We’ve been given everything we need to live the life we’re intended, if only we’re content to be what God’s called us.

I don’t know what fish I would be. I’m grateful that I don’t have to choose. I only hope that I can be the person that God intended and not let anything, whether outside forces or my own desires, prevent that.

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