Expectations

It’s really tough living up to what others expect of you.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is a Pastor’s wife. She made an interesting comment. We were talking about how tough it is in society today to be a Pastor’s kid. She said many times in activities or events where they are not among those from their town and people don’t know her husband is a Pastor they purposely will omit his profession “for the kids sake”. The expectations one has of a Pastor’s kid, or let’s face it any profession that puts a parent in the public spotlight, can be so outrageous that possibly living up to those expectations is impossible. These children are set up to fail even before they start. Now, my parents never had jobs in the public spotlight, but we lived in a small enough town that if one of us made a bad decision, did something wrong or broke a law, our parents knew what happened before we ever got home. How much harder must that have been for our Pastor’s children, our Mayor’s children and the other children of parents in the public spotlight?

And yet, we all have expectations, piled on by others, piled on by the media, your family, your classmates, your co-workers. They can be tough if not impossible to live up to. I remember reading an autobiography about Ruth Graham Bell in which she talks about her divorce and how devastating it was. She tells how she was so ashamed because how could the daughter of Billy Graham possibly be a divorcee and how difficult it was to face her parents. She shares “as she drove up the long spiral driveway to her parents home, dreading facing them, she rounded the bend and there waiting for her with arms outstretched was her Father, saying welcome home daughter, how we have missed you and love you.” What Anne expected was censure, what she got was love and understanding. I can certainly relate, when I went through my divorce, I felt the black mark, the stigma and that was only 18 years ago, not a sadly accepted norm as it seems to be today.

As humans we concern ourselves every day with “measuring up”. The expectations of others become what we expect of ourselves. Yet, God tells us that His expectations are all we really need to attain, then all else is basically a given. His expectations are clear. Luke 6:31 says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Further on in verse 35 he says “love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without hoping to get anything back.” Our rewards will be great for we will have met the expectations of our heavenly Father. Go ahead, keep reading in Luke, it says “Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High God, because He is kind even to people who are ungrateful and full of sin.”

Expectations. Praise be to God that the only expectation we are expected to fulfill is the one that comes from our heavenly Father. I could never measure up to the ones here on earth that others have placed upon me unless I first fulfilled the ones given by God, without Him what I achieve on earth would be impossible. Thank God, I don’t have to do it alone and neither do you. Start by achieving what he expects, you will be amazed at how all the rest falls into place.