Human Expectations
If i’m being completely honest, I’d like to shatter all expectations. I believe that it is people’s expectations that cause them trouble.
My expectation of what I should do, what I think my husband expects of me or what I think my peers or co-workers want of me may or may not be what is best for me. I can have expectations of people which are unrealistic, things based on what I think they should or shouldn’t know or do and this can cause me unnecessary stress or frustration because they don’t meet my expectations.
I also believe that when parents say their children are misbehaving, it isn’t actually bad behavior, rather a parents unrealistic expectation of their children’s ability to act in the manner desired. My favorite example of this is when a toddler throws a fit in the store. What did the parent do to explain to the child the expected behavior? Should the parent really be upset that their toddler is throwing a tantrum? You see, toddlers throw tantrums. This is normal behavior that the parent should anticipate. The parent can plan for this tantrum and be prepared to handle it by bringing things to distract them for example. Instead many parents get angry and yell at the child or worse, when in reality they need to be better prepared for when the toddler expresses their emotions in the only way they know how. (*Toddlers throw fits because they haven’t yet developed the language skills to tell you they are frustrated or need something, yet we as parents expect them to express themselves as an adult…unrealistic expectation)
Human expectations also get us into trouble with God. We expect God to answer our prayers immediately and give us what we want when we want it. (We might even throw a fit about God’s untimely responses…not unlike the toddler tantrum in the example above). We expect God to save us from negative experiences and want him to reward us when we do good things. Unrealistic?
My prayer is for God to shatter our human expectations so we might live according to God’s expectations. Matthew Kelly, author, speakers and founder of Dynamic Catholic talks a lot about being counter-cultural. This means that we don’t live our lives the way the world expects, rather we follow the way of God and we know from scripture and the stories of Jesus’ life, God doesn’t see things through the eyes of the world. God does the unexpected. This shatters human expectations!
