Unmet Expectations

Unmet expectations often cause us to experience disappointment which leads to discouragement. We spend a lot of time thinking about our expectations, but we don’t spend much time evaluating our expectations. 

First, I should say that having expectations is a good thing. We all need to have expectations in life. However, sometimes our expectations are wrongly placed. We might expect our husband to take out the trash, but we never say, “Honey, would you please take out the trash for me?” That may be an unfair expectation, if we aren’t willing to ask them. And just so you know, if you asked them several times a few weeks ago, that doesn’t count. You have to remind them. 

On that note, I want to share one of my favorite marriage teaching videos about this topic by Mark Gungor, Ask Him More Than Once.

• (The video is only 5 minutes long and it’s hilarious.)
  

This blog post isn’t specifically about marriage, but I wanted to address the fact that we sometimes experience unmet expectations in marriage because we actually placed unfair expectations on our husbands. 

We usually expect people to act based on what is in our head or based on something we told them in the past. If we don’t take the time to evaluate our expectations and our actions regarding those expectations, we may allow the situation to fester and cause us more troubles and deeper disappointments.

Let’s Look At A Few People’s Expectations In The New Testament

Acts 3:1-11 

• This story began at the gate Beautiful at the entry of the temple. At the hour of prayer, Peter and John met a man lame since birth begging at the gate. The lame man expected Peter and John to place a coin or two in his hands that might get him his next meal. Peter and John redirected his expectation and this man received complete healing. 

• Read my past blog post with the full story What Do You Hope For? Do You Have Limited Expectations?

John 5:1-9

• At the pool of Bethesda lay a lame man who had been lame for thirty-eight years. He expected someone to help him get in the pool to receive his healing. His expectation was doubly off base. First, he placed his expectation in what man could do for him. Second, he placed his expectation in a superstition of his day. Thirty-eight years of unmet expectations most assuredly caused him a lot of disappointment and discouragement. Until Jesus showed up and redirected his expectation. 

John 4:4-42

• The woman at the well, or my favorite title for her is the thirsty woman with a messy life. I call her this because I understand her. She and I were so similar in where we once placed our expectations. Five failed marriages and one live-in reveal how she placed her expectation for satisfaction and fulfillment in men. Men failed her until she came face to face with Jesus, the Messiah who redirected her attention and affection. 

Mark 5:25-34

• This woman had an issue with blood for 12 years. She placed her expectations of healing in physicians and treatments only to find she increasingly grew worse. Commentaries say only the wealthy could afford the care of physicians in her day, but after giving all she had, she was left broken and in need. Until one day when she heard that Jesus was in town. That day, she redirected her expectations to the one true Healer. 

• Read her whole story in my blog, Our Commonality – We’ve All Got Issues

Each one of these people started out with misplaced expectations. They tried all the world offered them and found their lives never got better. If anything, we can see their lives increasingly got worse with everything they tried. They put their hopes and expectations for help, satisfaction, provision, and healing into what man could do or what he could offer. All were left longing and broken.

Did you notice that each of these also seemed to have dealt with their problems for a really long time? One, a lifetime; One, thirty-eight years; one, twelve years; and one as long as it takes to get married and divorced 5 times and then still get another man to live with you. 

I did the same thing for way too long. I placed my expectations in man and what they and this world offered me for years. I looked for love, satisfaction, value, healing, and wholeness in all the wrong places. Then one day I came to the end of myself and my options. I realized Jesus was my only answer. At that point, I began to realize I had spent a lifetime with wrongly placed expectations.

How long are we willing to let problems flourish in our lives because we don’t, or won’t, evaluate and redirect our expectations?

While I learned a lot over the past twenty-seven years of my faith journey with Jesus, I still tend to get my expectations wrongly set at times. In reality, we all wrestle with wanting to put our hope in someone or something this world offers. That tendency to default to human help or hope reminds us how important it is to evaluate our expectations. Ultimately, we benefit when our hope is rightly placed.

Benefits Of Rightly Placed Hope And Expectations

1) Life Change

In Acts 3, Peter and John turned the lame man’s attention to what Jesus could do for him instead of them. The man received drastically more than he expected. He expected something to get him through another day and instead, Jesus changed his entire life by healing him completely. 

2) Mercy and Healing

In John 5, Jesus redirected the lame man from a worldly superstition to the power of the one true God. A man lame for thirty-eight years experienced healing at the mercy of God. And I say that because the man never even seemed to turn his faith to Jesus, but Jesus healed him anyway. 

3) Hope and New Direction

In John 4, the woman put her hope in men only to find none were faithful and true. Once she met Jesus, she left her waterpot behind. The one thing she came with no longer mattered. With excitement, she went back to her city to tell everyone about the Messiah. That’s what happens when we experience lasting meaningful life change.  Hope sets our life in a new direction. 

4) Faith and Unlimited Resources

The woman in Mark 5 recognized that she had tried all the possible solutions to heal her physical brokenness. She ran out of options and resources and redirected her faith to the Great Physician who has unlimited resources. In an instant, she was made whole, nothing missing, nothing broken. 

If we want to experience the benefits of rightly placed hope, maybe our next step is evaluating our expectations.

Let’s Finish With How To Evaluate Our Expectations:

 1) Ask yourself – 

a. What are my expectations in this?

b. Have I communicated my expectations to the right people? 

c. Is my expectation fair? 

2) Take the time to write down how you answered the questions. 

3) Take your written down answers to God and ask Him –

a. What should my expectations be in this? 

b. Have I communicated my expectations in the best way?

c. How can I redirect my expectations toward You rather than another person? 

4) Write down how the Holy Spirit answered those questions for you and any specific new perspectives or instructions He revealed to you. 

5) Recognize where your expectations are off base and be willing to make the necessary adjustments. If you can’t see how that is possible. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. 

If you are like me, you may find that you have to bring this to God over and over again to get going in the right direction and to keep your hope centered on God, not people or your circumstances. 

Morning prayers for this week