What Do You Expect?

I talked to someone the other day and he told me he had an assignment at work. Every employee was required to write down what they expected from their employment there. What did they want to be? Where did they want to end up? What were they expecting? It seemed like an odd question, but I realized that expectations can often make us angry or frustrated when they're not met. I started thinking about Christianity in that light.

Talk to a hundred Christians and you'll likely get a hundred answers about what it is like to be a Christian. There are the high high Christians and the low low Christians. There are the "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" Christians, the "Majesty" Christians, and the "If We Are the Body" Christians. There are the shallow, the deep, and shades between. There are the slow but steady types and the ones that seem to skyrocket then burn out. There are deep thinkers with a lightweight relationship and ignorant believers with a deep, abiding love for the Master. There are "full time" Christians and "secular" Christians. In fact, I suspect that, just as in any human relationship, no two relationships with Christ are the same.

That's why I find it odd that we often tend think that they should be. We look at the Christians we admire and think, "Why isn't my experience more like his/hers?" We look at Christians that we don't want to emulate and often think, "Why is my experience so close to theirs?" It is extremely common for us to sit around and bemoan the fact that we are not the Christians we ought to be.

Part of the problem is an emotional one. We get discouraged. It's just the way we are. It's not logical. It's not a rational outlook. "Evaluating all the data, it appears that ..." No, we just ... feel bad. You know, like in any relationship. We want those we love to be happy with us and we know that we disappoint them, so we are discouraged. Never mind that they appear not to show any disappointment. Don't even think about the fact that they are full of forgiveness and don't even notice what we are are sure is a grave offense. We want to please those we love, and we fall short. It's true in human relationships. It is magnified in a relationship with the Almighty.

I suspect that more of the problem is that we are closer to Satan's side of the game than our Lord's side. We are justified, sure, but we are not righteous in action. So we sin and we miss the mark -- oh, that's the same thing. And then we listen to the roaring lion who tells us we messed up again rather than the sweet Shepherd who gave His life so that our messing up no longer mattered.

What do you expect? Do you expect to be sinless and aren't? Maybe you expect to be in a long-term, sweet emotional love with Christ ... even though no human can maintain such a thing with another human, much less Christ. Maybe you expect some measurable maturity, some deep doctrinal purity, forgetting that you are, after all, human, fallible, and in constant need of the Savior.

Maybe we ought to stop looking back. It usually doesn't help. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to try what Paul said. "One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13-14). Maybe, just maybe, if it was a good enough approach for Saint Paul, it is a good enough approach for us. Maybe we should simply take it on faith that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us and stop bemoaning what we aren't yet. After all, isn't that, ultimately, in the hands of God? Are you sure you want to complain about how far He's brought you or not?