Navigating Life Together – Expectations
Good relationships are difficult but essential
There is no win in comparison
Do not be hasty in your spirit to be offended, for resentment resides in the hearts of fools. Ecc. 7:9
Over, under-react
Forgiveness is not passive, it prays for those who offend us
Lead with Trust
Help me understand
When you receive a text, you should reply…
Within the week?
When you receive a text, you should reply…
Within the week?
Within the day?
When you receive a text, you should reply…
Within the week?
Within the day?
Within the hour?
Expect
Expectations in relationships
Expectations in a relationship are most often subjective and biased
Expectations are the birthplace of bickering
“he/she should have known better,” or “I would do the same for them.”
Assumed Similarity Bias
What’s important to you may not be important to others. And if we want to be in relationship with people who are different to us, rather than clones of our personality, then we have to swallow our entitlement and humbly bring our expectations of them into reality. – Alex Mathers
Jesus is our primary relationship
John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they (intimately) know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent
Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[a] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Phil. 3:7-8,10 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of (intimately) knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ… I want to (intimately) know Christ
God knows and understands
Ps. 103:11-14 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
God is for you
Romans 8:31-32 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
God gives you himself
Matt. 22:37 Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
God wants to be your number one
It is dangerous to be seen as THE source of someone’s happiness, fulfillment and meaning
Psalm 62:5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.
God I stop depending on others, for what you alone can give me. God, my hope is in you.
Trade your expectations for appreciation (and your world will change)
Psalm 118:24 This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Phil 1:3-5 Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.
Trade your expectation for appreciation
God my hope is in you