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What to expect? ...
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2014. Expectations can be important. When you have a date with someone, and you expect a fantastic evening, but it does not work, your disappointment can be very large. Disappointments which follow expectations which do not meet reality appear in many parts of our life …
Expectations towards your teacher, boss or supervisor …
You might have particular expectations towards your teacher. That might be to help in a particular difficulty. Or to support you in a competition. But the teacher is just a human, with particular focus and with some skills well developed and other skills not that well developed. So when we expect him or her to act in an area which is not his main area, we might be disappointed, again and again!
You can have expectations towards your boss. He is leading the section or company. Why is he not taking care properly. It is not your duty, nor do you have the possibility to change some things which do not work well. But it is his role - and perhaps he just does not fill his role the way you want. Perhaps he is not doing what is needed. Or your ideas about what should be done are not his ideas. Then, disappointment cannot be avoided.
When you have a supervisor, you might expect him to carry out particular things. Perhaps you expect him to help you, but he wants you to do it alone. Or you want more freedom, and he insists on a particular way to do things. Expectations and reality does not necessarily fit to each other. Then, a sometimes lengthy process starts. It can be a painful process.
Expectations towards God …
We also have expectations towards God. Perhaps you are disappointed by the Lord, because you expected him to help you to get a partner - but it did not work. Or you wanted to find a good job, but you are unemployed currently. Or you wanted to reach some particular status in your life, and you did not get there. There are many things we can be diappointed about.
Recently, I had the expectation that God would help me in a particular matter - and he did not do it the way I expected. I felt quite disappointed. When it comes to your personal goals and questions, you can be disappointed by the Lord. But that can also happen, when it comes to God's own mission. When you work for him to spread the gospel, but it does not work out the way you wanted. Disappointments can happen whereever we set goals and work with expectations. But expectations are a necessary part of our life. We need to dream, we need to set goals and to work towards them!
But all the disappointments teach us one thing: that we should stay open for what God has prepared for us. Sometimes, we want some ice cream, but we are given a fantastic full meal. But we are disappointed about the ice cream, instead of deep joy about what is given to us. I am convinced that God provides deep and fantastic teaching for us every single day of our life. But too often we do not see it, because we are focussed on something which might not be relevant at all. Let us look for the relevant things, and forget what is irrelevant. Let us talk to the Lord today and tomorrow, to learn from him to let our expectations fit his work in our life and our environment! And when we have eaten the meal and recognized it, it is well possible that time for the ice cream has come … (Roland Potthast) ... more texts