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We all live with expectations in our lives about what we can or cannot, will or will not, or should and should not do. Sometimes these expectations come from other people, sometimes they come from ourselves, and sometimes they come from the Word of God. Regardless of where they come from, we have to handle them in day-to-day life, which often can be a burden if we don’t look at them through the lenses of God’s Word and the grace we have in Christ.
We must first ground all our expectations in God’s Word.
We must understand not only the expectations we have and the expectations others have of us but also the providential limitations that God has placed in our lives. These limitations can be things like time, location, health, finances, responsibilities, or just being finite beings who can’t be everywhere at once or be everything to everyone. This is why it is very important to read the Scriptures and know what God’s expectations are for us, so that any other expectations can be measured by his standard alone.
There are things the Word of God is clear on, such as God’s law in the Ten Commandments, the fact of the sinfulness of man’s heart, and that all who have new life in Christ bear the fruit of the Spirit. These are foundational to Christians’ expectations for themselves and the world around them. But there are many other things in God’s Word, along with our situation as finite creatures, that will shape expectations we set for ourselves in light of the limitations with which we must live.
We need to be careful not to set our expectations based upon what other people are doing.
The first church my husband was co-pastor of was a wonderful congregation, and I was so blessed by the women in this church. One elder’s wife in particular was always serving families with young children. It was her gift of service to the church, and it was a wonderful thing to see and experience. For a while I thought, “I should be more like her! She’s always doing so much.” But is this the right way of evaluating our service—to measure it against someone else’s service?
Rather, we must look at God’s Word, ask God to give us the right desires, and examine our life circumstances and limitations and see what our service will look like. We may have expectations for ourselves, and others may have them for us, but we also are finite creatures with limitations. And these limitations mean that our situation is different than other people’s circumstances, and so we will not look exactly like someone else in the way we do things. And this is a good thing. God made us individuals.
Growing in understanding of God’s expectations for us helps us to live them out in Christ-centered love.
As expectations come from the outside of us, such as how we should act, what we should wear, and what our home should look like, all these things must be sifted through the standard of God’s Word. Does God say that floors have to be vacuumed daily, that our home should be spotless, that there are never any dishes in my sink, that the grass must be trimmed every week? No! He does tell wives to manage their home, to love their husband and children, and to love and serve others. But God also gives limitations: health concerns, distance, time constraints, people in our care, etc.
This means then that there will be times (in the case of the above example) when the house will be cleaner and other times when it will be less clean. There might be crumbs on the floor and some dishes in the sink because my little ones need more care (spiritually, emotionally, or physically), a friend needs some encouragement, or I have to stay on the phone with the insurance company to work through a bill. Life is not a list of checkboxes but a dance of wisdom—seeing God’s expectations for us in his Word and then living them out in Christ-centered love and grace to ourselves and others.
Believers are finite, individual beings, whom God has wonderfully and fearfully made.
This living won’t look the same for everyone. It’s living coram Deo (before the face of God) with God’s standards, realizing that we are a work in progress by the Holy Spirit, and that we are finite, individual beings, whom God has wonderfully and fearfully made with limitations. It is good to regularly remember the following Bible passages from the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians to keep our expectations centered on God’s Word:
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. (1 Cor. 12:14-15)
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Cor. 12:18-20)
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. (1 Cor. 12: 24-25)
This article is adapted from “Living to God’s Glory in Our Expectations and Limitations” from BCL’s January 2024 monthly newsletter.
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