Skip Hollandsworth, writing in the December 1998 issue of Texas Monthly talks about his interview with Troy Aikman, quarterback of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. In the article entitled “The Real Troy Aikman” he says: “Aikman is an elusive hero, difficult to understand, clearly driven by something other than fame. On the night of that first Super Bowl victory, he delayed attending a party with his teammates, instead ordering from room service and sitting alone in his hotel room for a couple of hours. ‘I kept thinking back to the time when I was a teenager — how I thought that all the problems in my life would be solved the moment I turned sixteen and was able to get a car,’ he recalls. ‘Well, here I was at the top of professional football, and I found myself, Troy Aikman, thinking, ‘Now what? Now what?’ ‘Why would you feel that way?’ I asked. For several seconds, Aikman just stares at me. He appears dumbfounded that I would even ask such an absurd question. ‘Well, isn’t that what it’s all about?’ he asks. ‘To keep raising the bar for yourself?’ It is precisely this attitude that makes Aikman such a fierce player but it is also his curse, and he knows it. ‘I’ve always known that the lows have been lower for me than the highs have been high,’ he confesses. After a loss, he does not answer the phone, even when close friends or family are calling to console him. He lies in bed and replays each offensive play in his mind.”
There are many people, like Troy Aikman, who live with the kind of expectations that make their lows lower than their highs are high. They are driven by expectations of perfection, so that even when they reach the pinnacle, they cannot enjoy it. No matter how good they are, it is never good enough. In spite of great successes, they sit alone rehearsing what they did wrong and how they need to improve. Sometimes the source of some of those unrealistic expectations is from parents. Sometimes they come from the culture around us. Sometimes they come from friends or people at work. As someone has said, “God has a wonderful plan for your life, and so does everybody else.”
But sometimes these unrealistic expectations don’t come so much from others as from ourselves. One person I talked to said, “I don’t need anyone else to place too many expectations on me — I place enough on myself.”
As I thought about how I have been affected by unrealistic expectations, I came up with three things that have helped me to be at peace with myself and live a more relaxed and realistic life. I have not arrived, but I have learned a few things. The first thing that can help you live with more realistic expectations is to: Discover God’s will for your life. By nature I have a perfectionistic bent. Which, of course, is very frustrating since I can never meet that expectation. I can’t meet my own expectations, let alone the expectations of other people. But the wonderful thing is that I can meet God’s expectations, because they are always realistic. The amazing thing about God is that he is perfect in every way. He is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. He lives beyond time and space. He never makes a mistake. He is perfect and holy. Yet, his expectations of me are entirely within my reach, because he is governed by perfect knowledge of me and he is ruled by grace. Isn’t it interesting that there are some people you can never please, but you can please God? This is hard for some people to really accept. The movie actress, Jodi Foster, said to a friend: “If God knows all about me and still loves me, he is a fool.” But God does love us, even though he knows all about us, and he is no fool.
Because God created me, he knows me. And out of his knowledge of me, he has a plan for me. It is therefore essential for me to discover his will for my life, because when I learn what he expects of me, I don’t have to l try to live up to anyone else’s expectations. If you are not living out God’s plan for your life, you are living out someone else’s plan for you.
I know what some people’s will is for my life. I feel the pressures of the culture to conform to one set of expectations, and I feel the pressure of family, friends and church members to meet other sets of expectations. I feel the push of my inner drive to achieve this or accomplish that; to do this better and to improve on that. But getting in touch with God’s will for my life helps me to focus on what is actually important and necessary. It helps me to shed the unrealistic expectations that come from others or myself. The prophet Micah wrote these profound words: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Notice that there is not a long list of do’s and don’ts there, just a basic injunction to love mercy like God loves mercy, to do justice as he is just, and to walk in a humble relationship with God. That’s it. I’m sure that if we were going to write an answer to the question, “What does the Lord require of you?”, we would have come up with a much longer list — and then add some of our own requirements.
The reason that the Lord’s expectations of us are so perfect is that he knows us perfectly and loves us completely. He knows exactly what we are, and are not, capable of. He does not expect what we cannot give. His expectations are exactly in line with the abilities and talents he has given us. The apostle Paul was overwhelmed by his own weaknesses. He wanted to do so much for God, but he was a victim of his limitations. He prayed for God to take away these troublesome parts of his life, but God said: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s response was to say, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
God does not expect too much of us, but neither does he expect too little. There are people who try to do more than they should, but there are others who do less than they should. It is not that they are incapable of doing things, they don’t want to put forth the effort. They have no expectations of themselves, and they do not even want to meet God’s expectations. But the Bible says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22-25).
It is important to seek God’s will and do it, for the Bible says, “God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:6-7).
The second thing that will help you be at peace with yourself is to: Be thankful for how God has made you. A man stood before the mirror and said, “Who are you and how did you get to be the way you are?” We have all stood in front of that mirror at some point. You feel like a misfit because you do not measure up to the expectations of other people. We disappoint ourselves. But we need to overcome our disappointment with ourselves and begin to be thankful for who we are. Once we become thankful, we begin to become productive. If you are going to resent the fact that there are people smarter than you, wealthier than you, better looking than you, a better athlete than you, have a better personality than you, you will never learn to be grateful for who you are. Learn to be grateful for being the person God has created you to be, and let the rest fly. If you are always looking at others, you will never be able to see the blessings God has given you. When you live life in love with God and learn to be thankful for your life, you will enjoy life in a whole new way. Love and gratitude do wonders. It is our love for God, and our relationship with him, that gives us a true perspective on life. The Bible says, “My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves” (1 John 3:18-20, The Message).
The Bible admonishes us to have a joyful disposition since we belong to God. It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).
The third thing that will help you to live with more realistic expectations is to: Be yourself. I am still learning to be who I am, not what other people want me to be. And as I read the Bible I find marvelous examples to follow. In the story we read in the Scripture today, David is busy being himself. He heard the threats of the giant named Goliath, and he scorned his threats. He had stood up to worse, for as a young shepherd he had faced both lions and bears who had come to kill his sheep. He spent hours slinging rocks and improving his aim. He knew he could take this braggart no matter how big he was. His brothers put him down. The king told him he could not do it, but David knew he could. When David insisted on going against the giant, King Saul took his personal armor and put it on him. But it was large and heavy. It did not fit his body, or his personality. David had a completely unconventional way of fighting. He put down all the sophisticated military equipment of the king and picked up five smooth stones. The giant scoffed and cursed him. Even the men in Israel’s army had to laugh as they saw this small young man walk out to meet the giant with no armor on and no formal weapons. But David was himself. If he had tried to meet the expectations of other people and do things their way, he would have lost the battle. He would have been roasting over a Philistine campfire that night. But David was determined to be himself — not what somebody else expected him to be. He went knowing he looked foolish to other people, but he went knowing who he was, and trusting in the abilities God had given him. He didn’t try to be somebody else, he was only interested in being who God had called him to be. It is a good lesson. Don’t try to be somebody else, be yourself.
This is why the Bible says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). In other words, conform to God’s will for you, not someone else’s will. I like the way the new translation called The Message puts this verse: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:2, The Message).
This thing of being a Christian is not a matter of performance for God, it is a relationship with God. Relationships are not built on performance, they are built on love. When you enter a relationship with God, you discover that God loves you — even if you mess up. The reason for that is because what he wants is you, not your good performance. He wants a relationship with you. He wants to know you. He made you the way you are, and he likes you that way. He enjoys you. He does not accept you after you become good enough, he loves you just as you are. God must love imperfect people since there are so many of them.
In his book Good Morning Merry Sunshine, Bob Greene, columnist for the Chicago Tribune writes about his infant daughter’s first year of life. He tells what it was like when little Amanda began crawling: “I will be in bed reading a book or watching TV. And I will look down at the foot of the bed and there will be Amanda’s head staring back at me. Apparently I’ve become one of the objects that fascinate her. . . . It’s so strange. After months of having to go to her, now she is choosing to come to me. I don’t know quite how to react. All I can figure is that she likes the idea of coming in and looking at me. She doesn’t expect anything in return. I’ll return her gaze and in a few minutes she’ll decide she wants to be back in the living room and off she’ll crawl again.”
It is a picture of God and you. You come to him in prayer and smile at him. He returns your smile. You just linger in his presence. After all this time of him having to come to you, now you are choosing to come to him. You don’t really want anything from him at this point, and he has no expectations of you. It is just being near someone you love. And that is enough. It is more than enough.
Brennan Manning, in his wonderful book Abba’s Child, writes these beautiful words: “We ourselves are the greatest obstacle to our own nobility of soul. We judge ourselves unworthy servants, and that judgment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. [What we need is] a glimpse of the true self — unself-conscious, unpretentious, immersed in life, absorbed in the present moment, breathing in God as naturally as a fish swimming in water. Sanctity lies in discovering my true self, moving toward it, and living out of it. ‘Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. You are precious in my eyes, because you are honored and I love you... the mountains may depart, the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken’ (Isaiah 43:1,4; 54:10). Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. God’s love for you and choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life. The basis of my personal worth is not my possessions, my talents, not esteem of others, reputation. . . . I stand anchored now in God before whom I stand naked, this God who tells me, ‘You are my beloved.’ Being the beloved is our identity, the core of our existence.”
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 30, 2001
Mulberry Street UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
FEELING GOOD ABOUT LIFE:
CASTING ASIDE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
1 Samuel 17:32-40
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
The things I have learned that have helped to have realistic expectations of myself are to:
1. Discover __________________________________ for my life.
2. Be thankful for ______________________________________ .
3. Be ____________________________ .
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (Sept 30, 2001)
1. Do you often belittle yourself? Why?
2. From where does the most pressure, in regard to unrealistic expectations, come in your life?
3. If you knew that you had God’s unconditional approval, how would that affect your life?
4. What would an assurance of God’s unconditional approval do to your reaction to the expectations of others?
5. Are God’s expectations of us greater or less than those of other people?
6. Are you grateful for who you are? Why or why not?
7. Why should our relationship with God help us to be thankful for the life we have?
8. Is it realistic for us to feel good about ourselves? Should we?
9. How do you react when you see someone not being genuinely his or her self? Have you seen yourself trying to be something or someone you are not?
10. How can you effectively replace the unrealistic expectations in your life with realistic ones?
