But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!
Galations 5:15
What a “friend” she was! I was always there for her, but where was she when I needed her?
“This is marriage? I had stars in my eyes on our wedding day. Things were going to be so different than our parents’ marriages. But he certainly has not kept his part of the bargain.”
“Our children are such a pain to us. We look forward to the day they will leave.”
We’ve all heard these or similar stories throughout our lives. Such unmet expectations are a primary cause of discouragement. Often we base our expectations on unrealistic and unfair standards and then expect others to read our minds and live up to those standards. We put ourselves and our loved ones into a pit that’s difficult, if not impossible to get out of. Who could be a good enough friend, a devoted enough husband, a lovable enough child?
We can avoid a lot of our discouragement by taking our long list of expectations and burning it! Let’s give our loved ones the freedom to become the people God wants them to be, not the people we expect them to be.
Thought: I will let go of unrealistic expectations.