June 24, 2007
Expectations, Responsibilities … a hard way to live
Here are some comments from another conversation that I am having elsewhere and I thought you might like to eavesdrop:
This chapter (God is a Verb from the book The Shack) has emerged for some as very significant, especially as it unfolds the opposition between trust and ‘our expectations’.
Expectations are one of the dominant ways that we attempt to control our lives, our relationships and God. Largely, they are disappointments waiting to happen. When one has a system of expectations, then ‘I’ become the center of the universe and everything and everyone is subject to my judgment and punishment depending on how they are ‘currently’ meeting up those expectations (whether my expectations have been communicated or not).
Expectations are all about ‘doing’ … about performance. There is little room for ‘being’ within the web of expectations and ‘being’ has little to offer the one trying to control through expectations. "Who cares about who you are as long as you are doing what I think I need and expect." Expectations are largely a substitute for God, or in some sense, the need we have to play God ourselves.
And remember, ‘control’ is all about ‘fear’.
Letting go of ‘expectations’ is soooo risky; it feels like a free fall since our world was held together by that web, but it is in that ‘risk’ that you find a God who does not meet your expectations (thankfully), but loves you and is involved, and in that ‘risk’ is where ‘faith’ grows. Then we begin to live more in the environment of ‘expectancy’, the edgy, free flowing realm of wonder and surprise.
A question about ‘responsibility’:
Slight focus change… ‘ability to respond’ - God give us an ability to respond (which is something that is dynamic and present tense and according to what is in front of us), rather than responsibility (which is static, a rule or principle, and independent of what is in front of us). In fact, when you live a life according to ‘responsibilities’, what is in front of you (the person or situation) can easily become an irritation or impediment to your successfully carrying out your ‘responsibilities’. It is the ‘doing’ that matters, not who is in front of you, or what the situation really is.
‘An ability to respond’ is dynamic, so now the person or situation in front of you becomes significant rather than an impediment, and you no longer draw from some agenda established by ‘responsibilities’ but you find that God who dwells within you joins with you to respond to that person or situation moment by moment as life moves and shifts in its dance.
I love ya, you know…nothing to be concerned about…this is all a process, nothing to be ’skard’ about…Sarayu will teach you.
-willie
Spread the word
Trackback uri
http://www.windrumors.com/20/expectations-responsibilities-a-hard-way-to-live/trackback/
4 Comments on Expectations, Responsibilities … a hard way to live »
June 24, 2007
kent @ 8:56 pm:
I love this that you said Willie:
Letting go of ‘expectations’ is soooo risky; it feels like a free fall since our world was held together by that web, but it is in that ‘risk’ that you find a God who does not meet your expectations (thankfully), but loves you and is involved, and in that ‘risk’ is where ‘faith’ grows. Then we begin to live more in the environment of ‘expectancy’, the edgy, free flowing realm of wonder and surprise.
June 30, 2007
wileybones @ 6:34 am:
Of all the ideas from The Shack that have scrambled my outlook the most, this discussion of expectations and responsibilities is tops! As organizations and work teams, we engage in norm-setting excercises, which I see now as law-setting exercises, in hopes of conforming our co-workers to a particular standard of behavior. And it is all borne out of the assumption that they are needing to be controlled if we are to function effectively as an organization or team. Perhaps that is the nature of organizations. But as I process on this, I find very little that is relational, that is trusting (except perhaps that “I am trusting you to conform to my expectations”). That is a very different form of trust, if it can even be called that.
January 15, 2008
William @ 7:10 am:
Thanks for this post.
Another word that could be used here is “hope”. All too often I hope in getting a good job or a good grade or just doing well [being “successful”] at something. I reason: the more successful I am, the more I do–and do well–the more secure I am. And the more secure I am, the more secure my family will be. And if my family is secure then I don’t have to worry because they are my responsibility [there’s that word].
A life of “response” is counter to everything I’ve been taught. “Be proactive! The best managers, the smartest leaders are proactive–they ‘respond’ before something even happens.” It sounds good, but to do so one must always be thinking of the future. And any thoughts of the future are imagined because I don’t know the future.
A life of “response” is a life of faith. It’s a one-step-at-a-time life. It’s a trust that God cares as much about that next literal step as He cares about any other step in my life–the big ones and the small ones. And it’s a perspective that life isn’t really about all my steps or where I’m going, but His love for me and the joy of resting in it.
July 24, 2008
Ashlee Goodson @ 11:38 pm:
Wow, I really want to thank you for this. It was clearer to me here than when I read the chapter God is a Verb in The Shack.
I’m always praying for patience with my kids and my husband, but I see that the major problem is my expectations. It’s no wonder I’m never satisfied. I really have thought I’ve been controlling myself lately because I haven’t been cursing so badly when people aren’t meeting my ’simple expectations’, and I wonder why it is nobody still ever listens to me.
This post gave me a whole new perspective how to go about my day, and I look forward to the challenge. Of course, it is going to involve me getting off my butt, and quit expecting everyone to do everything for me, but maybe me serving others. I’m up to it.
Thanks Willie. This book has touched me on so many levels, and still is, after I pass it around to several people, I look forward to reading it again, this time with a highlighter and a notebook handy.