510. Celebrating God's Grace, Grace for Expectations

Who among us hasn’t dreamed of the perfect holiday with the perfect husband and perfect children? Sometimes, our unrealistic expectations can cause us to miss the joy we could have in experiences that are not perfect, but wonderful in spite of their imperfections.

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Welcome to Celebrating God’s Grace, a Women World Leaders podcast. I’m your host, Julie Harwick. Thank you for joining me today as we celebrate God’s grace in our lives, in this ministry and around the world.

I recently finished watching all nine seasons of a sitcom called “The Middle.” Yes, I was late to the party.  It ran from 2009 to 2018, but it ranks high on my list of favorite shows because I found myself identifying with the mom constantly.  It tells the story of a very average, middle-class family of five living in the middle of the US in Indiana. There’s a mouthy, sarcastic teenage son, a hopelessly optimistic daughter two years younger and another son who’s brilliant but has a lot of social issues like repeating certain words or phrases in a stage whisper. Dad is the strong, silent type who loves his family, but is happiest sitting in front of the tv watching basketball. The mom, Frankie, desperately wants the best for her family, but she struggles with disorganization and a tendency to be a little lazy.  She also finds herself constantly comparing her own family to the Donahues who live across the street and seem just about perfect. I see myself in her especially in the Christmas episodes. Once the oldest son, Axl, goes away to college, Frankie pins a lot of importance on what the family will do when he comes home for Christmas break.  She envisions the whole family picking out the ideal Christmas tree, taking it home and decorating it together.  They’ll bake cookies together and drink hot cocoa while they cuddle up on the couch to watch “White Christmas.” What actually happens is that Axl walks through the door, throws his dirty laundry on a chair and immediately heads out to hang out with friends. She winds up having to negotiate with him to get him to participate in at least a few of her plans. The Christmas tree they select makes the daughter, Sue, violently allergic and has to be  taken to the curb and replaced by a tall houseplant with a string of lights on it. When Frankie finally manages to force her family to gather and watch her movie, they discover that the discount dvd she purchased has been dubbed in German. On another Christmas, she’s thrilled to have a solo in the choir’s Christmas Eve production, but the family falls asleep on the couch before the service and doesn’t make it to church until her final few notes. Even when she tries to be flexible, something always goes wrong. The year she tried to make sure the family got to church early enough to get good seats at the Christmas Eve service, she lost track of time and discovered it was two hours later than she thought. Rather than stress out over frantically trying to fight the crowds, she decides they can watch a service on TV. But during a commercial break, Sue downloads a photo to the family computer and discovers that somehow, every family photo taken in the last seven years has vanished. And it’s not just Christmases. Frankie has high hopes for Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day too, but she always ends up being disappointed whether it’s by a fire at the restaurant where they’re eating Thanksgiving dinner or by obviously last-minute Mother’s Day gifts that no one would want. But this is not a depressing show, because Frankie generally comes to the realization that the things she thought were important really weren’t and she finds herself appreciating what she does have.

This is a lesson God has been teaching me and not just through a tv show, but through my own experiences. Holidays have become even more important to me since our nest has emptied. Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays are the only times we get to have the whole family together.  Since our son has been in the army, only Christmas has brought every one of them home.  Of course, I start dreaming about the best Christmas ever, months ahead of time. It requires lots of colorful lights, a Christmas tree of some sort in every room, a wide variety of home-made cookies and other traditional foods, beautifully wrapped gifts artfully arranged under the trees, the scent of pine and the sounds of Christmas music. Everyone is thrilled to see one another and equally excited to see their mother perform at the Christmas Eve service. When we’re not eating or opening gifts, we’ll enjoy reminiscencing while we watch hours of home videos taken when they were all very young and cute.  Here’s what actually happens: All decorating is done exclusively by me, so it’s limited to what I can produce with limited abilities and time. My daughter and I make too many cookies which are left here to tempt me well into January. My three cats pull the bows off those beautifully wrapped gifts and leave them all over the house. No one is particularly enthusiastic about the Christmas Eve service or my performance and they are even less interested, if that’s possible, in watching old videos. Our daughters who are married have to split their time between us and the in-laws, the one with a boyfriend also wants to spend time with him and his family and last year our son had a new girlfriend with whom he spent the bulk of his two-week leave. One year we even rented an 8-passenger van so that all of us could go places in a single vehicle, but that didn’t happen- not even once! Creating the perfect Christmas was stressful and time-consuming and it didn’t turn out at all the way I had expected. As I expressed my feelings to God, I heard Him saying, “why don’t you focus on what you do have, rather than what you think you’re missing.” As I began to change my focus, those negative feelings began to transform into appreciation and gratitude. The fact that we have four children who even want to come home and make it a priority is a blessing many families don’t have. They’re all healthy and thriving in solid relationships. After 37 years, we’re still happily married and don’t have to deal with the complications of stepchildren and ex’s. Both of my parents are able to be with us.  They’re active and mentally sharp and rather than being critical of our parenting and the kids’ choices, as many grandparents are, they offer nothing but love and praise. It may not look or sound like or include all the elements I had envisioned, but all in all, we had a pretty great Christmas.

The holidays are ripe for the enemy to steal our joy through unrealistic expectations and comparing our experience to what we see on social media or the Hallmark channel.  But those issues aren’t limited to the holiday season. I think we all enter into marriage with certain expectations. Most of them have to do with what we expect our spouse to do for us, not about what we should do for them. Of course when we marry, we realize the other person isn’t perfect, but when we envision our future together it’s more likely to include relaxing on a beach, cuddling in front of the tv or enjoying romantic dinners, not picking up dirty clothes lying on the floor, disciplining a whiny toddler or budgeting a limited household income.  Having children is the same way.  We anticipate sweet smelling, peacefully sleeping infants not a colicky baby with yet another loaded diaper and a piercing wail. We imagine being parents of the high school football captain or the valedictorian, not a socially awkward, pimple-faced teen who struggles to make friends. As humans, it seems we’re hard-wired to want to avoid difficulties and live a life that rewards us with validation and pleasure.

In His wisdom, God knows that such a life is not what’s best for us. In chapter one of James, we’re told that we should consider it a joy when we encounter various trials, because the testing of our faith produces endurance which will ultimately make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  James goes on to say that the brother or sister of humble circumstances should glory in his or her high position, reminding us that earthly riches will pass away as quickly as the grass under a scorching sun. Our expectations rarely involve what we would consider “humble circumstances,” but we’d be better off if they did. The reality is that we have very little control over how things turn out or what other people do. That’s why later in James, chapter four it says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’”  I don’t believe it’s possible for us to eliminate expectations from our lives. But according to James, we need to evaluate them in light of God’s will.  How different might our experiences be if we learned to hold our expectations with an open hand, trusting God to work out everything for our  good as He promised to in Romans 8:28.

It's easy to forget these truths in the midst of our everyday, hectic lives.  I find myself waking up in the morning with a full day open before me. I think of all the things I could accomplish and see myself with a clean house, a greatly reduced to-do list and no deadlines looming over me. Usually, I’m lucky to get one of the things on my list knocked off.  Something unexpected invariably comes up and sometimes I even wind up adding to my list, rather than taking anything off of it. It’s the same with the condition of my house.  It was built in the 80’s and we’ve been updating and improving it over the past 18 months that we’ve lived here. When we complete one project, I start imagining how quickly things could fall into place and my dream home seems almost within reach. But then other more pressing issues arise and we make zero progress, or even negative progress when you consider the new maintenance issues that now require our attention.

As long as I have expectations of myself, others and even God, I will continue to be disappointed. Experience has taught me that things rarely turn out as expected. Does that mean I should stop setting goals or dreaming of what could be? The answer goes back to what James said in Chapter 4. That passage indicates there’s nothing wrong with making plans for the things we’d like to see happen, as long as we hold those plans in an open hand allowing God to determine what is best.

The people of Israel had the opportunity to do that when Jesus walked the earth.  They had all grown up hearing the prophecies about the coming messiah.  His legendary figure loomed large in their minds.  He would be mighty, incredibly impressive and would deliver them from all their oppression.  Most of them expected a king, a man of great wealth, power and status.  What God sent instead was a helpless baby, made known only to his unremarkable parents of low status and a few shepherds considered among the lowest of Hebrew society. When Jesus began His ministry, he associated with fishermen, tax collectors and former prostitutes.  He had no social pedigree or religious standing, owned only the clothes on His back and refused to speak against Rome.  He was nothing like the messiah His people were expecting and because of that, most of them completely missed out on the abundant life He came to give them. For those who were able to let go of their preconceived ideas of what a messiah should be and simply listened to Him and watched Him, He was all they ever needed in a deliverer. He did nothing to free them from Rome’s heavy hand, but He delivered them from the sin that brought death and separation from God and they recognized that nothing beyond that really mattered.

As we enter another holiday season, we have an opportunity to practice letting go of our unrealistic expectations and preconceived ideas about what is best.  As God has been speaking to me about this, I’ve been trying, but I’ve got to warn you that it isn’t easy. It’s important that we make the most of these holidays and create special memories for our loved ones. But in doing that, we have to be ready to let go and rather than focusing on the things that don’t turn out as expected, learn to appreciate other blessings He sends our way that might’ve gone unnoticed. As He extends His grace and we practice this new approach during the holidays, maybe we can extend it to the rest of the year. So, when the turkey isn’t ready on time or buried family tensions suddenly surface at the dinner table, be ready to look for God’s hand in every unexpected development. Our plans may fail, but His never do.

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