The Expectation

For Lent, I'm reading A Shelter in the Time of Storm: Meditations on God and Trouble by Paul David Tripp. Today, the meditation was on expectations both realistic and unrealistic. It really hit home for me because there are so many times that I've had to remind myself that no matter where I go, because of the fall in Eden, there will be disappointment. I think it's easy to get caught up in being unrealistic about things, especially in work environments and relationships. We go into things thinking they should be one way or that they will be a certain way and when they don't turn out like we think they should, we feel like we've just crash landed. I'm so guilty of this and reading what I read today was such a great reminder. I want my relationships with my friends here to be void of disagreements and disappointments, but that's an unrealistic expectation. You can't take a broken person, put them with another broken person and not expect to disagree about something. Nor can you put a bunch of broken people with other broken people in a work environment and not expect the outcome to have flaws.

But the beautiful and realistic expectation is that God knows our hearts better than any friend or significant other or roommate. Tripp sums up the last paragraph of the meditation with this quote:

Be realistic. Remember, there's amazing grace for every realistic thing you'll be called to face.