Expectations are double edge swords. They can stretch us to reach new heights in life OR they can make us think we're constant failures depending if they're correct assesments of who we are.
A look into the Jesus' Parable of Talents over the next 2 weeks is helping me understand what expectations I put on myself and others; who I am and what my responsibilities are (hopefully this will be true for everyone):
Jesus tells a story about a master who leaves his property in the hands of his servants, giving each of them a certain amount of cash (trading power) until one day he returns and settle accounts.
The genius of the master is that though he has an intended result for each of his servants - he wants some good return on his money - he doesn't expect the same from each servant. In fact he discerns their capacity and gives them each a unique amount of money.
Last week in our series (no comparisons) we focused on this: God created you to freely be you. There's more to the parable which we'll unpack this week, but we left trying to understand how God's kingdom works, focusing on this one aspect. What he expects of us while we're living our lives, until one day he - like the master - returns and makes all this right (new heaven, new earth), and also settles accounts with us.
- God doesn't measure us according other people's measurements (I illustrated this by asking 5 people to lend me their left shoe - all different sizes and shapes was pretty clear).
- God expects of us what he's asked of us - not what he asks of other people.
- We also can't judge others according to our abilities, but their own.
- if we're in a struggling circumstance, maybe God actually believes we can handle it
- if our expectations are way to high, we can feel like failures every single day
- if our expectations are too low, we might never accomplish what God dreams for our life
Imagine living with the freedom to be yourself (more accurately, the self God intends you to be) - knowing he believes in you b/c he entrusted you with unique capabilities to be his local kingdom representative on earth until Christ returns with the fullness of the Kingdom.
Imagine being in a community with people of all different capacities - with no envy of those with higher capacity or no judgement of those with lower capacity.
Imagine having friends that accepted where you felt less capable and rejoiced where you were highly capabale.
Imagine your church community also became free by discerning it's capacity in the present and focused on that until more responsibility was distributed by God.
[part 2 of 'no comparisons' in matthew 25 is coming up this week-end: the faithful you]
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