Christian Living

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The Cause and Effect of Unintentional Expectations

I know a young man who is going through some rough times. He is restarting his life and finds himself challenged in many areas. His situation got me to thinking about how we help others. He got me thinking about how we accept the grace of others. He got me thinking about my “grace factor.” Do I extend the same kind of grace to others that God extends me?

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone (Colossians 4:6, (NIV).

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don’t do a great job extending grace to those who need it and I am uncomfortable accepting grace from others. It seems that my unintentional expectations always get in the way.

The problem with extending or receiving grace is that, more often than not, I expect people to act like me. I expect them to have similar values and a practical, common sense, Christian approach to life (like I do?). I don’t let people know up front what my expectations are in the relationship. I just don’t like talking about that stuff. I often take it for granted that they know what to do and when to do it and, when they don’t meet expectations, I become disappointed or worse, angry. This is a very uncomfortable place to be in, especially when you are the one who is receiving help.

Often the grace we extend to others comes with strings attached; unintentional expectations on how that person should accept our help and unintentional expectations on how they should show their gratitude. Sometimes it’s those strings that make it difficult to accept help from others in the first place.

Over a year ago a gentleman, I once knew at church, was out of work. I spent half a day making phone calls and contacting people on his behalf. I passed the information along and became angry when he didn’t contact any of the people I found who were interested in helping him. I naturally assumed that it was up to me to solve his problem because I cared. It didn’t dawn on me that God had a different plan. The gentleman and his wife moved to a new location where they both found work and are happier because of it.

God’s grace is unconditional. Although I believe He is often disappointed in how we receive His grace, I believe His grace comes without strings. God continually blesses us knowing that we may not always glorify Him; that some of us may never glorify Him.

God loves us because God loves His creation, not because we will always love Him back. Serving others is what Jesus calls us to do. Serving others with a joyful heart, without conditions, is how we are to serve but severing those strings of unintentional expectations is not so easy.

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men... (Ephesians 6:7, NIV)

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