As a Christian Counselor, it is my privilege and responsibility to give biblical guidance to those individuals and couples who come to me for advice and direction.  It is important to me that clients understand that the foundation of my work is God’s Word.  God has given us clear and specific teachings in the Bible for how to live our lives as His followers.  Do we do this perfectly?  Absolutely not.  But is it our goal to follow Him with greater intimacy and spiritual growth?  It should be! This is a part of what is called sanctification.

            One of the areas that people often struggle with is when I teach them that they should not have expectations of others.  It seems only right to them to say that they expect their mate, or others, to do certain things or to live a certain way so that they earn my client’s approval.  What the client often does not understand is that the parallel of expectations is holding up a hoop and insisting that their mate jump through it successfully in order to gain their approval.  When I challenge them on it I get a blank stare with a question mark written all over their faces.

            What does the Bible say about having expectations?  Let me be clear here.  The Bible does not come out and simply say “No expectations!”  That would be too easy.  Rather, I believe that God wants us to take His word in its entirety and put together what we believe about certain things…like expectations, not from a single statement but from across portions of His Word.

It is clear that we can fairly have expectations of our mate when it comes to honesty, faithfulness, etc.  However, our response to any failures on their part indicates what is in our own heart.  Are we acting with grace or hostility?  Their potential failure to meet our standards, or expectations, must not dictate our attitude.  What I need you to grasp is the answer to this question: “Do you love them because of who they are or because of what they do for you?”  Are you together because you find that you can’t live without them and feel connected to them spiritually and emotionally?  Or, are they around to stroke your ego, or provide things that you want?

In Matthew 7.1-3 Jesus teaches on judging one another.  Contrary to conventional wisdom He does not prohibit judging but He requires that we first take the plank out of our own eye.  Then we are free to comment on others’ actions.  The application for us is that we must not hold others to a high standard if we ignore our own flaws.  In other words, avoid having expectations of others if we are not scrutinizing our own lives first.  It’s easy to point out the flaws of others.  The hard thing here is to be deeply honest with ourselves.  Everyone has a plank or two…or three  Be honest with yourself before you criticize someone else for not fulfilling your expectations.

The Love Chapter, 1 Cor. 13, tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs.  This should be self-explanatory.  If we hold others to our expectations and they don’t fulfill them leaves us filled with anger/resentment/bitterness/hurt feelings then we are doing the opposite of what this chapter teaches.  Another way  of saying “keeping no record of wrongs” is keeping a list of unfulfilled expectations.

Colossians 3.13 This verse is all about forgiveness.  I think the King James translation says that we should not have “aught against any”, or anything against anyone.  If we have a list of expectations which are not fulfilled and we hold a grudge about it then we are ignoring the repeated teaching in scripture that we are to forgive at all times.

Here’s the killer verse: Luke 6.35.  “Love your enemies…do good…expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great”.  I know a spouse isn’t usually considered “an enemy” but it feels like that when we are in a troubled position with them and our expectations leave us at odds with them.  An enemy can be loosely defined, but I think we treat a spouse as an enemy if we hold grudges about unfulfilled expectations which clearly impacts our emotional attitude toward them.  Always remember that forgiveness is a choice, not an emotion.  We do have to make the choice to manage our emotions, but forgiveness doesn’t depend on that.  Forgiveness is always a choice.

            What I want you to keep in mind is that your heart is on display before God.  We all have to ask ourselves if our first concern is getting things the way we want them with our mate (expectations), or getting our hearts right with God above all else (loving humility).  This is an easy thing to give mental assent to but a much more difficult thing to live out.

If you find that you are having a hard time wrapping your mind around the idea of having no expectations, maybe its time to take a step further and find further teaching about it You can contact me with the information listed below for Biblical counseling on marriage and family.

Chuck Phillips

Life Choices Christian Counseling,LLC

Licensed Christian Pastoral Counselor, N.C.C.A.

Board Certified Professional Life Coach, I.B.C.C.

LifeChoicesCLC.Com LifeChoicesCLC@gmail.com

573-280-5093