October 2
Scripture focus: You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. Matthew 5:3, The Message
I’m curious about your top ten all time blessings. I’m also intrigued by my own list. As I meditate on Matthew 5:3 - You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule – I wonder. Do I really understand how much God loves and blesses me each day?
No doubt, my husband tops my list of all time blessings. Along the way Pete and I have had pivotal moments in our marriage, moments when one or both of us felt at the end of our rope with the other. After more than thirty years of all that the good, the bad and the confusing times that we have lived through in our marriage, something weird has happened. We’ve realized that our marriage hasn’t lived up to our expectations. Like most couples, we started out our married life thinking that blessing came in pretty packages – fun vacations and holidays without conflict. But when lots of our vacations turned out, well, complicated and our holidays provided more of the same, we’ve had to rethink the concept of blessing. Our marriage and our memories are turning out to be both complicated and blessed.
For example, we almost missed out on a long weekend in Bermuda because our friends overslept and we almost missed our flight. I can’t remember why we had so much fun once we arrived in Bermuda, but we’ll never forget the ride to the airport!
We’ve taken carefully planned family trips that were flawlessly executed. But we relive the memory of the time our daughter convinced us to spontaneously leave the Grand Canyon and drive to Vegas (and stay for less than 24 hours) as a favorite McBean act of spontaneity.
We’ve sat in more bleachers, watched more pitches thrown, balls kicked and goals scored than we can count. But the one story that stands out above and beyond the victories and defeats of little league play involves a sudden lightning storm when all of us ended up sprinting across a field, dragging children and sports equipment to safety.
This month’s devotional will begin a multi-month conversation among us about spiritual renewal. We’ll refer often to the book Soul Repair. (Grab a copy and read along with us!) I’ve found that my spiritually impoverished state is often revealed in times of discontent or suffering when vacations and ball games, marriages and finances, family and friends don’t live up to my dreams, desires and expectations. Who knew that times of shenanigans are also times that ultimately prove to be blessed?
Pete tops my list of blessings today not because our married life lives up to expectations, but because of who he continues to reveal himself to be during the bad times. I don’t know how it came to be that so many of us equate blessing with favor and good times. It’s not what Jesus is teaching us in the beatitudes. Matthew 5:3 doesn’t meet us where our expectations live. But that’s okay, because maybe it’s time for us to adjust our expectations!
Recommended reading: Job 23 - 25
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5 comments:
I have great difficulty with the concept of having NO expectations. It has been running around in my head for months. How does having no expectations relate to the work environment, service, & even those we consider our top ten Blessings? Why don't Expectations & Boundaries collide? Isn't a lack of expectaions part of how we our co-dependent? The term is so broadly used in the Step program that I have a very hard time grasping the true meaning of it. I believe that part of the reason my life is such a train wreck is because my expectations are too low....thoughts?
Actually I think the expectations we have do lead to our being co-dependent when we believe that "helping" the other person is what good spouses, parents, and friends do. We married them, have them, and befriend them and expected them to be the way we want them to. That is turning out to be very hard work.
I believe I'm on my way to not having any expectations for others and only having them for myself. I expect to recover. That's all I can handle right now.
Ditto for me related to the comments by Hzjewl! I struggle so much with expectations, especially with my husband and adult sons. I, too expect to recover... and I am at the end of my rope!
so here in lies the problem for me...I expect my spouse to be faithful (or I wouldn't have married him), I expect to recover (not becasue I am able, but because He is able, I expect that if I do not do my job in the workplace I will be let go....are these not logical expectations, or am I using the wrong word? And true, the less I expect other people to treat me well, the less they will...creating the very traits I deplore..enabling, denial & co-dependency.....thank you for the feeback...one day I WILL get it!
I think you are getting it. In your expecting people to treat you well, yet the only one who knows exactly how you should be treated is you. Someone very wise keeps teaching me that I am not responsible for how others treat me but how I respond to the treatment. Like we say in group "we teach people how to treat us." If we let bad treatment go on, then that's how we want to be treated. That's where boundaries come into play. I think that we cannot place our expectations on others' behavior because we have no control over them, but God does. I choose to let Him take care of others because I cannot do it.
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