Real Talk Sample

Expectations

Put yourself in Jairus’ shoes. Your daughter is on the verge of death, so you come get Jesus to heal her. Then, on the way to the house, He stops to help someone else. While Jesus is healing the other person, you get news that your daughter is now dead. How would you have responded in that moment? What do you think was going through Jarius’ mind? Blame? Anger? Confusion?  

I imagine Jairus expected Jesus to go straight to his house - not to stop along the way. Jesus didn’t live up to his expectation. While this story ended well, oftentimes our unmet expectations lead to conflict. 

We all have expectations and we all have expectations that will go unmet. That’s just part of life. 

When it comes to our expectations, we need to inspect what we expect. It’s okay to have expectations of others, but we have to make sure they are reasonable. 

Reasonable expectations must be conscious, realistic, spoken, and agreed upon.

Conscious: Were you aware you even had an expectation? Sometimes you don’t realize you have an expectation until that expectation isn’t met.

Realistic: Can the other person and will the other person actually do what you expect? 

Spoken: Have you told the other person what you expect? They can’t read your mind. 

Agreed upon: Did the other person agree to the terms of the expectation?

Whenever there is an unmet expectation it usually means one of the above conditions wasn’t met. So, before you react, think through how you’re expectations may have played a role in the conflict and then work to make it right. Making it right sometimes means a difficult conversation needs to happen.

Who do you need to go to and say, “I didn’t make this clear before, but here’s what I expect...”. Or, “I assumed you knew this, but I realize I never actually told you what I expect...”. People aren’t mind readers. They can’t guess what you expect.