Relationships That Give Life

Expectancy and Responsibility

I want us to pay another visit to the Garden of Eden and take a closer look at how the devil managed to win Eve over to his side and get her to disobey God in spite of knowing the consequences which had been clearly outlined to her. We will discover a motivational force which is very powerful and so common place that it is not recognized as being a major source of making relationships which start well become dysfunctional. It is also the source of much of the blame and guilt that we can experience in dysfunctional relationships and why people become manipulative, and sometimes verbally and physically abusive to get their own way.

The Temptation Scene

Sin was kept out of creation by trust. God trusted Adam and Eve to obey His word and they in their turn trusted God that the prohibition order on the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was for their highest good. Part of the trust relationship was the fact that God couldn’t spell out the details of the consequences of disobedience because Adam and Eve didn’t yet have any knowledge of good and evil to give them that understanding. Although God knew the future Adam and Eve didn’t. From their perspective the consequences were unknown and because they were unknown a picture could be painted in their minds as to what that future might be if they ate the fruit.

That is exactly what the serpent did. He skillfully painted a picture in Eve’s mind of what she could expect to gain if she followed his advice. The picture was she would not suffer the consequences that God had said would happen if she disobeyed Him. He told her that instead of dying she would receive something far better than what she had now. He had now distanced her from the reality of God and what He had said and her attention was now focused on this tree, its fruit and what it could offer. Gen 3:1 – 5The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”. Her comment about the tree shows us how well the serpent had done his work. Gen 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Her decision to take the fruit was based entirely on the picture the serpent had painted in her mind and what she expected to gain for herself. Expectation had blinded her to the reality of what was actually going to happen which was exactly as God had said it would be.

Adam and Eve also had responsibilities. Because God had put them in charge of the earth they were responsible for keeping sin out of the human race even though they didn’t really know what sin was. They did know that God was good, that He loved them and on those grounds alone He could and should be trusted. Also Adam, being head of creation was responsible for stopping Eve from eating the fruit of the tree as we see in the words of God to Adam after the event. Because you have heeded the voice of your wife was the reason he would suffer the consequences of sin.

We see here a vital key to the success of our relationships and a powerful enemy to that success. Successful relationships occur when we act out of our responsibility to the relationship rather than our expectation of the relationship. Failed expectation is the silent killer of relationships.

Destructive Expectation

Expectation gives us a picture that is usually better than reality so it causes us to make decisions based on what we think we are going to get rather what we are actually going to get This was the mistake that Adam and Eve made which allowed sin to enter the human race. Expectation sets us up to make self centered decisions that can bring disappointment and loss when the actual reality is less, sometimes much less, than what we expected. Expectation focuses us on what we think we are getting for our benefit and blinds us to the reality of what we are actually going to get. All Adam and Eve actually got was death and loss just as God said it would be.

Expectation is a natural attitude for a being with an unknown future which is part of our decision making process. When we make decisions we have a picture of what we expect to get based on our interpretation of the information we receive. We judge the success of a decision by whether it met our expectations or not. If the result exceeded our expectation we consider we have made a really good decision. If it met our expectations then the decision was OK but if it failed to meet our expectations then the choice was a bad one and the result needs to be manipulated until it does meet our expectations. Our ego contaminates our expectation so we consider that everything that becomes part of our lives should advance us and promote our success. We can see now why so many marriages which start well end up failing. We go into them on the wrong foundation. There is of course no situation that cannot be redeemed by our Father but we will have to let go of our expectations and face the responsibilities we took on when we made our vows to each other.

As we have developed our life we have unconsciously built a stronghold out of this exceptional attitude so we make our value system the standard by which we judge everything. This condition allows me to expect other people to behave in the way I believe they should behave which makes me judgmental in my relationships. It puts me and my values centre stage motivating me to manipulate others to my standards. This makes my standard the standard by which I judge everything so that things that meet or exceed my expectations are good for me and to be pursued and things that don’t meet them must either be changed and brought up to my standard or cast away and ditched. Expectation plays a major part in our relationships and is the source of our tendency to judge and blame the other person when it goes wrong. Some of the phrases we use give us away. How about the statement, ‘I wouldn’t do it that way if I was you’. Expectation is a destructive downward spiral because it leads to…

…Disappointment in ourselves or others when our expectations are not met which leads to…
…Loading blame and guilt on ourselves or others who have fallen short so bring about change which leads to…
…Manipulation, which can include threat of punishment, if our expectations are not met which leads to…
…Resentment of and resistance to being manipulated which leads to…
…All the negative emotions which end up breaking the relationship.

So often when we enter relationships, either personal or corporate, like a church, a cell group, a Bible college, or even a job and especially marriage, full of expectation. We create a picture of what we expect to get from them and if we don’t get what we expect we see it as the failure of the person, or persons we have joined ourselves to not giving us what our expectations told us we were entitled to get. Expectation focuses our attention on what we consider is lacking in others or even ourselves which gives us a complaining, manipulating, resentful, moaning, criticising attitude to everything we have decided fails us. It is right to complain in the right circumstances but we need to make sure our complaint is objective and based on a real failure rather than a failure to meet our standard. Here is an example. If I go to a restaurant for a meal I can expect the restaurant to provide me with a meal that is eatable and of a standard commensurate with the price I pay. The more I pay the higher the standard but I don’t have the right to expect them to meet my personal standard, especially if I am a very fussy, pedantic person. What is worse this self-centred attitude causes us to bad-mouth the restaurant to our friends which may cause the restaurant a loss of business which it doesn’t deserve. Some people always find fault and are never satisfied. They always have something to complain about. It’s too hard or it’s too soft. It’s too sweet or it’s not sweet enough. It’s too hot or it’s too cold. It’s straight and I wanted it round. It’s the wrong colour. It doesn’t matter what you do there is always something wrong. Expectation plays havoc in Christian ministry. A lot of ministry can be very manipulative. Ministry to someone or even ourselves is to achieve the goal of us becoming who God wants us to be. It is not for the purpose of imposing on someone who I have decided God wants them to be. Although as Christians there are standards of conduct to which we are all bound, expectation often makes my personal interpretation the standard for all. Christians can load themselves and others with guilt and condemnation because they fail to meet either the standard they have been taught they should meet or the one they have imposed on themselves.
Even when we think of responsibility we use the word in the context of the responsibility we expect others to take for our benefit. This is the motivation of so much extreme legislation around health and safety. My health and my safety is always someone else’s responsibility not mine. If something goes wrong others must pay. To show how ridiculous and extreme this can get here is a story about a man who successfully sued a camper van company for failure to put a notice in the van which said that when you put it in cruise control you can’t go in the back and make a cup of tea leaving no one at the controls. That is what he did and he won his case on the grounds that there was no notice in the van saying you couldn’t do that. I am not saying that people do not have to be taken to task for their bad behavior or not dealing with issues that are dangerous to my well being but manipulating them to meet your expectations even if the standard of your expectation is right is not the way to achieve lasting change. There is another way, approach relationships from the perspective of responsibility towards the relationship rather than expectation of the relationship.

Responsibility

God acts towards us out of His responsibility to us rather than His expectation of us. When He created everything He took upon Himself responsibilities towards that creation. His decisions and consequent actions towards us were based entirely on those responsibilities. Our continued existence and the seasons we rely on never fail because of God’s attitude of responsibility to His creation, no matter how much we misuse it. Gen 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease.” Heb 1:3 upholding all things by the word of His power. Out of this attitude of responsibility the question He asked himself when Adam and Eve let sin into His creation was, ‘What can I do to put this right? He therefore spoke the word of salvation instead of judgment even though it cost Him everything. Responsibility does everything it can, including making all the sacrifices necessary, to produce reconciliation. No stone is left unturned and my experience of hurt and loss does not feature high on the list of things to be considered. The challenge is that when a relationship gets into difficulty our attitude needs to be ‘what is my responsibility in this situation? Not ‘what must I do to get my expectations met?

God does not have any expectations of us in spite of the way we have made the Scriptures say that He has. God is all knowing and even knew all about us before the foundation of the world. Ps 139:1 – 16. This means He knows all about our future, exactly how we are going to perform, so with this knowledge He cannot expect us to do something different from what He already knows we will do. He has no expectation of us like we have expectation because we don’t know the future. God knew before He saved us that unless we walk in the Spirit we would always follow the lust of the flesh. He knew that His Spirit within us would be the only way we would be able to live a holy life and behave as we should. He says to us ‘why do you think I indwell you? Because I know you can’t live the way you should live unless I do it with you. When you were saved God did more than just forgive your sin. He made you a new creation. This had to be done because forgiveness alone couldn’t change our hearts. He knew we needed a new nature to change us inside, in the place where sin used to flow out of us. Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Because of this foundation to our relationship with God He doesn’t lay any expectations on us to perform and He doesn’t blame us for our weaknesses and mistakes when we fail. The righteousness of Jesus covers all our failures. We are free from the guilt and condemnation that is so often associated with our failure to act as we think we are expected to act. This freedom actually enables a Christian to live as they should without the effort we so often think we have to put into overcoming failure. Rom 8:1 – 3So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.A So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.. We so easily think that because we have expectations of others and ourselves God has expectations of us to live up to all the commands of Scripture to live a Holy life. Many preachers exploit this expectational basis to our lives and preach in a way to manipulate and control their congregations by loading them with guilt for not being the Christian they say God expects them to be. Now if my relationship with God is based on my new birth and what His Spirit can do in me then the same is true in my relationship with others. If I have a performance free relationship with God I also have a performance free relationship with them and if I have a performance free relationship with them I can’t lay any expectations on them to perform. Therefore I will not load them up with guilt and blame when they fail me. We may have to deal with issues that are destructive to our relationships but it is done on the basis of our responsibilities toward each other.

What Does Taking Responsibility Mean

How does this work in practice? It simple means that the basis of our relationships and the ground on which we deal with issues that need attention is our responsibility towards each other. Just like Eve in the garden I also have responsibilities in every relationship I have and the solution to problems is based on those responsibilities. When I made my commitment to Jesus and was saved I took on the responsibility of living the new life by the faith of the Son of God who lives in me. We need to really get an understanding of exactly what Christian living is all about and what is the purpose of us living a Holy life because our relationships work on the same basis. Simply put, people who do not know God are dependent on us showing them what God is like so they can be drawn to him exactly the way Jesus lived and showed us what the Father was like. If I don’t accept my responsibility to live as a Christian I will fail to be the blessing God means me to be to others and myself. I do not have to perform to please God because He has made me righteous but I do have to perform to be a blessing to others because it is the performance of the Christian life or lack of it that makes me a blessing or a curse to others. We might not like to hear it but we are now responsible for our responses to the situations we find ourselves in and the subsequent actions we take as a result of what has happened to us. We have been given a divine nature which has replaced our self-nature. This makes us responsible to look like we are saved and behave like we are saved. This is the grounds on which we deal with behavior that is causing difficulties in our relationships. People need to be confronted with their responsibilities to the relationship and faced with the consequences of their failure to accept them. This puts the confrontation in the arena of people changing themselves so they conform to the principles of the word of God rather than being manipulated into conforming to someone else’s expectations.

In Isa 43:2When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. God tells us that the waters we go through will not drown us and the fires we experience will not burn us but this blessing will only happen if we shoulder our responsibility to live as a Christian. Even when we are a totally innocent victim we still have two responsibilities towards ourselves and the offender. 1 Forgive and 2 Don’t let it ruin your life. There is nothing more tragic than to see someone who has been deeply hurt by someone else’s behavior descend into a pit of self destruction. Issues are most successfully dealt with when people are taught to accept their responsibilities in the situation. Are you controlled by your expectations? Do you try to manipulate your circumstances or your relationships to meet your expectations? Do you suffer guilt and condemnation because you have failed the expectations of yourself or others? Do you make others feel guilty because you make them believe they have failed you? Do you feel guilty because you think you have not met the standard you believe God expects of you? If some of these issues affect you, you need to move the basis of your life from expectancy to responsibility and you will be set free.