Expectation Management
ONE HEARTRENDING TELEVISION PROFILE during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics told of a United States wrestler who for years had dominated meet after meet and now was expected to win a gold medal. Sadly, though, with family, friends, team, and country rooting for him, he lost one of the early rounds. At the completion of his match, this tough wrestler was so distraught he fell to his knees with his face to the mat and wept like a baby. His teammates tried to lift him from the mat, but he refused to rise. Finally he got up and trudged off, head down, grieving as if he had lost a loved one. Expectations are powerful. They touch deep emotional currents. They affect our personal dreams and values, our relationships. They can define our work and responsibilities. In short, they can control us. Usually the power of expectation is beneficial; other times it can put us into a painful realm where no one can live happily. This is the place of unrealistic expectations—the ones we put on ourselves as well as the ones others place on us. Perhaps no group is more susceptible to this position than pastors, and no matter how spiritual we are, it can kill our desire to go on. I know. I've been there. I do not recall, now, the specific criticism leveled against me, but I felt that at the root of it was an unfair expectation and I was smarting from it. As I drove home, I defended myself: How can I do more than I am already doing? I work sixty hours a week. I fast and pray one day a week. I study hard for each sermon. I don't even have a secretary. When I got home I continued to mull over what had been said to me. This was not a propitious time for my wife to point out a task I had failed to do at home, but she did. I exploded. I catalogued the demands ...
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