In “Other” Words: I’ll Risk It

“Lower your expec­ta­tions of earth.
This isn’t heaven, so don’t expect it to be.”
~ Max Lucado ~
Noth­ing on this earth will dis­ap­point you more or more often than … peo­ple. There is noth­ing on the planet as capa­ble of destroy­ing your spirit or your self-confidence as another flawed human being.

It hap­pens time and again. You let down your defenses, get close (or so you believe) to some­one, begin shar­ing con­fi­dences and secrets, and … whammo! That per­son says or does some­thing that causes you to feel hurt, dis­ap­pointed, humil­i­ated, rejected … and you swear never to make the same mis­take again. You swear that you will never again trust some­one so implic­itly or naively.

As you’re read­ing this, you’re shak­ing your head in agree­ment, aren’t you? Come on, admit it! Let me hear an “Amen!”

You’re think­ing back to the time when ____________. Or remem­ber­ing the per­son who _____________. Or how about that time when _________________? That was a bad scene, wasn’t it? Thought you might not ever get your head back on straight or your heart started beat­ing again that time, right?

Ever asked your­self, “Why do I never learn?” I sure have. And guess what? I will ask that ques­tion again in the future. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again …

Why? Why don’t we learn and behave dif­fer­ently next time? Why aren’t we bet­ter at adopt­ing the ways of “the world”? Why do we keep risk­ing the hurt, despair and embarrassment?

Because it is not the nature of a Chris­t­ian to be hope­less, cyn­i­cal or down­trod­den for very long. That’s one of the many rea­sons why, after just a few weeks, I changed the name of this blog and my blog­ging “han­dle,” as I wrote about this past Sunday.

We live by and cling to pas­sages such as Hebrews 3:6:

But Christ the Mes­siah was faith­ful over His own Father’s house as a Son and Mas­ter of it. And it is we who are now mem­bers of this house, if we hold fast and firm to the end our joy­ful and exul­tant con­fi­dence and sense of tri­umph in our hope in Christ.

To live out our faith in a man­ner that is devoid of rejoic­ing, prais­ing and being thank­ful in all things is inim­i­cal to our rebirth in the waters of bap­tism! And an affront to the sac­ri­fice made for us. That is why we keep “going back for more” in our rela­tion­ships with oth­ers, always hope­ful and expec­tant that this time things will go bet­ter and we will emerge from this encounter unscathed, with our egos and hearts intact. We have all been ridiculed on account of our tenac­ity and stub­born­ness. Non-believers mis­con­strue our deter­mi­na­tion and stead­fast­ness, mis­in­ter­pret­ing those qual­i­ties as weak­nesses, but we are not dis­suaded.

This is in keep­ing with my own eager desire and per­sis­tent expec­ta­tion and hope, that I shall not dis­grace myself nor be put to shame in any­thing; but that with the utmost free­dom of speech and unfail­ing courage, now as always hereto­fore, Christ the Mes­siah will be mag­ni­fied and get glory and praise in this body of mine and be boldly exalted in my per­son, whether through life or through death.

Philip­pi­ans 1:20

So with apolo­gies to Pas­tor Lucado, I have no inten­tion of low­er­ing my expec­ta­tions. I am well aware that this is not heaven. I don’t expect it to be. I was taught by my hard-working par­ents that life is hard, there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as a free ride and I will face tri­als of vary­ing inten­sity and dura­tion through­out my life. They also taught me that the peo­ple in my life will dis­ap­point me — just like I some­times dis­ap­pointed them.

But they also taught me that as Christ loves his church (his peo­ple), par­ents should love their chil­dren. So no mat­ter how much or often I dis­ap­pointed them, after they fin­ished speak­ing their mind, I knew that I always had a home to return to where the love was stern and stoic, but com­pletely unend­ing, uncon­di­tional and inca­pable of measurement.

So I pre­fer to take the risk that I will be dis­ap­pointed, hurt, angry, humil­i­ated … when I reach out to, embrace and chance being in rela­tion­ships and com­mu­nity with other folks. Because every once in awhile, peo­ple amaze, sur­prise and delight me, reaf­firm­ing my hope­ful spirit and out­look with a kind word, hug, unex­pected gift … or even just a tender-hearted com­ment on my blog!

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