Quotes About Expectations

As Luke's story unfolds, Jesus continues to undermine expectations involving political power and Jewish identity. In his first public appearance, in a synagogue service, he claims to be the messiah, which creates quite a buzz of support—until he tells them that he will bless Gentiles and be rejected by his own kinsmen. The crowd responds by trying to throw Jesus off a cliff. Israel's messiah isn't supposed to say things like this.

The spiritual disconnection many feel today stems precisely from expecting (or being told to expect) the Bible to be holy, perfect, and clear, when in fact after reading it they find it to be morally suspect, out of touch, confusing, and just plain weird.

We have practically been conditioned to expect God to be our helicopter parent. And if for some reason we don't run to God to solve every little problem, from finding our car keys to deciding on color schemes for the nursery, we are told there is something deeply wrong with us spiritually. Phooey.

Reading the book of Proverbs on child rearing is like paying good money for financial advice and being told after ten sessions, "Here's what I've come up with. Invest your money wisely, and you will be set for retirement." I was hoping for stock tips.

Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all. A

If, in full conversation with the biblical and extrabiblical evidence, we can adjust our expectations about how the Bible should behave, we can begin to move beyond the impasse of the liberal/conservative debates of the last several generations.

The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is coming to the Bible with expectations it's not set up to bear.

I believe that God knows best what sort of sacred writing we need. And these three characteristic ways the Bible behaves, rather than posing problems to be overcome, are telling us something about how the Bible actually works and therefore what the Bible's true purpose is—and the need to align our expectations with it.

When we are taught that the Bible has to meet these unrealistic expectations for our faith to be genuine, the end product is a fragile, nervous faith.

Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations.... They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them "operators" or "programmers."

He knows it never works, so why does he always go for the same type? "Optimism!

Don't waste your breath. You can't help the terminally stupid. If people hate government so much they don't listen to official advice, they can't expect government to bend over backward to help them.

Mother Mary, this is not what was meant to be." "Nothing ever is, Doc. I learned that long ago." "Ha! You're too young." "Depends how you fill the years, doesn't it?

Focusing on the positive is hardly a new idea. It is just hard to remember to do it sometimes, particularly when the child's response is nowhere near what you expected. Indeed, the more we rely on expectations and standards, the harder it is to focus on what is going well.

Some girls are fortunate enough to be in love with deep and intelligent boys," she says. "And then there's the rest of us, who have to make do.

You draw something...and you get nothing. The you do the same thing again, but this time you get a star and are praised, how come? ...... It's something to do with time.... You got a star because you spent more time on the second drawing. And spent the time in a particular way. We think they have a plan, and that it has to do with time. ...... There's no such thing as better....The second one just fitted in better with their plan.

He had read somewhere that when a man marries a woman, he hopes she will stay the same forever, but when a woman marries a man, her agenda is to change him.

La vida es aquello que te va sucediendo mientras te empeñas en hacer otros planes».

But the one who unknowingly does things worthy of punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.