A Lifestyle of Grace

Our Women's Bible Study at church is going through the book Stronger by Angela Thomas. Again, it's right what I needed when I needed it. God is good like that. Anyways, today, I wanted to share with you a few key things out of the book that really struck me. The specific week theme is God is stronger than my overwhelming life. The day subject is Unrealistic Expectations- Mine and Theirs. 

She starts out by describing her perfect picture of life then asks "Do you have a magazine dream?" I almost laughed at that question. It took me about .5 seconds to answer it and describe in detail my answer. Then, she asks "Does any of this resemble dreams you have or still hold onto?" Of course, my answer was yes. Here's her response... 

If we take all our dreamy, unrealistic expectations and add the unrealistic expectations from the people we love, we create a dangerous concoction: a recipe for an overwhelming, disappointing life.  After all, burnout comes not from work, but from not achieving expectations. (pg 102)

Have you expected someone or something other than God to live up to your expectations? To fill you up? To make you whole? To always keep his/her promise? To respond to your parenting with kind obedience? To be your Savior?  (pg 102)

Ouch. Double Ouch. And basically the last year of my life in 2 sentences. Aaron and I are about to enter our 6th year of marriage. I can honestly say that I spent year 1-5.2 expecting my magazine life. I held (and still do) hold Aaron to an expectation of creating my happiness. Because of that, I let bitterness and discouragement destroy my marriage. I have set a standard for my kids that's unrealistic and because of that, I have been a hard and angry mother. 

Angela goes onto to say...  

Have you expected too much of yourself- to be the best mom, best daughter, best wife, best student, best friend,  best employee, best follower of Christ? 

 From the first breathe you drew, you have need a Savior. You are imperfect and flawed. 

Jesus took you off the hook when He died on the cross. He bore our sin and imperfection. You do not have to be what you can never be. 

Amen to that! Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We have to renew our expectations and our standards with the fact that- Only God is perfect. No other person or myself can be or do what we need God to do in our life. And the truth of this is... God has already done what we need. When he died on the cross, he offered us salvation. Grace that covered our shortcomings, our faults, our unrealistic expectations.

If we allow that truth to renew our mind, we will be set free of living a life measured by our expectations. 

Angela challenges us with this... 

Who needs to be let off the hook today? Your husband? A wayward child? You and your high expectations? Make a list of the names. Now make this declaration for each name you have written:

__________________________________________, you are off the hook. I kneel at the cross and lay down my unrealistic expectations about you. You are a human being who needs a Savior. Only God is perfect. I hereby release you from ever having to be my Savior, my fulfillment, and my joy. All that I need is Him. Jesus Christ is my Savior. I am humbled and I am greatful.  (pg 104)

Man, making that list for me was mentally and emotionally exhausting. Not because I had to come up with names for the list, but because my list ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. Once I started thinking, I came up with quite a few people that I've held to a higher standard that I should have been. And the truth is, it's easy to recite that declaration. It's easy to say those words- It's the action behind those words that is hard. 

For me, that's a declaration I will have to make a few times a day, every day, until my mind is renewed in the truth that only God is perfect and no other person on this planet, including myself, will live up to my perfect expectation. And what does that mean for my life? 

It means this...

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.- Luke 12:48b

We are given grace freely, which means that we need to extend grace in return. Obviously, God does not need our grace, but others do. If you've followed my blog for a time, you know that over the last 10 months, God has revealed more to me about His grace than ever before. And the more I realize how God's grace applies to my life, I realize that if I'm going to live Christlike, I have to live out grace to others. 

Today, let's make a point to let others off the hook. Let's let ourselves off the hook. And let's let our minds be transformed. Only God is perfect. And because He's extended undeserved grace to us, we need to live a life of extended grace to others!