Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

On the Upside

Home
Catholic
No Apologies, No Expectations; Being You to the Fullest

No Apologies, No Expectations; Being You to the Fullest

Last updated on: October 16, 2019 at 9:11 pm by Adam Paterno

No Apologies, No Expectations; Being You to the Fullest 2019-10-16T21:11:47-04:00 Adam Paterno

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo by davedehetre on Foter.com / CC BY

Living a Double Life

It took repeating the same mistakes, falling into the same traps, chasing my own tail foolishly and crashing emotionally speaking twice in 2 years and some deep, deep soul searching as a result of all of this, to realize that the ball and chain that kept me from moving forward in life in several areas was false expectations.

What do I mean?

We live an unauthentic life, one that is not wholly ours, when we are slaves to someone else’: Standards, values, ideas, visions, objectives, emotions, etc…

John 3:20 says “for everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

-When you revolve around some one else’s expectations, we live a counterfeit life; you are some one else’s time and money.

-Living by some other set of life SOP’ and expectations, one not penned by your heart and experiences is being a fraud to yourself; and the falsehood associated to this web of lies will eventually be exposed sooner or later.

And you and only you may or will suffer exponentially.

The Hard Questions and God’s Expectations

The hardest questions to ask ourselves are:

-Who are you and what do you want?
-How much of you is really you?
-How much of your life is built by the authentic you; a foundation crafted by your hands, sowed by your desires and rooted in all that matters to you?

Funny enough, you come from God and are loved unconditionally by God; meaning no conditions; no stipulations, no hidden agendas, no catches, no fine print to sift through.

He has no expectations.

He wants your heart, your love as it is; imperfect and limited. That’s it. Period. It’s good enough for him.

So why do we live for some else’s approval and validation, remain even heck bent on meeting expectations that we will always fail to meet? How and why do we strive for goals and objectives that are really a mirror of someone else’ and thus never really meant for us?

Even more importantly, why loose ourselves in the pursuit of some one’ else’s happiness at the cost of our own?

There Can Only be One

When discussing the same issue with my Pastor recently, he opened up and was quite frank about his experiences ministering to many individuals who have lived their entire lives based on the expectations, desires and dreams of others; be it a mom, dad, sibling, grandparent, friend, wife, husband etc…

Sadly enough as he recalled, many of the people these individuals work so hard to please even in the here and now, are dead and gone.

The bar was set so high it didn’t come down when the Lord took them back.

Above and beyond all of this, it is the living that have to confront and deal with their paralyzing fear, anxiety, anger, resentment and bitterness for not meeting expectations that should no longer yield any substantial relevance, which begs the question as to whom these people consider to be the almighty creator of heaven and earth and everything in between.

You never have to be anything but your true authentic self; whatever that is, whatever that has to offer and wherever you brings you.

Anyone who thinks less of you for whatever you are including yourself just wants something more or less false or more like themselves or someone else. That’s not you; that’s not real. You are not fake news; you are the real deal and a story that continues to develop into something uniquely epic.

Let authenticity abound; be you: No apologies.

Photo by <a href=”https://foter.co/a3/5cbeab”>davedehetre</a> on <a href=”https://foter.com/re5/ef69e1″>Foter.com</a> / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>CC BY</a>

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 13, 2019

The Transformative Grace of Gratitude; Asking God and Ourselves What Really Matters

Next Post

October 19, 2019 God is Confidence; Pursue at all Costs

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Inspirational Mental health Uncategorized

Select a Month February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Romans say about the mind governed by the flesh versus the mind governed by the Spirit?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The flesh leads to sin, but the Spirit leads to righteousness The flesh is weak, but the Spirit is strong The flesh seeks itself, but the Spirit seeks God The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace