great expectations?

Here is a thought to chew on, wrestle with, maybe even push back on...

"To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities (upon others), to that degree you neither know God nor trust Him."

Here is what is stirring within me...and though articulating my heart and where it is at is often confusing, I hope my feeble words will do justice to what God is teaching me...

I do believe that the degree to which I live in expectations and responsibilities is the degree to which I believe God, or rather do not believe Him...ultimately expectation means "I expect to control my end result based upon my work." Expectation is about my control, thus not God's sovereignty in my life. And responsibility is my expectation, standards and judgment upon someone else, based upon my view of "good and evil" or "right and wrong" system.

All this goes back to my identity FULLY in Jesus...because if I not only knew but believed Him, Him in me, then I am free to love others and sacrificially serve them, right where they are at in their own life...whether they are "right" or "wrong" because that is irrelevant anyways in allowing Jesus to manifest His life in me. My expectations mean I am attempting to control them...but they are unique, just as their choices and relationship with Jesus is just that: between them and God alone. It is not mine, has nothing to do with me...and that is freeing.

Jesus alone is the change agent.

I want to know and trust Him so fully that my relationships are so rich...that I am able to enjoy the unique and diverse life of each individual that is either in my life or simply crosses it for a day...that I can engage other wounded, imperfect and broken people without judgment and "expectation" but only expectancy...to experience more of Jesus and walk freely in Him.

Here are the questions that I now wonder about...

How many of my relationships - family, friends, coworkers, etc. - function out of expectation...thus on rules, "supposed to's", meet my standards, essentially out of fear? How many would say they are freely loved, given grace at any time, and do not have to work to be received and loved? How many feel a subtle expectation and are driven by performance?

...because none of these are based upon the life of Jesus.

Bouncing back briefly to my last post about God's Spirit...how He moves us, "blows" us from one place to the next, all within His hand..

Walking and living in my identity in Jesus ONLY frees me up to be blown all over and having no clue at all to where I am going, what is next, yet living freely in joy in the moment. I am free from expectations. It frees me up to NOT have control, whatsoever...in the lives of others and in my own. Because my life is not my own anyways...