Religion is a Relationship

I just finished reading The Same Kind of Different as Me. I have to say that it took a while to get into the book and start enjoying it. But once I was hooked, I didn't want to put it down. That feeling was justified when I got to the last few pages of the story. There are very few books that have quotes in them that reach me. This particular story is told from two different points of view. One is a homeless black man and the other is a rich white man. Oddly enough, it was the homeless man's words and thoughts on life that affected me the most. If I have to have anyone's view of the world, I want it to be someone who loves and sees things for how they are. Not walking around with some skewed, uninformed version of the world. However, the main quote that stuck with me was one from the rich man, Ron, who the homeless man, Denver, helped to transform his views on life. Ron said that, "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship". I believe this to be very true. If you go through your religious life only following rules and not growing in your beliefs or in your time in God, I do not believe you are following God's plan for us. But I also believe that God wants more from us than a relationship with him. I believe he wants us to have a relationship with others that reflects him. In our development of relationships with other, we grow in ours with God. If we are to reach people who need to be saved from their lives, they are more willing to follow those people they trust. They need to know that it isn't a 'catch and release' sort of system with them. I believe that if we all focused on our relationships with everyone involved in our lives, we would make large steps in the right direction for God. Do we have shallow relationships with others? Do we focus to much on a few? Are truthful and honest with ourselves and our friends? What relationships have you let fall away and not taken care of? I could go on about questions, but I have one more. What if God allowed us to fall into one of these categories? I know that if the one person I trusted more than anything to be there for me let me down, I would be devastated. God is there for us. Are we there for him? Do we reflect his love and grace to others through our relationship with them? If a wealthy, sheltered white man can go outside his comfort zone and become like brothers with a criminal, homeless ex-slave, why can't we?

Expectations vs Expectancy

I have always been one of those people who say expectations are my own worst enemy. I really had no idea what this truly meant in my life. I would be excited about an event and then after it was over, I would feel a sense of disappointment. I wouldn't have lived in the moment and then I would be frustrated that I spent lots of energy waiting for it and then I had no happy memory to keep with me.

While I was reading The Shack, the author raised the point of the expectations vs expectancy. This point was, at first, lost on me. It didn't apply. But the more I started to go through therapy and realized how much disappointment was affecting my every day life in association with expectations, I started to reconsider. To me, an expectation is a noun. A finite thing. It is a bar or a line in the sand I expect an experience to live up to. Something I had to realize was some of my expectations were unrealistic. (Example: When I graduated college, my family took me to Hawaii. John went with us and the whole time I was expecting him to propose. He didn't. I was disappointed. I remember very little about the trip)

So I started thinking. Why does an event have to only live up to a single measuring point? Why can't something be a good experience and not make it to the set expectation? Or, what happens if something 'exceeds my expectation"? Will I truly appreciate it if I am too busy trying to measure it?

I asked myself, "Why can't I just live in a sense of expectancy"? Why can't I just know things are going to happen and appreciate them for what they are? This allows me to live in the moment and make lasting memories. I mean, I graduated from college, went to Hawaii with the man I love and I don't remember much because I was swimming in a pool of anxiety and disappointment from my expectations. I completely this was self-inflicted, but I do not think I am the only one out there who lives this way.

I know I will be disappointed in life and this is not an attempt to never be. That in of itself is a unrealistic expectations. I had a sweet talk with a good friend about anxiety and I believe that if I can enter into a situation without set expectations, but aware that things will happen (living in expectancy) I will be more relaxed. I will have less anxiety and be better emotionally equipped to handle what will happen.