Peace Family, do you ever feel overwhelmed by others’ expectations?
With the holidays coming up, we can feel a lot of extra pressure about where we wish we were in life, who all we are obligated to spend time with or buy presents for, and even what our family dinner or Christmas morning should absolutely, no-excuses, positively be like! All of us have to be a combination of Martha Stewart, Julia Childs, Norman Rockwell, and Santa Claus himself, with the bank account of Bill Gates. Anything less than everything we should be, do, and give is a failure. Am I right?
It sounds a little silly to me, written out like that. We all want things to be peaceful and beautiful, and we don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially not our kids, our spouse, or our parents, but we live on planet earth.
If you are feeling overwhelmed right now, it might be a good time to step back, lay that flurry of thoughts down, and say, “Ok, these are everyone else’s expectation of me, but what are God’s expectations of me?” Many of our goals are important, but they will never be as important as what God wants from us.
When it all boils down, all God truly asks of you is to love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. He wants our love for him to lead us in obeying him and loving others well. The whole reason we have Christmas, is that God came to live, die, and rise again, to free us from the need to be perfect. He is all the perfection we will ever need. So take heart! Even if nothing else turns out right, as long as you are loving God and loving others, that’s all He cares about, and His opinion is the most important.
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