Free of Expectation

It has been a little while since I posted, but I don't like to post for the simple sake of posting; I like to have a purpose. I have been reading, and at times, re-reading Joyce Meyer's book "Power Thoughts," and there is a section that continues to stick out to me. On page 228 Joyce writes, "Learn to enjoy all different types of people, because many of our moments have people in them. I recently read that most of our unhappiness is caused from people not being what we want them to be or doing what we want them to do..."
So often, we frame expectations around individuals in our lives: how we think they should act, speak, treat us and others, raise their children; and without communicating our expectations (most often we shouldn't) we believe that they will somehow be aware of expectations and act accordingly. When they don't, we allow ourselves to become frustrated. How often have we left a party, a family member's house, a friend's company and said, "I wish they would have" or "They didn't say or do ___" or "I can't believe they ___?" It's because we placed an unrealistic expectations (unrealistic because they aren't aware of it and we expected them to be) upon their behavior that we had no right to.
How freeing would it be to remove any burden of expectation from the lives of those around you, including yourself, and have the only deciding factor in your life and the lives of others be God and His Word. That's it. We don't know the daily difficulties and personal situations of those around us, and to place an expectation on someone's behavior that they aren't aware of or that shouldn't even be placed upon them is setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration that can easily be avoided.
Free those in your life from having to live up to the expectations you have set for them, and allow yourself to not become entangled in the expectations that others have set for you. Live your life in accordance with God's Word, allowing the Holy Spirit to perform its perfect work in you, and live free of expectation.