Having a goal oriented personality makes unmet expectations an opportunity for the gospel every day. As a mom, there are a certain number of tasks in our home that I know need to be accomplished for our days to roll out smoothly. When those tasks go unmet, often because I’m sick and can’t keep my usual pace, it causes me to rely on my family to pick up the slack. When their efforts don’t meet my expectations it makes me impatient. I find myself complaining in my heart, lamenting the ideas that I had of achieving the goals I had set for that day, and the image of a family that loved me enough to help without complaint, whistling as they worked, despite the fact that they’ve all had their own set of tasks and agendas for the day.

The issue isn’t with the tasks of our home or even with my needing help once in a while to ensure all of them get done. The problem is the control I want to wield over how and when my needs are met, rather than trusting that the Lord has already met all of my needs and resting in the satisfaction that brings. Moreover, the greater issue looming deep beneath the surface excuse of just wanting to make sure all the things get done, is my pride needing affirmed that I am capable of balancing all the spinning wheels just fine on my own. The Lord will find ways to remind me that this is His show. Not mine.

While I’m fussing and focusing on the dishes being unwashed before the end of the school day, because once the kids get home it’s much harder to get the chores done and all I want to do is spend time just soaking in their day with them, helping with homework, or whatever else they’d like to do, I’m focusing on what my expectation for this given outcome was, rather than God’s.

When I’m stewing because the laundry didn’t get rotated, and the clean clothes options are limited, and I feel like my family has willfully neglected to help out, and that their unwillingness is a direct reflection of their love for me, I have provided a self-absorbed, selfish example of immaturity and a lack of faith in the provision the Lord has made for us. The closets spill out with clothes and I’ve conflated the love of my children for their mother with whether or not they leapt at the opportunity to cycle one load.

Too often I subconsciously set an expectation for the sort of mood I’d like for my husband to be in at the end of a long day and when his mood and my imagination don’t align I’m discontent, sink into bitterness, confuse him with sharp tones and cold shoulders even when all he has done is work diligently all week long, and exist in our home in the way he needs to, rather than in the way I hoped he would. I don’t stop to consider what he might have hoped my mood would be like, or even what he needed from my presence so that our home could be a place of restoration for him.

In reality, my children help with daily tasks. The problem is that my heart becomes anxious, angry, and defiant when I am faced with my own limitations. In reality, my husband’s mood is often generous, kind, and affectionate and it’s certainly within his right to be less so when he needs to be. The problem is my heart that seeks the affirmation of my worth based on his praise or recognition. It’s not my family’s job to meet all my needs, nor should I expect them to, the problem is that I’ve substituted my expectation that they can for the truth that God already has.

Jesus’ death and resurrection has already met all of my needs. This doesn’t mean that I can neglect our home, let the dishes rot, and laundry mold; rather, I should be tending these things because they have been given to me by the Lord to steward and in keeping them well, I’ve honored him. Too often I confuse the tasks as mine to do, as if I’ve set the agenda, but the tasks I have are the ones that have been given to me by the Lord to do. It is His home that I keep, His children my husband and I have been given to raise, my husband belongs to Jesus first. When I reorient my mind to the truth of the gospel and ask, what is His expectation of me? All of a sudden my expectations pale by comparison to the One whose testimony I bear as I accomplish His tasks for my day. Whether the dishes get washed or the laundry gets done is immaterial if I have given my children the picture of a mother burdened by bitterness, short tempered, and unloving. But if while accomplishing the tasks I am able, with a heart of gladness, grace, and joy, I have demonstrated the sort of character they can expect to find in their savior when they come to Him needing grace, then I have accomplished the expectation for me that is my savior’s.

My expectations mean nothing if they don’t begin and end with: glorify God today in all you do and passionately prefer Christ over everything else.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t accepted the free gift of Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross you are toiling for a world that is perishing. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Come to Jesus today. He will give you the purpose of your life: to glorify Him and grow His kingdom.

God bless.