Expectations

I truly believe that I got lazy and side tracked!  I now wish to continue my blog.  So, If anyone is out there, let us continue the blog I seemingly abandoned for about a year or so.

The old adage goes “Don’t underestimate your opponent”  This has proven to be true in fist fights and battles.  The interesting thing I have always noticed about churches is that we often overestimate people and things.  I shall explain.  When people come to church, whether to worship God or seek spiritual help, they tend to have their guards down.  We do not expect to run into people that seek to destroy us in church.  Perhaps at a social club, or any social gathering we would see a clique but, even if we know that cliques exist in church, we deny that they are there and plunge in quite naïvely.

I had a friend who was a former minister that made this observation.  The problem is similar to underestimating an opponent in a fight: Our guards are down.  

 When this happens, it is a lot easier to get hurt.  The ironic part is that church should be the last place that people are hurt!  This has a tendency to destroy much good that the body of Christ had accomplished in one place (Ecclesiastes 9:18).  The Christian author John Bevere mentioned this in one of his books as “Our expectations are different of Christians compared to non-believers”.  

Perception can be everything.

What we perceive as a safe place to heal, deal, learn and prepare can differ from church to church.  The question can be asked:  what is your expectation?  In my life I have seen a lot of people hurt and offended by church members and clergy alike for trite and trivial reasons.  Other times, there were serious breaches that were left uncorrected.  It seems to me that perception needs to be looked at on both levels: the offender and the offended. 

It appears that the answer lies in  a very simple principle:  “….be ye therefore as wise as serpents, and harmless as doves”  (Matthew 10:16)  For in this we can forgive others  for their faults and forgive ourselves likewise!

This also reminds me of how some people behave in a Dojo…. But that is another story………………