Disillusionment of Relationship

What expectations do you have for the people in your life? I have one set for my husband, another for my kids and still another for my friends. I don’t think that I set a high standard of relational demands until I find those demands (which I did not know were demands) not being met.

I recognize I have one overall expectation for everyone in my life, which is depth of relationship. I want to be close to those who are important to me. If there is a distance, I feel insecure and try to rectify the distance or the reason for it as quickly as I can. If the distance continues I often feel unloved and undervalued. This “feeling” then leads me to draw back from the person thereby creating more distance. The very thing I wanted to avoid.

Not everyone needs the same level of intimacy that I find myself needing. The people I am most secure with tend to be those who are not necessarily like me but understand that need. I have realized however, no one can make me secure, no one can satisfy my expectations, no one is always constant in their love or affection. No one except Jesus.

Oswald Chambers addresses this subject of expectations in My Utmost for His Highest. In the devotional for July 30, he states:

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and
false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However,
though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave
us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the
disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people
as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter
criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief,
or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to
one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to
our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is
either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of
human life. And this is how that suffering happens— if we love someone, but do
not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and
when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a
human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one
Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human
heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously
uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that
every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in
disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He
was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s
grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving
up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up
despairing of everyone.

No one will ever meet our every expectation, our every need, and if they try they will fail. If we hold those we love to the level of perfection, we will become bitter and unkind to those we claim to love and will in turn miss their expectation of us. The fact that we fail does not mean that we do not love, all it means is that we are human. A person’s willingness to change, to meet another’s expectations is actually one way they reveal their love. We need to place our absolute trust in Christ, and when we are able to do that then we can allow those around us to love us the best way they know how, and accept what they have to offer, not what we expect them to give.

Jesus did not commit Himself to them….for He knew what was in man….

John 2:24-25