Quotes about Expectations

Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all. A

If, in full conversation with the biblical and extrabiblical evidence, we can adjust our expectations about how the Bible should behave, we can begin to move beyond the impasse of the liberal/conservative debates of the last several generations.

The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is coming to the Bible with expectations it's not set up to bear.

I believe that God knows best what sort of sacred writing we need. And these three characteristic ways the Bible behaves, rather than posing problems to be overcome, are telling us something about how the Bible actually works and therefore what the Bible's true purpose is—and the need to align our expectations with it.

When we are taught that the Bible has to meet these unrealistic expectations for our faith to be genuine, the end product is a fragile, nervous faith.

The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectations of the wicked will perish.

He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him.

Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. (...) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us.

Success is not what you have done compared to what others have done. Success is what you have done compared to what you were supposed to do.

Obeying the will of God takes priority over satisfying cultural expectations.

it is far more natural, and common, for leaders to avoid holding people accountable.

All too often in life, we see people do what we want them to do and we say nothing, assuming that the behavior has become natural for them, an easy standard.