Do Your Expectations Have You Discouraged?

by Dave Kahle

         Did you ever have an experience like this?  You set out on some new activity energized by the exciting expectations of the good things that will result?  You may have begun a vacation, visited a relative, hired a new employee, taken on a new project, or launched a new product. Your mind naturally thinks about the result and creates expectations:  The vacation is going to be glorious; the visit will be fun and fulfilling, the new employee will immediately contribute, etc.

        And then, alas, the expectations weren’t fulfilled, the actual results weren’t up to your expectations, and you end up discouraged.

       And because you are discouraged, you question your value.  “Do you really have the talent to make something like this happen,” you wonder.  You cast a shadow over  your relationship with God. “Does He even know I’m here.  How could He let this happen?”  Your energy and creativity wither and you spend some time sitting on the sidelines of the next opportunity.

       Discouragement must be one of Satan’s primary tools.  By generating discouragement in the hearts of Christians he effectively places them on the bench in the great contest between Satan and God.  It like soccer – bench a couple of your best players and the team is less likely to win.

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         I’m assuming, of course, that you have matured enough in your spiritual journey to have acquired a perspective.  When we distance ourselves a bit from the process and look at the big picture, it’s clear that the problem wasn’t the results we experienced, but rather the difference between those results and our expectations.  Since the gap between reality and our expectations was so great, we filled it with self-doubt and discouragement.

      It is easy to view every initiative through the lens of high expectations. The world is full of advice to create high expectations. Every team wants to become the champion. Every entrepreneur dreams of making millions. The idea that we should create lofty expectations goals as a precursor to significant achievement is ubiquitous. It is so deeply embedded in our culture that to question it is to make you feel like a heretic.  Create high expectations and then work to achieve them. —  that’s the way progress is made and success is realized. It has become part of the common wisdom, so universally acknowledged that only the ignorant would ever doubt it.

        Maybe the solution then is to be a bit more thoughtful about our expectations.  Don’t do away with them, just lower them a bit. Then we’ve reduced the likelihood of the ultimate discouragement coming from not meeting high expectations.  Lowering our expectations looks like a simple solution.

        But is it? What if there were another solution?

       The problem with lowering our expectations is that...CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE.

From a worldly perspective, businesses are formed to provide for the economic security of the folks who own and work in that business. Since food and shelter are basic needs, a business, to be viable, must meet those needs. And it does that by providing goods and services for money.  Money then becomes one of the keys to any business.  But that is just the beginning of a benefits to a business that is run on the Biblical model.