“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” — Romans 15:13
Wrongly Placed Expectations
I’m a baseball coach who has the gift of teaching the game in a way that can transform lives. Recently, I had a player who was throwing mini-tantrums after errors, hard-hit balls that didn’t result in hits and, frankly, everything else that didn’t go his way.
I finally had a moment to speak with him and asked him this question: “What is your expectation?” I came to learn that he was expecting to never make an error and always get a hit. While those are the best possible outcomes, they aren’t realistic. He was setting himself up for failure by putting all his hope and trust in himself to do something that has never been done in the game.
As adults, we often do the same. Our hopes and reliance stray from Jesus and we begin to pursue things that are impossible in our own power. Then, when things don’t go our way, we become frustrated and discouraged. God’s promise is that when we rely on Him we will have His peace.
Therefore, if we continue to find ourselves discontent and without peace, we can surely look at our hearts and find that we have placed our hope and trust in something that wasn’t worthy and couldn’t deliver.
— Michael Ray, Pure Baseball
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