Years ago, I was involved in a discussion about human behavior. I had mentioned that I had no expectation for anyone’s actions and preferred to be pleasantly surprised at positive outcomes. A good friend there told me that was no way to live, unhealthy in fact.

Huh?

I replied, “How can it be unhealthy? If I have no expectations, I have less heartache and drama. Life is hard enough.”

A bud of uncomfortable silence had sprung up, but someone else quickly countered it. Come to find out much later it was what Jesus did and expected us to follow that example. Good grief, things like that make me feel like I am from another planet or reading a different Bible. We are called to be peculiar (holy or set apart) to the world (Exodus 19:5-6, Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 14:2, Deuteronomy 26:18, Malachi 3:17, Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 2:9), so it comes with the territory.

To be honest, the only expectation I have is God working on, around, and through me for refinement, the positive and negative. My husband could keel over dead or lose his mind; others will come and go out of my life; society at large could have a major paradigm shift; I could end up crippled or gravely ill; a intense thunderstorm or fire might destroy everything I own…in an instant, life changes. Change is the only constant in life. To not worry about or rely on things or people in this existence is such a relief.

Does this make for an emotion-free drone? Hardly…I get to feel more His joy and pain for His creation. My mind keeps flowing during stressful situations. My trust in Him increases and He reveals more of Himself and His will for me. The joy and freedom of serving the Lord ends up being the result of letting go of what this world conditions us to focus on, good or bad.

Galatians 5:1 Stand therefore in that liberty with which The Messiah has set us free, and do not be yoked again in a yoke of bondage.

2 Peter 2:19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

James 1:25 But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.