I'm working on my message for our group discussion on Acts tonight and just thinking about various conversations that happened in the past month. It's distracting me from my work. I had multiple different people suggest to me what things they'd like to see me do with this particular group of young people; others telling me what they'd like to see me do as a worship leader, as a teacher, as an administrator...
What I'm trying to say is that I feel a bit bogged down in general by other people's expectations. (not by peoples' requests for help, which is a different thing).
I actually appreciate that other people have vision for me. It's an expression of their genuine deference to me. And expressing those expectations to me shows me they have faith in my abilities to accomplish these things. My problem is that once I know what others expect of me, I have a great desire to meet those expectations, and if I'm not vigilant I will find myself doing it at the expense of my own personal health. And in ministry it's tough, because it can be quite an amoebas thing. The general goal is to get people together for the sake of building up the Body of Christ and there are so many different ways to do that.
Other careers seem to have clear cut boundaries (I say that because I see them from a distance, which makes them seem simpler). Any career has the potential to consume a person's time, but it seems like there's always more I should be doing in ministry. People want to see expansion, growth, more, more, more... and so naturally when they see people with ability and talent, they place expectations on those people to fulfill their own vision of what a ministry should look like.
This is not a critique of what others are telling me they want me to do. They all want me to do good things. This is my way of processing through all these conversations to find a place of healthy balance. Writing helps me process. And hopefully by processing through them here, I can help someone else who might be experiencing similar feelings. I often find myself drowning in a sea of expectations I feel I cannot meet, and I need to once again remind myself that life is not about pleasing others, or meeting impossible standards. I need to take these feelings of pressure and turn them into feelings of confidence that others see potential in me. And I need to remind myself that it's not my responsibility to meet all those expectations. I have only one body, one life, and I can only accomplish a certain amount of things. I must be true to my own heart.
