Sometimes, it seems like … all people ever do is let you down.  We expect something of them – and yet, they disappoint.  Question is – how do you handle that sort of disappointment?

We all have high expectations of other people, we expect our mothers to be perfect mums, we expect our fathers to be perfect dads, our teachers to be perfect teachers, our friends to be perfect friends, our wives or husbands to be perfect wives or husbands, our kids to be; you get the picture right? We have high expectations of other people. What happens when they fall short of those expectations?

I mean, when our friends aren't as friendly as they should be or our kids aren't as well behaved and balanced and obedient as they should be. Other people disappoint us, in fact, I guarantee you that today won't pass by without someone else in your life falling short of your expectations for them. People can be difficult can't they? So what do we do when those difficult people disappoint us?

I've spent seventeen years as a consultant in the IT industry. Now consultants aren't cheap. They have an hourly rate. Mine wasn't really expensive and it wasn't really cheap but I charged people quite a bit of money for doing what I did. And at the beginning, because of that, I tried to be an expert at everything. After all I was charging them quite a bit of money but the result was, well, no-ones an expert at everything, right? We can't all be good at everything and so the clients were happy with the things I could do well and they were a bit touchy with the things that I couldn't do so well. Why is that? Because they had wrong expectations.

And one of the things I learnt, as a consultant, was that it was really important for me to set limits, to set realistic expectations, with my clients, as to what I could do and what I couldn't do. Berni's good at these things but you know this thing over here, well, I need a specialist to do that because I can't, that’s not my area of expertise. And once I had learnt to set those expectations correctly, consulting as a business was much easier because people accepted, kind of, that I couldn't be good at everything. I just thought that I had to be good at everything because of the money I was charging them. That story, for me, serves to illustrate why we get disappointed with people sometimes because we expect them to be perfect.

Now, let’s get a revelation here today. Nobody else that walks this planet is going to be perfect - nobody. There’s only been one person in all history who has been perfect and that’s Jesus, the Son of God.

Some people are really good at detail, you know they like doing crosswords or they like doing stitching and sewing. Other people are 'the big picture' people and the detail drives them nuts. Some people are really relationship focused, other people are more 'outcome' focused. Some people are very good communicators, other people are very good doers. Some people are very good navigators, some people, come on husbands, are not good navigators. You know we are all different aren't we? And praise God that we are because it would be a boring world if they all looked like you and me out there. So why is it then that we have these unrealistic expectations in our hearts of other people?

We set this standard of perfection. What's perfection? Perfection is when they're exactly like me, perfection is when they see the world the way I do, when they're good at the stuff I'm good at, when they conform with what I want them to do, that's perfection - they're like me. Come on; and then we wonder why they fall short of our expectations and then we get all disappointed with them and it ruins our relationship.

We do some silly things sometimes don't we? We have these expectations of people that they're never going to measure up to. My wife is a wonderful woman You know, Jacqui is the most wonderful wife and man could ever ask for but she is never going to be able to help me navigate with a street directory, it's just not her cup of tea. And she does things in our Ministry at Christianityworks that I could never do. She handles so much detail and when you call our toll free number or when you write to us, chances are Jacqui will probably handle that call, you talk to her. She does some wonderful things in those areas that I'm just not skilled or equipped to do.

I need her and she needs me, we're a team, we're good at different things and that’s great. But if I expect her to be like me, if I expect her to have the same outlook exactly and the same behaviour and exactly the same priorities, well I'm expecting something that she would never be. And if she expects that of me, she is expecting something of me that I can never be because, praise God, we're two different people and that's Gods plan. I really believe that the reason that we get disappointed with other people is we set patently unrealistic expectations of who they should be and what they should do. They are who they are, they see the world the way they see the world, they're good at what they're good at and they're not good at what they're not good at. That’s always been Gods plan.

Have a look at this; there was a story of two sisters, Mary and Martha that bumped into Jesus on his walk. It's fascinating how they saw things differently and the different skills they had. Jesus and his disciples were on their way and He came to a village where there was a woman named Martha who opened her home to him and she had a sister called Mary who sat at Jesus' feet listening to what he had to say but Martha, she was doing all the cooking and preparations and cleaning and stuff and she came to Jesus and said:

"Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me." And Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset over so many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.

In other words, Martha was one of these people, like my wife Jacqui, who wants to love people by serving them by cooking and by doing things, there are people who are gifted that way, it's their natural way of behaviour and those people can sometimes get really cranky and upset when everyone else isn't like them and that’s what was going on here.

Mary, Mary was listening to Jesus, she knew there was something different about this guy, she thought, "wow, this guy's in my home and I just want to sit and listen to what he is saying because what he is saying is amazing." She wanted to hear his voice, she wanted to hear the story, she was a big picture person.

Martha, Martha was a detail person, Martha was a servant, that’s why she wanted to do that, that was her gifting and she got so cranky with her sister Mary because Mary wasn't like her and Jesus said, "whoa, whoa come on, we're all different. Your sister Mary is choosing the right thing here. I'm not always going to be sitting here with you in your house for you to listen to."

How silly is it for us to have wrong expectations of people, to have a standard of perfection that says you've got to be like me and to then get disappointed with the differences. We're going to catch more flies with honey than vinegar. When we delight in peoples differences, when we celebrate their complimentary natures, that person would rise up to a relationship with us.

I have a cat called Doggy, great name for a cat, and she's often squatting down on all fours and when I go to pat her she will always sit up, she will always rise up to my encouragement. We people are like that too, we rise up to encouragement and truly that will deal with 90% of the differences. When we start to see people for who they are and value them for who they are and get excited about what they're good at, that we're not good at, 90% of the disappointment goes away because 90% of the disappointment has to do with our wrong expectations of a standard of perfection that they can never live up to.

I'll say it again, I say it many times, every person is a package with strengths and weaknesses. When we celebrate and leverage and value those strengths, when we understand and compensate and de-emphasis their weaknesses all of a sudden that relationship changes, all of a sudden we're playing to peoples strengths. Isn't that better, isn't that smarter, what do you think? Lets have a look around at all the people in our lives who are different to us and think, "what expectations am I setting of this person? What are the unrealistic things that I'm expecting and is that maybe, just maybe the reason I keep getting disappointed with this person?"

So, come on, let’s look at people from a different perspective.