I gave up expectations a long time ago when I trusted Christ. He knows what will happen and why, my job is to be obedient to Him.
Expecting people to change is a form of co-dependency. We cannot make anyone desire what is right and we cannot talk long enough for rebellious people to self-reflect. And, above all we cannot allow the rebellious person to influence our own walk.
All we can do and are called to do is bring the truth and leave all the results up to God.
When we cannot know the future or the intricate need of another person's heart, we cannot have expectations. We can sometimes know if someone is a pretender never having been changed by Christ but we cannot know what God is doing now in them or will do in the future.
Trusting Christ is obeying Him without expecting the things we desire or the things that pop into our minds out of our insecurities and stubbornness.
Having expectations of others is a form of desiring control over them.
When we walk with Christ we have no need for expectations or control over others, we need only to seek Christ for His marching orders and obey what He says.
Psalm 118:8
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man."
Micah 7:5
"Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms;"
Jeremiah 17:5
"Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord."
Psalm 118:9
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes."
God instructed us to love our enemies, which means we do no harm to them and when they cross our paths we are respectful and kind. However, this does not mean that our enemies will be our best friends. It also does not mean that we remain silent about the truth whether or not the enemy wants to hear it.
Our close friends ought to be those who love Christ as much as we do even if we are on different spiritual levels. Some people are wiser having walked with the Lord longer, while others are new believers just beginning their walk. The wiser ones ought to be teaching the newbies. The newbies ought to be wanting to be learning from those who have known the Lord longer while always comparing what the older believer says with the Word of God. The trust of the Newbie must be in Christ and His Word as they listen to the wiser older believer.
Many people who have been Christians for a long time have been steeped in psychology and modern thinking will misguide the new believer.
I once heard of a Christian man who counseled a new believer, a woman, that in order to obey her husband fully she should look at porn with him. If she didn't want to look at it she was disobedient to her husband. This was advice from hell itself. Satan loved this advice, it place pressure on a woman who wanted to follow Christ in the position of dishonoring God to obey a rebellious and evil husband. It also placed wicked and disgusting pictures in her mind that can never be completely removed. This "so called" Christian brother who counseled this may not have been born-again at all.
We are never to disobey God to obey a husband. That would make the husband the god in our lives.
Acts 5:29 "29 But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men."
Psalm 101:3
I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
Psalm 119:37
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.
Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
God says in Philippians 4:8 the things we are to think about. We are to refuse to be led into sin by anyone no matter who they are or what authority they think they have over us. At the end of the day, Christ is our authority. We can obey others only in so much as they obey God.
Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Every believer will stand before the Lord alone and will have no excuse for their actions that disobeyed Him. They will not be able to blame their husbands for their sin of placing the husband above God.
If you read the story of Abigail in the Bible you see that we are not to obey our husbands in all things. We are to obey them when they obey God.
