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“We want people to change, especially the crazy ones.”

A thought by Mike Bechtle from his book, People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys (p. 57). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

We really do, don’t we?

Mike says, “Everything inside us wants them to be different. They’ve thrown us off our emotional set point, and we wonder if our emotions will ever get back in balance.”

Can you think of someone like that?

He goes on, “It’s a fine line between two ends of a continuum:
1.    Hope (that they’ll change) 
2.  Realism (knowing they might not)

“Both ends can exist together, which is why it’s possible to keep from being thrown too far from our emotional set point. When we’ve tried so many times to impact people’s lives with no results, it’s easy to give up. Realism acknowledges that it might not get better.

“But no matter how bad it gets, there’s always hope.”

He then says, “Brad and Linda have a twenty-five-year-old son who is the source of their pain. Their son has chosen a path that goes against the values and priorities they tried to instill in him, which strains their relationship. Conversation is shallow when they get together, and he seems to be making no progress in finding direction and purpose in his life. They pray for him, stay in contact with him, but have pretty much given up hope. To keep their sanity, they have accepted the fact that things probably won’t change.

“If they believe their son will always follow the same path, it’s a realistic perspective to protect their emotions. But it’s also realistic to know that God loves their son as much as they do (more, actually). They might be out of fuel, but God isn’t.

“That doesn’t mean the son is going to change. It simply means that God hasn’t given up and will be intimately involved with him throughout his whole life. Brad and Linda might not have reason to expect change in their son’s future, but they can trust God to always be working in his life.”

Mike then says, “That’s the difference between expectation and expectancy. With expectation, we’re waiting for something specific that we want to happen, and we’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t. With expectancy, we release our own agenda in a person’s life, allowing changes to happen that we can’t control.

“We can’t be the quarterback of another person’s life. But we can be members of his team, supporting and influencing him to become a better life player.”

And that is what God wants us to be.  So. will you still be a member of that person’s team, that person you thought of earlier?  Will you?

Yes, yes!
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