Recently a friend of mine challenged me to think of the negative phrase that I tell myself most often. The phrase that came to the top for me was “I’m letting people down.” It doesn’t take me long to look around and see expectations that I have of myself, expectations that I have signed myself up for by promising something to someone, and expectations occasionally that are all about what people expect of me without my ever agreeing to those expectations.

I don’t think I’m alone with that phrase. Maybe it isn’t your top phrase, but it is probably somewhere in the top 10. We live in a world with expectations, and sometimes those can feel pretty heavy. English singer-songwriter Frank Turner puts it this way: “Don’t you ever wake up and suspect that you were simply never cut out to be the kind of person they expect? Thе person you intended to bе?” Our expectations cut both ways – they come in from the outside, but they also connect with our aspirations to be the kind of person that can fulfill those expectations.

Satan can use expectations to cause us to despair. Satan can cause us to shake our fists at heaven, at a God who seems to have unreasonable requests like “be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5) or even unreasonable requests like “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 12 / Mark 12). It can feel like now I’m not only letting people down, but I’m letting God down. And here’s the really bad news – I am. As a sinner, I’m letting God down. I’m not behaving like He created me to behave. Because I’m letting Him down, and He wants me to take care of others – I am also letting them down.

Another friend of mine, however, reminds me that God also has blessedly low expectations of me. In His divine love, He looks at me like a parent looking at a sleeping newborn. He doesn’t need me to do anything, He just likes watching me breathe. In fact, He fully expects that I’ll mess up a bunch of stuff. He has given me forgiveness in His Son because He knows that I will let Him down. He did that before I was ever born. He agreed to love me no matter how much I let Him or anyone else down.

Satan comes back then and tells me that it doesn’t matter if God loves me or not, I’m still letting people down. There is objective proof there, and it points accusingly at me. Jesus steps in front of that as well. He assures me that all the burden is His. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Why is that so hard? The answer comes back that I may be trying to take God’s job from Him. I’m not supposed to be perfect, I’m not supposed to not let anyone down. I’m supposed to be a sinner who is loved by God, a sinner who points out how good it is that we have a God who doesn’t let people down. I have some work to do there still, maybe you do too. But we have a God who has already worked it out, and we can trust that He won’t let us down.