Have low expectations and high hopes
A thought
St. Paul proclaims : If anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived! All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)
It is a good text for a new year.
The text above resonates with a quote from Robert J. Wicks which he calls this Paradigm of Openness:
Have low expectations and high hopes. Have low expectations of people so you don’t force them directly or indirectly to meet certain anticipations you might have as to how they should or should not respond to you and your actions. But have high hopes for them based on a ruthless faith in God that something good, something dear and beautiful will come of it if you are looking and listening with an open heart.
Forgive yourself and other people for their defensiveness. Being cautious is natural for faithless and hopeless persons — and we all fall into this category more or less.
Be as open as possible to being surprised by the encounter. In other words, we must not look for our god and reactions that we feel would be important and right. We must position ourselves instead to see whatever we will see amidst the joy, pain, apathy, anxiety, peace, depression, or tension we experience. When we are truly open, we will be surprised by something in the encounter. And that surprise — that unique presence of God — can be called by another name: holiness.
(from Robert J. Wicks, Living Simply in an Anxious World, Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, 1988, p. 33)
A prayer
Almighty God, who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ: grant that, as he came to share in our humanity, so we may share the life of his divinity; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Methodist Worship & Common Worship