Expectations

I've come to a realization lately.  More often than not, it's not the real idiots of this world that annoy me, it's my close friends and family.  It's the people that I have been close to and grown with and come to have certain expectations of that usually cause me consternation.  You see, once I have an expectation of how they will live or conduct themselves in a given situation, then I can be let down when they don't live up to it.

I've come to a second realization, this is probably more my problem than it is theirs.  I would say that I don't expect anyone to be perfect, by any means, but when I'm close to them and they mess up I at least want to hear an apology or for them to help me understand why they acted a certain way.  When they don't, I get pretty hurt and upset.  But. . .do I have the right to feel this way?

I think of the One I try to follow, Jesus, and how He related to people.  I know it's cliche, but out of His 12 closest friends, all were continuous "failures" and one got Him killed.  I wonder if Jesus felt like a whipping boy at times?  Did He just accept it knowing that if those 12 really cared, they would eventually see the error of their ways and change?  Sometimes He corrected them, but other times He did nothing.

I wonder if, in trying to live like Jesus, we are supposed to just take the "wrongs" sometimes and acknowledge the fact that it is God's job to change a person's heart, not ours.  This is such a hard thing to do, I'm not sure how good I can be at that.  I'm sure I will "fail" many times myself, but I hope the people I love and care about have the patience to deal with me as I try to deal with them. . .