By: Brian Buehrlen, Minister of Education

We all have them, expectations. For the most part they are not written, never told, and go unachieved. That could be ok I think, for some expectations are petty and selfish anyway. However, some are not. Yet they go unwritten, untold, and unachieved just the same. Expectation has a natural predator. It lurks on the tongues of men, and it ravages their minds. This enemy is cunning, yet small. It seems rather harmless, but is so very destructive. You're stopped before you ever start. It hurts but there is no pain. My friends, the enemy is but two little words.

"I'll try," is a phrase spoken by every mouth. Why? Simple, it gives us a way out. The phrase is deception at it's finest. Those two words show intent without accepting any responsibility or commitment. Quite the handy tool is this phrase.

This phrase has troubled an old friend of mine. He has much work that needs done, but his employees only try. His current project could change the world as we know it, but his help only tries. If they would do what he asks then people would come from miles around. He offers great benefits. He pays well. He isn't a crude boss by any stretch of the term. But still, when he asks, "Go and make this" or "Do as I have," they all respond with those two little words.

Mark 10:17-22 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother'" "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

The Bible doesn't give the man's name, where he headed off to, or what he was thinking, but I have a hunch. His name might have been Half Hearted, because he did only some of what Jesus had said. He was probably headed down Wrong Road, after all he was only half-hearted. His thoughts, well I bet they were, "I'll try." Because of those words, he was stopped in his tracks, God's work went undone, and he failed, long before he ever started.

If we as a congregation, or at least a few of us, learned anything from the Servant Hood Seminar it was this, serving is all about mindset. As servants we need to have an "I will" mindset. Think about Christ's first disciples for a second. They never checked schedules, gave excuses, or hesitated and if they did they were rebuked.

Matthew 8:18-22 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

God is calling! What is your response? Don't quit before you start. Get rid of that miserable mindset and do.

James 1:22-25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.