Denver has a tremendous amount of sunshine–approximately 320 days per year, more than Miami or San Diego. Living here with all this sunshine is one of the reasons so many move to this area (and another reason why the market here in our city is skyrocketing, but I digress).

A firefighter friend of mine who worked in the Denver area for 28 years told me that when the clouds come over and hide the sun for three days, suicides go up sevenfold. Denver is the most isolated metropolitan city in the continental United States making it ripe for those who are trying to get away from a previous chapter in their lives to come to Denver to start over or to go to the mountains in order to continue their escape.

Clouds do not serve us well in Denver–and the clouds of unrealistic expectations do not serve us well in our own lives. And how those clouds can block out the sunshine of God’s identity and purpose for us.

What expectations are you putting on yourself?

• Is your career path not going the way you wanted?
• Do you look in the mirror and find disappointment
• Did you not receive the grade you anticipated?
• Is your spouse not acting toward you the way you pictured?
• Are your children behaving like… human beings?
• Did God not answer that prayer the way you hoped He would?

Christ freed us from the bondage of the law. Are we using those expectations as another “law” from which we need freeing?

Christ has called us to follow Him–to deny self, die to self, and follow Him! He determines our identity. He determines our purpose. We find our rest in Him.

Evaluate those expectations! Are you pulling those clouds over God’s sunshine? See the light of His glory! See what He has for you. In Christ, God fulfills all the promises (2 Cor 1:20). In Christ, God fuels our life and love and takes us where He would have us.