I am a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan and still have nightmares about Game 6 of the 1985 World Series. That lone, seriously unfair, some would say demonic, call by Don Denkinger robbed me of a joyful childhood memory and has left me scarred for life. In short, I hate the Kansas City Royals.

So for me to write anything positive about anything related to that other team in the state is a big deal. But when I read this quote from their new manager Trey Hillman in an article on ESPN.com, it struck a nerve:

“I love high expectations. Raise ‘em. I didn’t come here to get 10 games better than last year. That’s not me. If you get somebody who comes to be 10 games better than last year, I’ll show you somebody who’s not very passionate about what they’re doing.”

The immediate thought I had when I read this was “Why did a guy with this kind of intelligence ever go to the Royals?” and then I thought “That’ll preach”.

On the heels of these kinds of articles by Ed Stetzer, we should probably ask Mr. Hillman if he would like to go on a bus tour preaching in churches for the rest of his life. We seem to have an expectation crisis today.

We seem to think that if we ask too much of folks, that we’ll never have the opportunity to reach them. We seem to think that if we ask too much of ourselves, we may never reach our expectations and then feel like failures. We seem to think that just plodding along, keeping peace, and living a nice, good life is OK for us.

We don’t expect much of ourselves. We don’t expect much of our friends. We don’t expect much of our churches. We don’t expect much of anything or anyone. We’re content to just be average. Not great. But not bad. We’re fine just being fine.

But is that the picture we find in Scripture? When you last read the Bible, does God have low expectations of us? Did Jesus set a mediocre bar for us once He bestowed upon us His saving grace? Once we have our “get out of hell free” card, is spiritual maturity and excellence something reserved for the great pastors out there?

Or does God expect something more? Does God desire something greater? Does God long for us to rise to new heights and experience things we’ve never before dreamed possible?

And for those who are reading this and hearing me say “Work Harder - Do More”, you’re dead wrong. This is not for one second about doing more for God. As I’ve written already, God doesn’t need me to do a darn thing. This is about our low expectations of God and ourselves. This is about us just wanting to live a “10 games better than last year” type of life and then expecting God to be thrilled with us when we enter paradise.

Who do you expect God to be? Who do you expect yourself to be? And are your expectations way too low?

Who would have expected such deep things from the manager of the Kansas City Royals?