Forget me being perfect! How about human?

     With achievements and positions of increased responsibility come the expectations that we be something that we probably are not...perfect.  Somehow having an education, a good job, and a wife and kids suddenly becomes the impetus for some people to expect more from you than they do for themselves.  My oldest daughter, Sara, is most like me.  We even look a lot alike.  When she was younger I was a police officer.  That had, within itself, enough stigma that she felt she had to be part of the image herself.  Tough and never fearful describe her well.  When I moved on and became a pastor she again was challenged with a new set of expectations placed upon me as well as upon her.  So, when she got caught toilet papering a house on Halloween people were aghast that a pastors daughter could or would do such a thing.  Heaven forbid she be seen as human!  Heaven knows that she and her dad are both very human and thus fallible.  Now she is an adult and has her own set of expectations within her own world.
     Swimming against the current has always seemed the way to live life in my world.  That doesn't mean I'm unique as much as it means I am stubborn and determined to win.  There are a lot of people out there who are like me.  There is the need to live in the present but their minds are already arriving in the future.  Swimming against the current is not seen as a dilemma because that's the way it's been all our lives.  We become so accustomed to the struggles to attain and maintain that we often forget that we cannot live up to other people's expectations.  The truth be told, we cannot even live up to our own expectations.  We all fail at being anything close to perfect.  I fail at any attempt to be seen as normal.  People have preconceived notions of who I was, who I am and who I am to be.  In the eyes of the people of the small town where I was raised the expectation was that I would fail, be jailed and die an early death.  Sorry that I disappointed you.  However, Smallville, USA will always need to have people like me pegged.  They need me to be who they see me as in order to feel good about themselves.  Glad to be of help.  NOT!
     The Bible says that no one is perfect except God.  The Bible says that we have all fallen short of what is expected of us as God's creation.  The Bible says that we can be redeemed.  The Bible says that we will be persecuted and afflicted on account of our testimony about Jesus.  AND we will always be fallible human beings forgiven by a loving God.  That's what the Bible says.  What do you and I say?  Do we hold people to a higher level of expectation?  Do we weight their thoughts, words and actions with a heavier set of rules?  Expectations that Christians are perfect continue to sabotage our relationship with each other and with God.  It's not that we are not forgiven, because we are forgiven.  It's not that we don't do this and do that when we are observed to be above reproach.  So, what is it?  Why is it we need bad examples in the lives of those around us?  I would suggest that when we find someone in that position that we stop our expectations and start applying God's expectations.  I won't ever be perfect and am perfectly human.