DAY 14: Entitled to What?!

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the issue of feeling ENTITLED. As a person who works with many people from all over the world who approach people in different ways, I find that one way that truly rubs me wrong is that sense of entitlement that I can often see seep into conversations between someone from the "Western" world talking to someone raised in the developing world. As missionaries and aid workers, it is easy to get caught up into a self-righteous cycle where you hear people express (in direct and passive ways) that the people they've come to serve 'should be happy with whatever they are given'. The haughtiness of us "do-gooders" can sometimes be astounding. It's sad but the truth. People will excuse their lack of excellence or moments of slippage by saying that "it's okay because they should just be happy I'm here to start with." Definitely not the most Christian approach to being our brother's keeper. 

So this thought has been floating through my mind in my own self-righteous stupor and I realized that I do the same thing with God. How many times do I feel like I am entitled to something or envious because someone got something I thought I should have? How many times have I felt "deserving" of a particular blessing or allowance because I could point to how "good" I'd been trying to be in other areas. However, the truth of the matter is I (we) deserve nothing. It's a hard pill to swallow when you've been raised your whole life to be self-sufficient and been taught that the value of hard work is pay-off. But what are you to do when the pay-off for hard work is sacrifice and the pay-off for sacrifice is more hard work? 

There is an answer to that question that comes in two words: GRACE and MERCY. We forget that there's nothing that another of our brothers/sisters on this earth has or does that couldn't have been us if the circumstances of our birth were different. And Psalm 103:10-12 reminds us that God is so faithful in that he doesn't reward us according to what we deserve. "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." How dare I (or anyone for that matter) even deign to feel entitled. I am entitled to death. I am entitled to misery. But, by God's grace and his mercy, I have abundant life, never-ending joy and incomprehensible peace. Selah...pause and think on that.

The next time you begin to get annoyed with someone because you feel like their response to you should have been different, remember how our Lord wants your response to be different. The next time you begin to feel like you should have more than what you have because others do, remember how our Lord has given you so much more than you deserve and wants to give you exceedingly above even what you desire. When we shift the focus back to GRATITUDE then we open up our hearts to truly receive all that God has in store for us. 

Be encouraged today to give thanks.

Blessings,

Pastor Andrea