Recent Musings:
Entitlement.
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
I get really frustrated with people that think they deserve everything in life. It's like they have this sense of entitlement about them, like just because they exist they deserve more. I don't get it.
I get so frustrated with this, in fact, that I start to hate people who maintain this philosophy. I feel that I work very hard in my own life to be precise about what I deserve and when I haven't earned something then I don't deserve it. These entitled people do not work to earn anything and just take freely, smirking the whole time.
However, the thing that melts my frustration every time is grace and the gracious, the people who do give and continue to give knowing full well that they are giving to undeserving people.
Of course, my jaded and rational side looks at these gracious people and says they are being abused or feel guilted into giving or are giving to maintain others' love; this may be true.
But then I look at my life, especially in terms of belief, and I know the grace that I've been given through salvation has never been earned by me, ever. And it never, ever will.
And then I wish I was more gracious and that I didn't look at giving to others through the eyeglass of whether they've earned my graces or not. I wish I had the Christ-like capacity to give freely, always and whenever, to the deserving and undeserving.
Seriously, the whole mind-blowing beauty of grace and being gracious is that it's never deserved, never earned. Like that Bible verse that says, shoot, anyone can lay down his life for his friends, but Christ, he laid down his life for his enemies. That's grace. Giving to the people that don't deserve it and never will and haven't earned it and never will.
Perhaps this should be a new year's resolution.