Entitlement

I am a little weary of the mantra that the “millennial” generation is an “entitlement” generation. I don’t think it is an age problem; it is a “human” problem. Now that I am on the Back 9 and observe more, and listen a lot more, I see as many people my age and older, along with young people, who have the mindset of, “I am exempt from responsibility” and “I am owed special treatment!” I especially see older people in airports and even in grocery lines have meltdowns because they have the “I am special attitude.” In fact, I have had that attitude at times. Watching it in someone else convicted me of my own “entitled attitude!”

When you really stop and think about an “entitled attitude,” it is so debilitating. It is basically taking the attitude, which is a poor one, of “I am NOT responsible!” Someone else is. When we take that attitude, we are basically “giving away our life!”

Taking the attitude of I AM RESPONSIBLE, instead of an “I deserve” attitude can take your life to GOOD and BETTER places. Understanding and having the eyes to see and the mind to own the fact that your attitude, your health, your job, your financial security, your integrity….rest on you. Realizing…God gave you a life….and you are responsible for it…is significant in leading a successful life, a life that is hard but can be good!

One of the best things I have learned and would like to share is the idea of creating and living a habit of doing what is best, rather than what is comfortable. It has helped me to achieve worthwhile outcomes. I love to read and learn from successful people and I have learned much from John Townsend. He is a Christian, has a Ph.D. in psychology and travels around the world speaking and training people in leadership through biblical principles.

In his recent study on what makes highly successful people successful he noted the number one thing they do every day. His summary of that one thing was: “Do the very hard things in your day first.” People who get up early, who plan and execute doing all the difficult things in the morning, are head and shoulders above others in their level of success, in life and in business.

Scripture seems to agree with this general principle. Proverbs 6:6-8, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” And Proverbs 12:11, “Whoever works the land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”

I love how it says the ant doesn’t need a “micromanager”. The “ant” takes TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS LIFE! Also, we all have to work “our land” which is “our life”. Our responsibility. NONE of us got to choose our parents, the families we were born into, but that doesn’t in any way relieve us of our responsibility for our life! If I/you were born with a lot, there is a Scripture just for me/you. Luke 12:48b, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been ENTRUSTED with much, much MORE WILL BE ASKED.”

If you were born without a lot or faced with difficult circumstances early in life, that doesn’t give you an “OUT” either. Some of the most successful people in life started out with very little. Dave Ramsey, who I recently had the opportunity to hear speak, was born very poor. He states emphatically that being poor was the very thing that made him ultra successful. Not having money and learning what to do to earn money and how to save it was important to him.

Today he literally teaches thousands of people how to get out of debt and manage their money. I also recently asked a CEO of a very successful pharmaceutical company what the secret was to her success. Her answer was, “The Power of Broke”. I have my own father as an example in my life. He has the equivalent of an eighth grade education. No college degree but he understood and lived the “principle of the ant”. The “Power of Broke” was his motivator too.

I look also to the Beth Moore’s of the world and the Joyce Meyer’s who had terrible childhoods. Or men like Perry Noble who shares in his book “Overwhelmed” how he, with God’s help, overcame losing his mother as a child and dealing with an alcoholic father. All of these people took responsibility for their lives and their emotional health. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hard or a long road…but at some point…they had to take “responsibility” for their physical life and emotional life.

God created me and He created you. He did not bring sin into the world but He gave His life so that we could be “forgiven of sin” and He offers us eternal life through faith in Jesus. Just because there is sin in the world does not eliminate or excuse us from taking responsibility for our lives.

Avoiding the problems of life, ignoring our “responsibility,” is NOT a sign of valuing our life. WE all have ONE life and the Bible refers to it as a “vapor”.
How we spend it…
how we take responsibility for it…
determines how we will spend eternity.

LIfe on this earth matters. Understand who God is and living Romans 12:3, “…Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought…”–meaning do not feel “entitled”. Understand, we have a created purpose and one day we are going to be held responsible for how we “lived” that vapor. How we “worked our land”…that our shots do count.

First and foremost… WE have to take the shots…It starts there….Make your shots count….

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