The Entitlement Bug // getting over myself

Normally I would label a post like this, “Jesus Thoughts” as it was provoked out of my reading in Luke this morning. But this title seemed more appropos to the journey I’m on right now as well as a few people I know.

Luke is writing down the story of Jesus and places the parable of the lost son in what has become our chapter 15. Besides John 3.16, this has to be one the most well recognized passages in the New Testament even for people who don’t really even study the Bible. Over the past few years, as I’ve seen churches teach on this passage, a focus has been shifted to the older brother who stayed behind. Now, I’m saying that’s a bad thing, I think we have something to learn from every character in the story. But, sometimes it gets frustrating to hear the, “Well, no one focuses on the older brother, so we are” line when actually, I think I’ve personally heard more on the older brother than on the prodigal. Which is unfortunate in a sense, because the whole point of Jesus telling the story was that we need to be passionate about lost people and rejoicing when they return.

All that to say that I’m focusing on the older brother.

It struck me this morning as I read that the older brother felt entitled to something. Now, you already knew that if you’ve read the story, but that really stuck out to me today. He basically is whining about how he’s had such a hard life and never got anything. This was highly interesting to me as I read his account of this situation. Here it is below.

The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

Entitlement. What’s worse is that he over-exaggerates his problem. “I’ve been slaving.” Give me a break. Your dad is clearly a wealthy individual, enough so that he could divide up his inheritance and it didn’t hurt him. But we’re all like that at some level. We think the world owes us something cause it’s down right arrogance.

So, I’m working on this. The world doesn’t owe me anything, and I’m going to try and quit living/thinking that way.