My furry buddy, Laz the Resurrection Dog (if you don’t recall how he got that audacious name, scroll back until you find the post about his miracle, called “Near-Misses”; you’ll be glad you did!) taught me yet another spiritual lesson this week. Isn’t it wonderful how often our little fur buddies do that if we’re paying attention?
Well, it didn’t start out as a spiritual lesson. It started out with basic hunger and him unabashedly staring at me while Spouse and I scarfed down some succulent beef stir fry for dinner. Mmmm. It smelled marvelous. Apparently Laz thought so too. He watched every bite enter my mouth with acute interest.
I finally caved and surreptitiously slipped him a piece of oh-so-delicious beef under the table. He was happily surprised. And very, very thankful. He licked his chops and immediately his doggie face took on an excited, determined expression – he wanted more! He simply had to have more!
Greedy little Laz jumped up on my leg begging shamelessly for another bite. So, okay, again I yielded, because I love him and like to give him good things. I held another piece of delicious meat in the general direction of his mouth and he leapt toward it like a lion snatching an antelope off his hooves on the Serengeti plain, nearly chomping off my finger in the process.
Suddenly greed overtook the 8-pound terrier and he became like a 50-pound terror, shamelessly trying to claw his way up my leg, leaping and bounding and lunging for my plate, fully intent on getting more, more, more because, well, because of my previous kindness, he thought he deserved whatever I had. He was entitled to it. My stir fry now belonged to him.
As I shoved the wiggling little mass of greed out the door so we could finish our dinner in peace, it occurred to me that I was viewing myself and other humans progressing through 3 levels of receiving blessings from Papa God.
Level 1: Gratitude. We’re humbled, delighted, and so, so thankful for the unexpected mercy shown to us by the Lord in the form of that unmerited blessing we received. Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT) plays out before our eyes: “The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each day.”
Level 2: Greed. The pleasure of the blessing suddenly morphs into the overwhelming desire to have more. More. A LOT more. We don’t just want more, we need more. We simply can’t live without more. What we’ve been given just isn’t enough. So we climb and claw and connive and attempt to convince the source of our blessing that we deserve more. If He won’t give it to us, we’ll try to take it.
Level 3: Entitlement. We’ll whine, we’ll weedle, we’ll snatch more of that blessing out of His hand if we have to. After all, we deserve it. Because of our elevated station as a child of God (even though we know we didn’t work to attain it), we perceive that whatever is His also belongs to me. We totally forget the generous promise of Lamenations 3 and that, as Elisabeth Elliot said in A Path Through Suffering, “the Lord stands ever ready with His next grace for the next thing.”
Yes, His grace, His mercy, His blessings, are new EVERY morning. We don’t have to stockpile them. Or clutch them to our chests and hoard them in a selfish frenzy. Or consume them quickly so no one can take them away. Our God is gracious enough to offer us new blessings over and over again.
In all honestly, I’m struggling to apply the faith lesson I learned from Laz this very minute. After I grew accustomed to feeling immense gratitude for Papa God’s blessing of the opportunity to write one last book (Level 1), I began to expect everything to work out on my timetable. I planned, programmed, and scheduled all the book promo, expecting it to work out perfectly. Why wouldn’t it? Papa God brought me this far, so He kind of owed it to me, right? (Level 2).
But it didn’t work out perfectly. Unexpected government tariffs materialized. China delayed shipment of my books at the last minute. I just found out yesterday that the release of Bless Your Heart has been delayed yet again … to September 9. The disappointment grates against my sense of entitlement. (Level 3). Why, Lord? Of all times, why did this tariff stuff have to happen now, marooning my books in the bowels of a container ship in a port somewhere between here and China?
The anwer is: there is no discernable answer. It just is. And it obviously is the will of Papa God, so I don’t need to know more than that. Yet I recognize myself as whiny, drooling, selfish little Laz gazing in through the glass door, demanding another bite of something delicious that was never mine in the first place. The portion I’ve already received was the gift, the blessing, freely given to me through the mercy of my Creator. Why can’t I be happy with that?
I hereby doggedly determine to stay grateful at Level 1 and not allow myself to become greedy, nor entitled. I see another step in spiritual growth I need to take. In this case, arrested development is a good thing.
So what are your thoughts, dearest BFF (Blessed Friend Forever)? Can you recall a time when your gratitude over an unexpected blessing progressed to greed and then entitlement? How do you stop the progression and dwell on Level 1? I’d love to hear from you.
Oh Deb, So sorry to hear about the hold up. I know the books will get here when they are supposed to.
We need some big time home repairs. I’m finding it difficult to wait until one repair is done before I’m ready to move on to the next. Money doesn’t allow for that so I’m getting this same lesson. Waiting is difficult but necessary . My attitude is learning how the wait right. Love ya!
Hi Deb
I’ve found that there are so many lessons to be learned in the waiting. It gives us time to see the big picture and realize that we are living out God’s plan for us, not our own. God is good and His plan is always much better than mine.