GRATITUDE -vs- ENTITLEMENT

 Phil 4:6 (NKJV)

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.

There was a young man in his early twenties whose parents gave him a car.  He later borrowed some chairs from a close relative for an event he was planning.  When the car had a mechanical issue, he left it where it became disabled and walked home angry.  He said that he didn't care about the car because in his opinion, "it was piece of junk". 

He did not call a tow truck, notify his parents, or the person from whom he borrowed the chairs.  When I asked if he at least retrieved the chairs to return them to the owner,  he said with an emphatic "No!" saying that he didn't care about the chair or the car!  

The lack of gratitude for having a car given to him (when he did not have one) and lack of      responsibility to return the items he borrowed (from a church) were troubling.  It was almost a textbook definition of an "attitude of entitlement" which according to Wikkepedia "is a sense of deservingness or being owed a favor when little or nothing has been done to deserve special treatment".  His attitude of entitlement and lack for gratitude seem to be more and more common in today's world. 

Have those of us who are parents been negligent when it comes to  instilling and modeling certain values for our youth?  Have we propagated this lack of having an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness by just letting it go?   In order to be a part of the solution to hopefully turn this around, we should do some serious praying & soul searching.  We cannot afford to give up.

                                Photo by Phillip Goldsberry on Unsplash

Blessings.

~CWP~

1st Photo: by Joshua Oluwagbemiga on Unsplash