As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself thinking a lot about what it means to be grateful. I don't mean this in the sense we typically think about during this time of year ("I'm thankful for my family," and so forth). What I mean is more in a broad sense. In many ways, gratitude is the opposite of entitlement.
Many of us fall into the entitlement trap, feeling that life, or God, or...whoever/whatever owes us something. We feel we deserve x, y or, z because of what we've done or just who we are. Somehow we should be provided with [insert whatever] because [insert reason].
Yet in many ways gratitude is the opposite of entitlement. It acknowledges our feelings of thankfulness because in many ways we have gotten what we don't deserve. Christians, especially, should have a constant sense of gratitude, because God's grace and mercy is exactly what we don't deserve. Yet we still find ourselves feeling entitled.
What is the remedy, then? I think a good start is to constantly remind ourselves that God is God and we are not. He knows what we need more than we do. He is always working in our favor. He is for us. And we should always recognize exactly how much it is that God has really done for us. Because remembering that constantly is the only way to rest consistently in a perspective of gratitude. It is the only way to keep ourselves from falling into the entitlement trap.
