The Entitlement Cure by John Townsend

Author:John Townsend
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2015-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

• “I deserve a better boyfriend/girlfriend.”

• “I deserve a great job.”

• “I deserve a home that is up to my standards.”

• “I deserve to be treated right.”

• “I deserve for people to recognize my potential.”

• “I deserve to travel and see the world for a year and not lose my job.”

I expressed those sentences in first person, but we often hear those sentences, or some like them, in second person too, as well-meaning friends try to assure us that we deserve something better than we have — thereby fueling our sense of entitlement without realizing it.

The problem is that we misuse the words more than we use them correctly. Most of the time when we say “I deserve,” we’re referring to something we desire or even need — but that’s not what the words truly mean. To say “I deserve” means that you have a right to something and can therefore demand it. It communicates something much stronger than a desire or a need. In fact, this right to demand makes sense only in two contexts:

As an earned right. When you perform to a satisfactory standard in your work, you deserve appropriate compensation. You have the right to it because you have earned it.

When I work with a company to help it develop a fair compensation package for its employees, we talk about this. Employees who work hard and achieve performance goals deserve every cent of their paycheck and every aspect of their benefits. The company literally owes them that: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain” (Deuteronomy 25:4). This is a previously negotiated transaction, a binding agreement. In this context, the statement, “I deserve my benefits,” is both right and good.

In the same way, an entrepreneur who creates a product that costs her a dollar and who then sells it for two dollars deserves to be paid by any customer who buys it. She has invested time, resources, and money in bringing that product to market. She has earned it.

As a contractual right to some good thing. This happens when some legal entity confers a right on a person. The Constitution of the United States, for example, provides certain rights to its citizens, such as the rights to free speech, choice of religion, and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. citizens aren’t required to put any effort or energy into securing these rights. Earlier generations won these rights and wove them into the fabric of our government, which now guarantees them. The founding fathers wanted citizens to have certain rights that would free them to have meaningful lives.

In biblical times, Roman citizens also had rights. As a citizen, Paul appealed to one of these rights: “But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!” (Acts 25:11). The apostle did not act in an entitled or self-centered way when he made his appeal. As a Roman citizen, he had the right to demand this kind of treatment.

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