Finishing Last?

You pull into a parking lot and there sits a Cadillac Escalade taking up two parking places. Entitlement. Have you ever noticed it’s not the inexpensive $2,000 cars that take up two places, but the owners of expensive vehicles? People who don’t return phone calls: some college presidents, some college professors, and mega church pastors. I take that back - most all pastors, authors, and publishers. Entitlement. Have you ever noticed that it is most often the prestigious people that don’t respond and not the average person? Then there are even people in our churches who give money to the church and expect the right to vote. Entitlement - whoever controls the purse has the power.  

 

In Walter Isaacson’s Biography of Steve Jobs http://www.amazon.com/Walter-Isaacson/e/B000APFLB8 he says, "At the root of the reality distortion was Jobs's belief that the rules didn't apply to him." Rebelliousness and willfulness were ingrained in his character. He had the sense that he was special, a chosen one, an enlightened one." I can relate to that. I was slighted once when a church where I spoke at put me up in a lower class motel. How dare they! Entitlement. 

 

William Bennett asks the question, “Does today’s worship of self oppose virtue?” I saw the glorification of the self-ethic on an Oprah show. There was a guy on the show who was a molester of children. The audience was pummeling him. He then recited the mantra of the time: “I am who I am. This is authentically me.” Very few people knew how to criticize that because the notion has been almost canonized. One of the worst speeches in literature is, “To thine own self be true.” Charles Manson once said, “I was true to my feelings.” 

One of the most powerful, prestigious, and wealthiest person on this earth was Jesus Christ. His view of entitlement was to wash the feet of his disciples (become a slave). He said He came to be a servant of all. He said the first shall be last and the last shall be first. “We are entitled to finish last.” Seems like we all need to get in shape to do that. It might take some different training regiments for all of us. See you in the training room!