{"id":4559,"date":"2023-09-10T11:16:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T18:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=4559"},"modified":"2023-09-10T11:26:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T18:26:08","slug":"entitlement-that-leads-to-bitterness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2023\/entitlement-that-leads-to-bitterness\/","title":{"rendered":"Entitlement That Leads to Bitterness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday after supper, Ruby and I were chatting about feeling entitled and deserving &#8212; an at-home follow-up to the pastor&#8217;s theme Sunday morning. She had raised the subject, wondering what I would say on the subject of entitlement.<\/p>\n<p>Then later in the evening as I did the second of my twice daily <a href=\"https:\/\/www.givesendgo.com\/medicalsupportformarkroth\" title=\"Her goal has been met and exceeded; THANK YOU for helping me!!\">ear<\/a>-diaper changes, I got to thinking about the subject of bitterness since it comes up in today&#8217;s printed text (for our adult Sunday School lesson).<\/p>\n<p>I thought about things that provoke in me a rising of bitterness. It easily happens when&#8230; <!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am treated unjustly.<\/li>\n<li>I am lied about.<\/li>\n<li>I am subjected to treachery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I suppose if I didn&#8217;t believe I am entitled to something different, I wouldn&#8217;t be prone to trip into bitterness. So I resist the evil of bitterness because it is neither helpful nor healthful. And because it is not Christ-like. And because it is a disposition that will defile others.<\/p>\n<p>Like morning glory in a garden, even a very small root of bitterness will push up a sprout that will prosper and replicate. And it will eventually dominate the garden and strangle any good plants in it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gray\">[Mostly written the night of Tuesday, August 15, 2023 &#8212; a week after my entitlement conversation with my wife.]<\/p>\n<div class=\"quotes\" style=\"text-align:left\">Reject anger, bitterness, self-pity, vengefulness, and further fault-finding.<\/p>\n<p>Remember: Any &#8220;lumps&#8221; you get actually are less than you deserve.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2009\/picked-on\/\" title=\"Picked On?\">Picked on?<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"quotes\">To rail isn\u2019t just to express disagreement or correction.<br \/>\nIt isn\u2019t even merely to complain or accuse.<br \/>\nTo rail can be those, if they are driven home with certain tones, attitudes, and dispositions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2013\/have-you-heard-railings\/\" title=\"Have You Heard Railings?\">Have You Heard Railings?<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"quotes\" style=\"text-align:left\">Unforgiveness produces a bitter harvest. Nothing good comes from unforgiveness. Those who sow it damn themselves to reaping unforgiveness when they will want desperately to be harvesting forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anabaptists.org\/clp\/youth\/8-110.html\" title=\"The Crisis of Forgiveness\">The Crisis of Forgiveness<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I choose God-awareness instead of entitlement and bitterness.<\/p>\n<p>I further shift my focus by choosing gratefulness and a humble sense of unworthiness.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of bitterness-inducing entitlement, better to live life giving God what He is entitled to from me.<\/p>\n<p>Then I will be stable, not entitled and bitter.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these.jpg\" alt=\"He that doeth these things shall never be moved.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I deserve better&#8221; will make me bitter.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Entitlement That Leads to Bitterness","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[72,706,880,800],"class_list":["post-4559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-lessons-for-living","tag-christianity","tag-gratefulness","tag-life-lessons","tag-relationships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/he-that-doeth-these.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-1bx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}