Grief, Gratitude, and Entitlement - Divorce Minister
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”-Job 1:21b, NIV
We can cause all sorts of suffering for ourselves if we approach our losses with a sense of entitlement.
What do I mean?
I am talking about those implicit contracts we “made” with God. You know, the ones where we assumed we’d have a perfect marriage if we kept ourselves sexually pure until we married (then our spouse cheated on us).
The traumatic loss of a marriage and all that goes with that are real losses. However, if we get stuck on our implicit contract with God, we may add another loss–namely, we might lose our relationship with God because we are filled with resentments toward Him.
There is a better and wiser way through grief.
Job teaches us this way. The verse quoted above is his response to catastrophic loss including the deaths of his children. Job refuses to go to a place of entitlement and resentment with the awful news.
He understands the breath in our lungs is a gift. Job was under no illusion that he made this life and what he had was owed to him.
This is the spiritual secret:
Resentment looks like telling off God for taking away something we thought was our due. This is the position of entitlement. We can choose this path but it is a path that compounds our suffering.
Gratitude looks like thanking God for the time with the gifts now lost. This is the path Job took in the above verse.
It is not denial of the painful losses. However, this position keeps our heart open to relationship to our good God through this difficult time.
I am not saying we are always able to go to gratitude immediately. If you do, I applaud you as you are a better person than me.
Processing losses takes time. However, my hope is for everyone going through the losses of life learns this important lesson from Job.
The spiritual secret here will set you free if you have ears to hear and willingness to embrace it.
