Entitlement is a problem that stretches far beyond God, but is also a huge factor in why some of our most common religious philosophies don’t work. There is a lot of temptation in the most evil of ways in the idea of being owed something for nothing, that you don’t have to work for it or earn it in any way – you just get it because you really want it. That’s not how life is. That’s not how it works. The worst members of our society are benefitting from the established practices of being handed something for the worst of reasons. Having money because of who your parents are is not a reason to get everything you want and then some. It’s not a reason to get to skirt the law. Power is also not a reason to get out of jail for free, but even the Christian church itself tries to play that hand. You need to work for things in life. You have to earn them, or else you’re just a sneak and a crook. God is not a grift, but many act like it.
Toxic relationships are built around the idea that because a specific kind of inescapable relationship is happening, the person in power is owed XY and Z. My parents were abusive and always behaved as if I owed them for birthing me, like I asked for that and my entire existence meant I would always be in their debt no matter what or how I tried to repay them. But this goes well beyond that and is an all-encompassing idea across every facet of our lives on this planet.
Your life IS a gift. Existence itself is a wonderful thing no to be taken for granted. Because we get to have it, we are expected to work at the things we have in our sites as wants or goals. If we want to be recognized as a good person, we have to prove we are capable of acting as a good person. We don’t get to just claim that label without earning it. Likewise, if we want to be proud of ourselves in the highest of ways, in the eyes of God or Source or whatever powers you believe in, you have to act to demonstrate you are worthy of that. You have to prove it to yourself and to God and to everyone else on some level.
When we are born, we have a fresh start. We are blameless. But that is literally the start of your journey. You don’t get to claim you’re done and blessed just because of your family, or bank account, or circumstances. Some act entitled to better things just because they are more attractive in the way our society currently categorizes beauty. The actual truth is that if you want to earn the feeling in your soul that you are a good person, you need to BE a good person, and not just in a performative way. You have to sacrifice and face your fears. Being good means being able to recognize evil and having the courage to stand up to it and say NO. It’s not easy. We are trained culturally to be obedient to power structures around us. When it really counts, you have to rely only on your own judgement to guide you in seeing something is inherently wrong and should not stand. There is no power on Earth that deserves to survive if it is acting in evil ways.
There is a lot in religions like Christianity that is corrupted by the idea of entitlement. You don’t get salvation from ‘God’ just because you believe in Jesus. You don’t get forgiveness for being horrific just by saying ‘sorry’ after committing atrocities. We are all held accountable for our crimes, if we commit them, by the public at large, by our loved ones, by the government, and by the higher powers as they stand upon our death. Salvation must be earned by being worthy of it on your own, in your heart, mind, and your actions. Likewise, forgiveness must be earned by actually being remorseful, and taking active steps to right the wrongs in your behavior. Even then, the person or persons you have harmed do not owe you forgiveness.
Belief is a complicated thing. It is the start of the path, not the entire thing. It’s the fuel that keeps us going in hard times, but it is not in itself the reason to be counted as a good person. It’s an idea, not something you have achieved. Belief in ‘God’ or Jesus is what is meant to guide you through your choices as they are presented to you. It’s a tool, not a certificate granting you access to heaven. There is this really awful fallacy in our culture that there are ‘teams’ and one team is secretly the ‘good guys’ and the other are the ‘bad guys’. A lot of religions play into this notion to get us to believe by joining their team we are immediately the ‘good guys’ and there’s nothing else we need to do other than continue to broadcast we are Team Good Guys in that specific religious way, i.e. by wearing the cross as jewelry (which, by the way, is a torture device and not something beautiful ever at all). Members of Team Christianity, and all of its branches, think you ‘pay your dues’ by doing things like going to mass every week and gifting money to the church, and those acts are enough to grant you a ticket to heaven. Please think about this for a moment. You cannot buy a ticket to heaven. You have to prove yourself worthy of growing closer to peace and love in their purest forms by working to do that. You have to work to shed yourself of corruption, temptation, cruelty, and many other things. Peace is not a handshake. It’s not a deal in a boardroom. You have to earn it.
As a former Catholic, I am most familiar with the trappings of that religion, which is why I speak to it most specifically. There is a very grand notion among followers of Christ that they all have earned the ownership of heaven itself just by aligning with their ‘team’. Jesus’ death two thousand and some years ago did not specifically earn you, in the here and now, passage to a lovely afterlife. His death was an atrocity and a crime and not a beautiful gift to anyone but evil. He was here to help guide us to behaviors that help align us with comfort, love, and union with higher states of being. When we think of him and beings like him, we should be inspired to ask ourselves what we can do in this present moment to do better, be kinder, and improve our lives one step at a time. That is how you earn love and ascension.
If you are seeking the path to enlightenment, to God as we understand it, or to just the abstract idea of holiness, please take time today to study your mindset and ask yourself if there is anything in your life you feel you are entitled to just because of who you are right now, and NOT because of who you have been in your actions or your heart, or in the choices you have made. We have to choose every moment to be a good person. It’s not something we wake up with as a default because of things like inheritance, beauty, popularity, or intelligence. This is a not situation of ‘I want it so I got it’. When we are handed things without earning them, we take them for granted and don’t appreciate them at all. It makes people miserable very quickly. Find joy by acting consciously for your own good and the good of others. We need to DO good and BE good, or at least strive for that, to earn it.
Love and blessings, friends.