A few days ago a friend of mine sent me this fascinating
Seattle Times article entitled “Are We Grown Up Brats?” The article (read it!) talks about how the
current generation (Generation Y or the “iGeneration”) is being defined as
increasingly narcissistic, easily dissatisfied due to growing customer
expectation, impatient, easily offended, and with an unrealistic sense of
entitlement. While I am a generationX-er
by birth, I think many of these unpleasant characteristics happen to also fit
me (and/or my generational set) like a glove.

It’s not something I’m proud to claim. Who wants to be portrayed as a 30-something
brat kicking his feet in the air and pounding his fists into the dirt whenever he
doesn’t get his way? It’s embarrassing. It’s ugly. 

What’s uglier to me though is that I believe I carry over these
cultural and generational calling cards into my Christian experience as well. In my own defense, it’s often difficult to discover
these blind spots in one’s character in order to deal with them effectively. That’s the problem with narcissism; you spend
so much time looking at your ugly mug in the mirror that your myopia distorts
the true image and you can’t see what is painfully obvious to those around
you. It’s the pole-eye affect that Jesus
warns us about.

But let me be more specific. Hypothetically speaking, of course, a pilgrim might leave behind
everything in order to follow Jesus. She
might give up her job; say goodbye to close friends and family; sell all her
worldly goods; lose her culture, find herself without familiar things, a
certain delicious brand of breakfast cereal might be unavailable, etc. In order to follow Him this pilgrim might be
stripped of many “essential” things: identity, status, occupation, language,
security, customs/traditions, future prospects, community, talents, IRA, 401K, MTV, you name it! There is just no end to what might NEED be
sacrificed in order to follow a wily Fisherman God. But that’s all OK, right? We “count all things loss” in light of
knowing and following Him. Right? Right… 

But that’s where it gets sticky. That’s when a pilgrim’s cultural baggage might
get dropped in a lump on their toe sometimes. Because when this (completely hypothetical mind you) “sacrificial”
pilgrim is stripped down to his/her skivvies, that’s when the real hidden expectations
are visible for the eye to see. The
patched and ratty long-johns that he forgot he was wearing are suddenly on
display.

Turns out, no matter how pure this pilgrim’s motives appear
on the surface, there is something below the surface that often drives him/her
towards success, satisfaction, and entitlement. He asks: Am I content? Am I content enough? Is this the expected outcome that all of my
sacrificing was supposed to produce? Aren’t I entitled to something? Aren’t I special? Isn’t this about me…just a little bit? 

It’s sadly funny, in a way, because we are talking about
spiritual pursuits and the Ultimate God-man relational dynamic and yet it’s so
easy to boil these EPIC-beauty-mystery things down to a somewhat trivial
consumer-in-the-marketplace dynamic.

If I had the guts to voice the internal question it would
be: am I satisfied/content with how I’ve invested my life? Was trusting God a good investment? Or an uglier question I could ask is: “Am I
NOT entitled to a little less suffering because of my SUPER faithfulness?”  (Did I get a laugh there?)

The Apostle Peter would say emphatically, “NO!” He would say I’ve got it all backwards…and
then he would say most lovingly, “Stop being such a brat!” 

In his numero uno letter to the early church Peter seems
almost excited to share the low-down with the Diaspora believers that their
suffering is actually a good thing. He
tells them that it is bringing them closer to understanding and being transformed
to Christlikeness. He says it in many
different ways in this short letter AND he seems to always put it in the
outward context of others—the larger community we are a part of. Peter reminds them/us that they/we have
“brothers all over the world” who are experiencing the same kind of suffering
(and worse!) for Christ. It’s that FOR
CHRIST bit that makes all the difference. Our satisfaction and willingness to suffer comes from and because of HIM
and not from any other motivation.

I guess in my own meandering way I am saying that I think
there is an element of the Christian faith that will always run counter-culture
because ALL cultures are broken in some way. It has been a great challenge for me over the past year (or 3) to really
dislodge some of these cultural and generational barriers to my faith.  I’ve
had to realize and come to grips with the fact that my “happiness” and
“job-satisfaction” (even in spiritual pursuits) is not the end-goal that God
has in mind for me. Not at all; because
He is more concerned about being known by me—the relationship thing—than He is
in making me feel like a valued, well-compensated member of His Company. My sanctification—which involves real
suffering because that is exactly what Christ emulated—is much more important
to God than meeting my misguided sense of entitlement. If we believe the Gospel then we know that we
are entitled to nothing, but because of Christ we have been GIVEN everything,
gratis. It’s the fact that we don’t
deserve IT that makes it so amazing… 

So, I think, moment-by-moment gratitude is the ONLY
appropriate response to Him; not temper tantrums. The Kingdom is so much infinitely broader
than ME (the individual) anyway. It is
about US by proxy, but in totality it’s really just about HIM.

And, thankfully, he’s no brat.

Not saying she’s a BRAT!  This is just the epitome of entitlement…