Read: Numbers 11:1-15
We live in an entitled age. People think that they deserve everything and the kitchen sink, and when they don’t get what they want they grumble, protest, and they forget all of the other blessings that they have in their life.
Entitlement is the destroyer of gratitude. Think about the state of our culture. In the United States, in the 21st Century, we have unprecedented opportunity, provision, freedom, entertainment, and comforts that the world has never seen before. Even the richest people on the planet just a hundred years ago would be jealous of the luxuries that even the poorest of us have today.
Indoor plumbing and our modern sewage system, anyone? Electricity? The internet? All of those are luxuries, by the way. They’re not necessities. Though we may not feel like it, we could survive and even thrive without them.
And yet why is that while we are living in an age of unprecedented opulence and luxury, large swaths of Americans act like the most dissatisfied, discontent, ungrateful, and deprived people that have ever walked the face of the earth? There are many contributors to the answer to that question, but a big contributor is entitlement. We think that they deserve this, that, and everything else. And because we think this way, we are not grateful for the things they have, we are envious of what others have, and when we are deprived of what they think they deserve they go off the rails.
The people of Israel in the wilderness had a lot of problems. The root of their problems was a wicked unbelief (Heb. 3:17-19).
This unbelief manifested itself in many different ways, but one of the most vocal was their entitlement that led to them constantly grumble over every little thing. Though God delivered them from their 400 years of slavery, defeated every enemy that sought them harm, given them his law and the sacrificial system whereby their sins could be forgiven, and provided them water from a rock and bread from heaven, they were still discontent and ungrateful.
In every new instance of a perceived hurdle, the people utterly forgot who was leading and guiding them, and what he had already done and provided for them. In our passage, the Israelites were finally leaving Sinai after spending quite a bit of time camped there as they received the law and built the Tabernacle and all of its accoutrements (Num. 10:33-36). They travel for a mere three days and begin complaining over their ‘misfortunes.’
The Lord discplines them for their discontent, which quiets them for a brief period, but it doesn’t take long for the people to begin complaining again, this time about their food situation. The miraculous, heavenly, delicious manna that the Lord abundantly provided for them was not sufficient for them. Back in Egypt, they didn’t just have bread. They had meat, as well as particular types of vegetables, which they became accustomed to (vv. 4-5).
Though God was providing sufficiently for their needs—they weren’t going hungry—they felt entitled to have meat, fish, cucumbers, and leeks in their diet. So, rather than praising God for his bountiful provision as they wandered through the desert, they called the food that he did provide for them, “worthless,” (v. 6). They weren’t getting what they thought they should be getting, so were not thankful for what they had been given.
As Paul told the Romans, we must not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think (Rom. 12:3). There the context is spiritual gifts, but the principle applies to what we think we deserve as well. When we get big headed and view the blessings that we’ve been given as things that are ours by right, rather than by grace, we’re not going to be grateful for them. Let us instead fill our hearts with gratitude, thanking God constantly for all that he’s given us (Ps 35:18).
