My rescue pooch, Laz, taught me a spiritual lesson one evening.
It started as basic hunger. Laz watched me scarf down some succulent beef stir fry for dinner. I slipped a piece of beef under the table. He was happily surprised. And very thankful.
Little Laz jumped up on my leg, begging shamelessly for another bite. Again, I yielded, because I love him and enjoy giving him good things. He leapt toward the sliver of meat like a lion attacking an antelope on the Serengeti plain.
Suddenly, greed overtook the 8-pound terrier, and he became a 50-pound terror, clawing his way up my leg, lunging for my plate. Because of my previous kindness, he thought he deserved whatever I had. He was entitled to it. My stir fry now belonged to him.
As I shoved the wiggling mass of rapacity outside so we could peacefully finish dinner, I realized Laz was demonstrating the three levels of how we receive God’s mercy.
Level 1: Gratitude. We’re humbled, delighted and thankful for the Lord’s unexpected mercy in the form of that unmerited blessing we received. Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT) plays out: “The unfailing love of the LORD never ends … Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each day.”
Level 2: Greed. The pleasure of the blessing suddenly morphs into the overwhelming desire for more. We don’t just want more, we need more. We simply can’t live without more. What we’ve been given just isn’t enough. So, we claw, connive and attempt to convince the source of our blessing that we deserve more. If He won’t give it willingly, we’ll try to take it.
Level 3: Entitlement. We’ll whine, wheedle, even snatch more of that blessing out of His hand. After all, we deserve it. Because of our elevated station as a child of God (even though we didn’t work to attain it), we perceive that whatever is His also belongs to us.
We totally forget the generous promise of Lamentations 3: His mercy, His grace, His blessings are new every morning. We don’t have to stockpile them. Or clutch them to our chests and hoard them in a selfish frenzy. Or consume them quickly so no one can take them away.
Our faithful Father is gracious enough to offer us new mercies over and over again. Every single morning!
