'Air of expectation' is a dangerous attitude
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Our time has rightly been described by many as the "age of entitlement." It is a time when men and women, boys and girls have come to believe they "deserve" certain privileges and "are entitled" to special consideration and benefits.
"It comes with the turf," they say. "It's my right," they declare. "I've got it coming," they contend. To go through life with an air of expectation, an attitude of "you owe me," is to walk in unsafe territory, to pursue a path that leads to deep disappointment, emptiness, and loneliness.
It is a sweet gift just to be alive. It is a marvelous manifestation of divine love to know that we are children of a divine Being and that we have a Savior who has given Himself as a ransom for our souls. It is a supernal grace to live in a day and time when prophets and apostles walk the earth, when the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in its fullness. It is an unspeakable treasure to have the assurance that God is in His heaven, Christ the Lord is leading His people, and that peace here and eternal life hereafter are within reach. No people in all the wide world should be more grateful — and thus more humble before the beneficent hand of the Almighty — than the saints of the Most High.
I have always puzzled over the fact that in scripture the Lord commands His people to be grateful. For example: "Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things" or "In nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things" (Doctrine and Covenants 59:7, 21).
It is a rather odd commandment, is it not? Why would the Lord ask, even command, that we be thankful? Does He need our thanks? Does He require our gratitude? Certainly not. God is absolutely perfect. Complete. Finished. Whole. In fact, as the Prophet Joseph Smith taught the School of the Elders, "God is the only supreme governor and independent being in whom all fullness and perfection dwell; who is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient; without beginning of days or end of life; ... in him every good gift and every good principle dwell" (Lectures on Faith, Deseret Book, 1985, 2:2, emphasis added. There is nothing lacking in either our Heavenly Father or His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.
Then why command that we render thanks? Why insist that we express gratitude? Simply stated, it is for our benefit, our blessing, our completion, to enable us to see things as they really are. We are not our own benefactors. We cannot forgive our own sins or work our way into the highest heaven hereafter, any more than we can create ourselves. We require a spiritual transformation of the heart and a divine enabling power to accomplish what would otherwise be the impossible. In short, we are utterly dependent on the mercy and grace of the Father and the Son.
The natural man demands attention, seeks to upstage God and fellowman, strives to be "number one," no matter the cost. He or she is proud, overly competitive, and fiercely independent. His ways are arrogant and self promoting, her mantra being "I can handle it!" Because he is working at cross purposes to God and even to himself and his own happiness, the natural man is an "enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19; Alma 41:11).
A recognition of our limitations and a willingness to "acknowledge our unworthiness before God at all times" (Alma 38:14; compare Luke 18:9-14; Mosiah 4:2; Ether 3:2) are an excellent start to putting off the natural man and putting on Christ. The man or woman who believes he or she can solve all of their problems on their own and find peace and fulfillment through exercising their natural genius (compare Alma 30:17) believes a lie, a damning lie that deflects their gaze away from Deity and thus from their only source of solace and security.
President Howard W. Hunter observed: "Peter sprang over the vessel's side and into the troubled waves, and while his eyes were fixed upon the Lord, the wind might toss his hair and the spray might drench his robes, but all was well. Only when with wavering faith he removed his glance from the Master to look at the furious waves and the black gulf beneath him, only then did he begin to sink. Again, like most of us, he cried, 'Lord, save me.' Nor did Jesus fail him."
President Hunter concluded: "It is my firm belief that if, as individual people, as families, communities, and nations, we could, like Peter, fix our eyes on Jesus, we too might walk triumphantly over the swelling waves of disbelief and remain unterrified amid the rising winds of doubt." (That We Might Have Joy, Deseret Book, 1994, 19-20).
When we look to God, in other words, we live (Alma 37:47). When we look to God — thank Him for a season of good health; acknowledge His goodness in providing for our daily necessities; rejoice in the gift and gifts of the Holy Ghost and the peace that settles our hearts, and ten thousand times ten thousand other unmentioned blessings — we put away self-absorption, self-pity, and an unhealthy self-reliance. We put away the old self, the old man or woman of sin, and put on Christ. We become a new creation of the Spirit, a new creature in Christ (Romans 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:24; Colossians 2:13; 3:5; Mosiah 27:25-26).
This is why King Benjamin taught his people (and us) the principle of divine indebtedness, the fact that even if we should love and serve and give and labor all our days in the cause of truth, we would still, without the cleansing and enabling power of our Savior's atonement, be unworthy creatures (Mosiah 2:20-21). This is why that same Benjamin taught that one of the grand keys to remaining unspotted from the world, to retaining a remission of sins from day to day, is a regular and consistent expression of love and thanks and tender surrender to that God who has created us and does uphold us from moment to moment (Mosiah 4:11-12).
President Gordon B. Hinckley pointed out, "Our society is afflicted by a spirit of thoughtless arrogance unbecoming those who have been so magnificently blessed. How grateful we should be for the bounties we enjoy. Absence of gratitude is the mark of the narrow, uneducated mind. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge and the ignorance of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and frequently in wanton mischief."
On the other hand, "Where there is appreciation, there is courtesy, there is concern for the rights and property of others.... Where there is gratitude, there is humility, as opposed to pride" (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, Deseret Book, 1997, 247).
Gratitude is a Godly attribute. Gratitude gladdens the heart. Gratitude focuses and re-focuses the mind upon primary causes. Gratitude yokes us with Him who is mighty to save. Indeed, gratitude is the stuff out of which celestial living, in this world and in the world to come, is made.
— Robert L. Millet is Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University.
