Article May 18, 1998 Issue

What are you entitled to?

God is supplying our every need—now.

By Harriet Barry Schupp

There is much discussion in the United States and in other countries over the issue of entitlements. The debate goes further than just a discussion of what the government should provide its citizens in social services. It's often connected with the concept of victimization—that for every wrong done to someone, the individual is owed something, that is, he or she is "entitled." Current debate presents a picture of limitation, conflict, fear, and resentment. But these are not qualities that connect any of us to what we unquestionably are entitled to have. And what might that be?

In the deepest sense, entitlement is not about what we get but about who God made us to be and what our real, spiritual selfhood already includes. When we think of ourselves as limited mortals, scrambling for a bigger piece of a limited pie, we can become very involved in getting our "due." But as we bring to this stressful sense of life a desire to know God and to do His will, we understand that our real entitlement is spiritual, and that putting our spirituality into practice meets our every need. We are convinced, then, that our being is complete, provided for, and secure, for our source is the all-good God, divine Love, and we are His image, or expression, His sons and daughters.

Our safety net is the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, the fact of divine Mind's control over every aspect of our being. We exist because this Mind has created us, and the tenderness with which Mind holds us allows for no falling. Neither the belief of age, nor of injury, nor of illness can deprive us of being safely and sufficiently cared for.

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