This life owes me nothing

Last Sunday night, at Bible Study, I closed the Bible study with the claim, "I am Joseph".

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story of Joseph (the Joseph of Genesis). Joseph was the chosen privileged son of Jacob/Israel. Joseph's entire life was one of opportunities, privilege, gifts, and the unwavering support of his father. Joseph could do no wrong in the eyes of his father.

However, if you were to ask his brothers about Joseph, they would tell a different story of the real Joseph. Joseph to them was immature, spoiled, arrogant, narcissistic, and self-centered.

I never considered my life as a mirrored reflection of Joseph's life until last Sunday night. Over the last couple of weeks, I have cringed on more than one occasion as we recounted the story of Joseph life's and it wasn't until Sunday night that I began to understand why I was cringing. I was reliving some of the most embarrassing parts of my own childhood memories as we examined why Joseph's brothers hated him so much.

I have been anointed as the chosen one of my family. I have been given opportunities, privileges, gifts, and unwavering support from my family that my siblings didn't receive. My siblings more times than not did not have a favorable view of me because of

my anointed status. In the eyes of my siblings, I was arrogant, spoiled, narcissistic, and self-centered and they were 100% right.

As I got older, I began to reject my position of the "chosen" one. I began to tire of being owned by the ones who had sacrificed of themselves to put me into the position of privilege. I loved and appreciated everything they had done for me, but I was not about to be owned.

I came to a point where I would rather have nothing and be free than have privilege, status, and authority and be owned by the ones who put me in the position of privilege.

My cautionary tale to those younger than me is be careful of privilege. For every opportunity that you are afforded by someone else's sacrifice, you sell yourself to those who afforded you those opportunities.

For every government program that gives you privilege and opportunity, the government in turn takes that much more of your freedom and owns a piece of you.

For every time you turn to your parents for privilege and opportunity, the parents in turn own a part of your freedom by having a say in your future choices. The own a piece of you for what they have done for you.

Now some would say that is how all relationships operate. But not all relationships follow a path of indebtedness for privilege.

Good parenting, good friendship, and good governments follow a Christ centered model that do not play favorites or enable but instead teach, train, and equip those coming after them to work hard and earn their place in life.

Jesus died so that we would no longer be slaves but that we would be free.

Why would you want to be a slave to privilege when you can be free in Christ?