Occupy Wall Street

To begin, I should comment that this post technically isn't about Occupy Wall Street.  However, Occupy Wall Street did inspire this post, and therefor the title isn't completely misleading.  Now, regarding Occupy Wall Street, I have to admit that I'm not as up to date on it as I could be.  I've looked into it a bit, and whenever it's talked about on the radio I listen closely, but I'm not incredibly knowledgeable about it.  From what I've seen, though, it seems to me that the root of the protest is people unhappy with how the wealthy keep getting wealthier and the poor continue to get poorer, as well as being angry about not being able to get a job.  Now, both of those claims are very interesting in their own right, and are things that Sandra and I have been discussing quite a bit lately.  We've come to some conclusions, but I'll save those for a later post (every time I come up with an idea to solve the economic crisis, Sandra points out why it won't work...)  One definitive conclusion I have come to, however, is that we live in a country of entitlement.  I've heard it said that you have to choose which garden you're going to tend in your life, that garden of what you have, or that garden of what you don't have (I think I really screwed this quote up, but hopefully the meaning of it is clear).  I think that in this country we do a lot of tending of the garden of what we don't have.  See, I spent 2 years of my life living in Peru and Bolivia.  While there, I gained a much greater appreciation for our country.  I gained an appreciation for having paved roads, for having clean drinking water, for having policemen you can trust, and other things.  Now, perhaps the people attending the occupy movements across the country have taken the time to count the blessings that they have from living in this country, but I really wonder if they've done that recently.  There are so many things we take for granted every day, and the problem with taking things for granted and not appreciating what you have is you develop a sense of entitlement, which seems to be where this country has gone.  We as a country seem to think that we deserve to have top of the line health care, a nice new car, a smartphone, etc.  The truth is, though, that we really don't "deserve" anything.  There is a scripture I really like which says, "And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you."  The speaker in this scripture goes on to comment that even the air we breathe is a gift from our Creator.  To think that we really have a "right" to anything is somewhat presumptuous.  Rather, we should wake up every day and just be grateful that we're even alive.  Indeed, in the Old Testament, in the Book of Job, it talks about "the morning stars [singing] together, and all the sons of God shout[ing] for joy."  The way I've head this particular scripture interpreted is that such was the case when we found out that we were going to have a chance to come to earth.
Now, I've done a lot of finger pointing thus far, but I will be the first to point out that I am just as guilty as those people sleeping in Zuccotti Park, and perhaps more so.  I honestly don't remember when the last time was that I really stopped and thought about all that I have.  Also, I want to mention that I'm also not suggesting that we should sit idly by when we are unhappy with political conditions or the state of the economy.  What I am saying is that before we start blaming others for things and such, let's remember just what amazing things we've been given, with one of the greatest being the chance to be here on earth, and an even greater gift, in my opinion, being the chance we have on this earth to return to live with our Heavenly Father, which is a gift that I believe was provided by Jesus Christ.