While most of our insecurity is a result of internal uncertainty or external obstacles, there is a dangerous form that comes from entitled self-focus. It is subtle, so we often don’t realize we’re doing it, but the parable of the Prodigal Son draws attention to it by taking just as many verses to detail the angry hostility of the older brother. His frustration with the mercy shown to his sinning brother paralleled the assumptive self-righteousness of the Pharisees Jesus was talking to. By looking at his reactions, we see the fallacy of the narrative that God just wants us to “be happy”, as well as the self-pity, judgmentalism and fear that can make us self-focused rather than content in the Lord.
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