This has been a hard year for marriage. Maybe that’s why this year has felt so much harder than other years. Finding unity means I must fight for it. Fighting for unity means I have to fight the battle of a submissive heart, and I don’t just mean submitting to my husband, but submitting to God. I have to surrender all my wants to Him, to be made whole again with myself, with God, and then ultimately, with my husband. Ultimately, it’s a hard year because I am in a process of deep refinement. There are a whole lotta impurities coming outta this girl. [I am not proud.] One of those is ingratitude. What to do with a heart of ingratitude?
Recently, I found this ingratitude problem in the midst of life. We spent one Saturday doing fun things as a family, and when we got home, I read books, and hung out doing much of nothing, which is fine sometimes. However, the next day, I knew I was going to have several activities to do, and I had let many chores build and pile up. Come Sunday morning, all of a sudden, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated with myself for having fun on Saturday. I said some things that a person only says when they are ungrateful, and it made everyone feel bad. Reflecting on it later, I knew there was ingratitude coming out of my heart. It might have resulted with me stomping along a road at some point, but I can’t say for certain. 😉
The Fruitlessness of Ingratitude
Ingratitude Kills Joy
What started out as a heart that was frustrated with my self became a heart that began to wish I had done things differently the day before. In my frustration, I regretted the fun and laziness of the day before. Saturday was a beautiful day of family fun and rest. These are gifts, and it is not wrong to take a day of rest. I was angry that I did not prepare for the busy Sunday, and my attitude threatened to kill the previous day’s joy along with the current day’s joy.
Ingratitude Breeds Fear
Ultimately, a lot of the issues coming out of my heart were due to fear. In a world that is scary and full of hate, where we are all a little afraid of the crises due to terrorism, I have felt paralyzed by the fear that I have accidentally entered into some sort of sin cycle I cannot get out of – where marriages are hard, no one is happy, and despite all my hopes of being a better parent to my children, I will continue the mistakes of the past that I have so carefully tried to avoid and will cause my own children to enter this same cycle.
Ingratitude Kills Hope
This fear had begun to kill my hope for my children. I began to believe that things would always be frustrating. I was threatening to snuff out my hope for a new future. No matter who you are or what you believe, it is disheartening to feel like even though you’ve tried to do the right thing, you’ve found yourself falling into the same mistakes of the past, and feeling like your future is hopeless, and you’ve screwed up the future of your kids as well. How quickly we can succumb to these thoughts if we are not careful!
Ingratitude Focuses on What It Does not Have
The more afraid I feel, the more hopeless I feel, the more I worry about how I got here in the first place. Before long, my heart is meditating more on what I don’t have and what I wish I have instead of the goodness of God and what He has given me.
Ingratitude Enslaves
Eventually, either slowly or quickly depending on the situation, it is easy to find ourselves in a place of entrapment. This is exactly how Satan wants us to feel. Trapped and afraid, lost and scared, hopeless and alone.
Ingratitude breeds death, and gratitude breathes life.
So What to Do with a Heart of Ingratitude?
- Confess it. To yourself and to God. To your spouse, and to those you have sinned against.
- Repent it. Ask God to help you see the bundles of grace in your life.
- Systematically address areas of your heart that are causing ingratitude to grow. In my case, I can trace it back to fear. Look to the Word for verses that address those sin issues that are growing in your heart. Pick one or two verses that you can write on your bathroom mirror, chalkboards, or sticky notes or index cards throughout your home, so that you train your heart to meditate on the Word instead. The Word is living and active and even when it does not feel like it is rooting in your heart, it will cut off the dead parts of your heart and grow life.
- Keep a gratitude journal listing at least one joy or one gift of the day. This will train you to be intentional to see the hidden blessings and gifts. Include your family so that you retrain everyone to think intentionally about gifts, and kill the entitlement mentality that so easily sneaks up these days.
What will happen over time is that you will find yourself in a spacious place, you will acknowledge what you do have, hope will grow, fear will die, and joy will grow.
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” Colossians 3:16
Oh how I recognize this all too well, Jamie. Fear is at the root of it for me too: but then fear that I am being punished for not being good enough and fear that He has left me all alone.
I was reading someone’s take on the parable of the talents and looking at all the things they had shared of doing for God’s Kingdom and it frightened and angered me at the same time. Frightened because I wondered if I wasn’t doing enough, angered because I am sorely constricted in what I can do with my husband not sharing my faith. But in writing out a Lament to God, my eyes were opened to the truth of His Word: that he knows and feels my pain and frustration, that He is with me always and that He wants me to praise Him in the expectation that He will answer my prayers.
Good food for thought here on the need to recognize an ungrateful heart and its impact on ourselves and others. Thanks for your words.
I love this, “that he knows and feels my pain and frustration, that He is with me always and that He wants me to praise Him in the expectation that He will answer my prayers.” Something that can get hard, but so good and true. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
hi jamie,
this is a really great article on ingratitude. i found it very helpful and am passing it on. as someone who has been married 47 years, i can tell you that some years in marriage are hard…for a variety of reasons. the seeking for oneness, true oneness where your opinions are still spoken and you hash out your differences until you reach agreement…over time and learn to mutually submit is good. but from your perspective, you aren’t waiting for him to change. you are submitting to GOD for the changes you know you need to make. it is a great Biblical process…not always easy, but will move you in good directions.
i’m loving your blog the more i read it in my spurts. are you a pastor’s wife? you write a lot about the church as if you are an insider:) just wondering. i live in huntsville, AL. don’t know if we can ever meet in IRL.
Hey Martha,
Thanks for the comment and compliment. I am not a pastor’s wife, and I am not sure why I sound like an insider, except for I have loved the Lord and had a heart to be in ministry for a long time, so maybe that’s it. I would love to meet in real life. I bet we could meet half way in between if anything. I am much more of a person that ministers better face to face. By the way, I am curious as to which posts you’ve been reading. 😉 Blessed to see you here.