Just So Darned Ungrateful!

“She’s so ungrateful!” “He just takes me for granted.” “No one in this house appreciates me!” “My boss never tells me I’m doing a good job.” “My parents don’t acknowledge the extra things I do!”

It has taken years for me to come to the realization that giving people the power to validate me, also gives them the power to annihilate me.

Because I was not loved as a child, I somehow came to believe as an adult I could make people love me, by the things I did for them. Yes, that is a very tiring and I might add, very unrewarding way to live. (It has many valleys and some mountains.) But my need and desire to be accepted and loved continued to push me to try and make it happen.  No matter how much the writing on the wall said otherwise.

With the Christmas holidays quickly approaching, there will be an abundance of opportunities for the enemy to make us feel that all our hard work was for naught and people really don’t care.

We will shop to we drop. Spend money we don’t have and so much more. And at the end of it all, someone, somewhere, will not thank us, not applaud us and most of all…will not be grateful!

I want to ask a question, “Do you thank God for everything He does for you?” If you answered “Yes,” you’re dreaming. I say this because we haven’t a clue as to what all God does. It is impossible to know what harm or danger He has kept us from and all the blessings bestowed upon us. And even in all the things we do know and see—we still don’t always thank Him.

When my youngest daughter started attending school in 8^th grade (she was homeschooled) I would pray over her and plead the blood every morning before she left. And one day the Holy Spirit asked, “When are you going to start thanking the Lord when she walks through that door every day?” Yes, I was guilty of making a daily request and casting my care for her safety on God, yet I still neglected to thank Him for granting, “Yes."

Do you thank God every time you put something in your mouth—lifesaver—gum—piece of candy? Do you thank Him every time you load the dishwasher, washing machine or dryer? Do you thank Him for your Dyson or do you mumble a little bit because you really don’t like vacuuming? See sisters, we don’t thank God for everything He does or gives us. And the moment we mumble and complain about anything, we are being ungrateful.

When you’re upset with your husband is your focus on the good he does, or what he did to upset you? Is your attitude one of gratefulness or scorn? The same goes for our place of employment. When we feel we are not being treated fairly or are underappreciated we lose focus of the fact we have a job and how God is using it to meet a need. And we most certainly forget how hard we prayed and begged Him for the job to begin with.

And when we choose (on purpose) not to handle a situation God’s way, we are really ungrateful for all that Christ did and went through on the Cross for us.

I think I’ve made my case as to how no one can be more ungrateful than us at times.

Personally, I’ve been struggling with people being ungrateful most of my Christian walk. Of course it has been in different degrees and has weakened as I grow in the Word. But even so, I still find myself saying or thinking how ungrateful people are from time-to-time. The good thing now is I quickly get an auto correct from the Holy Spirit, because the truth is—people don’t have to be grateful. I mean, when you think about it, they really don’t.

We train our children to say, “Thank you,” and tell them how grateful they should be when people do things for them or give them something. But gratefulness is an issue of the heart and we can only tell them, we can’t make them.

But there is one sure fire way to conquer the, they are so ungrateful syndrome and that’s by doing things to please God and remembering His mercy in our own ungratefulness toward Him. Yup, that’s how you become free from, “She’s so ungrateful!” “He just takes me for granted.” “No one in this house appreciates me!” “My boss never tells me I’m doing a good job.” “My parents don’t acknowledge the extra things I do!”

Maybe you spent the better part of your day fixing your husband his favorite meal and baked a special dessert and he never said a thing. It was business as usual when he got in from work. Now, you’re upset and the pathway to “He doesn’t appreciate me,” is wide open. But if you do it because you love God and you know it's pleasing to Him to show your husband love by fixing this meal, then you’re not so fast to feel taken for granted because it was all about God in the first place. Maybe he had a bad day at work?

When you do something special in your home and your husband or kids don’t notice; does that upset you? Why? Is it because you need them to acknowledge your hard work? But if we do it because we are grateful to the Lord for our home and desire to be a good steward over it, then shouldn’t that be enough? 

Yes, it should.

The same goes for buying Christmas gifts or any of the other million things we do for people. Buy it because you love them and want them to have it. If you have any other motivation other than that—don’t get it. No one asked you to get up at 2am to stand outside in the cold and shop the deals. Therefore, when their response to the gift is not what you wanted, don’t get upset…it was your choice.

As Believers, we are to work in excellence on our jobs and if our natural boss never compliments us in anyway, remember it is our ultimate Boss who sees it all and is our rewarder. 

Being grateful or ungrateful is definitely a condition of the heart… “Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life’s consequences.” Proverbs 4:23 (CJB) or a more familiar translation, “Keep your heart with all diligence. For out of it spring the issues of life.” (NKJ)

When we desire validation from man, it’s never a win-win. When we give power for compliments to lift us up then the absences or lack of them can pull us down. But, when we do it as unto the Lord (for God’s pleasure), then man’s attitude toward us is not what matters.

The next time you catch yourself saying or thinking, “They’re so ungrateful! No one appreciates the things I do!” remember God’s great love toward us and how ungrateful and unappreciative we can be when it comes to the things He does. It’s called, “Unconditional love”!

Until next week...

Blessings and Hugs,

Ponnie