If you’ve ever gone out of your way to help someone and did your best to do so, and the only feedback you received is that it wasn’t nearly enough, you know how disheartening unthankfulness can be. It’s also why I don’t subscribe to the mindset that whenever someone with means makes a sizeable contribution to some project, whether it’s to dig wells or build homes, the immediate reaction should be that they could have done more.
Coincidentally, that is always the narrative from the nosebleed
section, no matter how unmatchable by us common folk the generosity of those
they look their noses down upon happens to be. These are the same people who do
absolutely nothing for that particular cause except wait feverishly beside
their keyboard until someone does so they can belittle the size of their contribution.
It’s not up to me to decide what another should do for the poor; it’s up to me
to decide what I will do for them since they will always be among us.
A sense of entitlement is kryptonite to thankfulness and a
debilitating poison for men’s souls. When an individual believes that whatever
they receive from the hand of God is owed to them, that simply by raising a
hand in church, they are entitled to all the riches of earth, however God
chooses to bless them, it’s never enough, and they are never thankful.
Being unthankful in the little things will eventually lead to
being unthankful in the big ones. If you are not thankful for everything,
eventually, you will be thankful for nothing. We form patterns, and before we
realize it, they become habits, and once that habit is formed, it takes some
sort of event to snap us out of it and make us realize what we’ve been doing.
Being unthankful can become habit forming, and when unthankfulness takes root
in men’s hearts, their attitude is one of perpetual ingratitude.
Bless me, Lord. They cry aloud, and God answers, I have. To
that, they arch their eyebrows and wonder aloud, how so?
Psalm 103:1-5, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is
within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all
His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and
tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth
is renewed like the eagle’s.”
That’s all well and good, but why does my neighbor have a
newer car, a bigger house, fancier toys, and more money than me? That’s the
answer of the unthankful heart whenever God reveals all that He has done. It’s
never enough; it’s never sufficient because they’re always comparing their status
with someone else’s, and it’s never with the individual who has less.
Of all the things David mentioned in his hymn of
thanksgiving, not one was tethered to the material. You couldn’t buy any of the
things he was thankful for, no matter how much you were willing to spend. That’s
the thing the unthankful never seem to realize: that the benefits God reserves
for His own are priceless and not within man’s ability to acquire by any other
means. You can’t buy forgiveness or healing; you can’t purchase redemption from
destruction; you can’t join a club, no matter how exclusive, to receive His
lovingkindness and tender mercies. To access any of these things, you must be
His, belong to Him, serve Him, and obey Him.
What many in the West define as poverty, the rest of the
world deems unattainable luxuries. If you have running water, a roof over your
head, a means of earning your daily bread, and a means of transport, you’re
doing better than most people living in the world today. There are currently
over one billion people living on less than a dollar a day, yet we still find
reasons to be unthankful more often than many of them.
The reason for this is simple: men’s sense of entitlement has
reached such monstrous proportions that the daily blessings others would weep
in gratitude toward God over, they dismiss offhand. Being unthankful has always
been a mark of the godless. Only within the last few decades has it become a
staple within the church as well. Standing before God with our hands out,
asking for more, even though we have more than enough, has become a mainstay of
the modern-day church. If what we were asking for was more faith, more power,
more virtue, more righteousness, more obedience, or faithfulness, it would be
all well and good. We’re not, though. We’re not asking God for the refiner’s fire;
we’re praying money down from heaven and flocking to anyone who would promise
us life on easy street.
Being thankful is a choice. Being unthankful is likewise a
choice. We choose to see the blessing and providence of God every day or to
compare ourselves to others and feel as though we’ve been shortchanged somehow.
Not only are we to be thankful for God’s blessings, but we
must also be thankful for the trials He allows in our lives. It’s a big ask
when most people aren’t even thankful for their blessings, but when we realize
that the trials He allows bring us closer to Him, teach us to be more dependent
upon Him, and facilitate our seeing His mighty hand at work in our lives, we
become thankful even for them.
An unthankful heart will always have a reason to grumble. It
will always have some complaint or another because it is never satisfied. There
will always be something more it desires, refusing to consider all it has
received. The attitude of ‘what have you done for me lately’ defines the
unthankful heart, as though Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross were not
enough.
Being around unthankful believers is disheartening. Their
attitude is akin to a perpetual dark cloud that saps your joy and your peace.
Every day is a new misfortune, a fresh reason to gripe, to insist that they are
unloved by God because there’s a pebble in their shoe, rather than being
thankful that they have shoes and shaking out the pebble.
If we cannot be thankful in times such as these, how will we
be thankful when times get hard? If we cannot be thankful in seasons of plenty,
how will we be thankful in seasons of famine?
2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even
though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by
day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the
things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
How many churches today can honestly say this is the standard they live by? How many believers can read these words and see their hearts mirrored therein? Never mind that Paul’s definition of light affliction was within the context of being hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, shipwrecked, beaten with rods, and stoned. An unthankful heart will always focus on the temporary, the things that are seen, the things they can touch, drive, wear, and brag about. The thankful heart understands that come what may in this life, including trials and momentary afflictions, are working for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 20 July 2024 | 2:06 pm
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