The Hidden Cost of My Ungrateful Heart

I recently noticed something troubling about myself—when I pray for God’s help in a crisis and God answers and the burden lifts, I’m thankful, but only for a small fraction of the time I spent anxious and praying. 

I immediately move on to the next problem, and my gratitude fades nearly as quickly as it arrived.

I started thinking about what this would look like in a human relationship. If I poured everything I had into helping someone through a genuine crisis, gave my time, my resources, and my full attention, and that person thanked me for five minutes and then never mentioned it again or treated me with any lasting appreciation—what would I think of them? I think most of us would call that shallow. We’d notice the imbalance between what was given and how briefly it was acknowledged. And yet this is exactly the pattern many of us fall into with God, Who has given us far more than any human ever could!

So, I’ve asked God to show me how to change this.

God reminded me that as a born again believer, my soul has been made righteous before Him and is fully capable of exercising the mind and the attitudes of Christ. That capacity is real—but I’m still wrapped in my unregenerate flesh. It remains exactly what it always was: an instrument tuned to the physical, and left to itself, it produces what Paul describes as….

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21)

That’s a brutal list. But ingratitude fits right into that list, even though Paul doesn’t name it directly. Selfishness is there. Envy is there. And underneath both of those is a heart that’s fixed on itself rather than fixed on gratitude. That’s the flesh’s native posture. It doesn’t naturally look backward with thanks; it looks forward with want. This is exactly why my own pattern of worrying hard, praying hard, and then quickly forgetting to be thankful is the fleshly heart asserting itself.

Paul identifies this inner conflict plainly in Romans.

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” (Romans 7:18-20)

Paul is very careful here. He doesn’t say his soul wants to sin. He locates the problem in our resident enemy—the flesh—that never signed up for the regenerated life. This is the same battle behind our struggle with gratitude. The soul, born again and indwelt by the Spirit, actually wants to remember and give thanks. But the flesh keeps pulling our attention toward the next problem, the next want, and the next thing that hasn’t been solved yet, and gratitude gets crowded out. 

Many of us know the story of Samuel setting up a stone called “Ebenezer.”

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)

That stone marked the moment when God had shown up. But a stone in a field, or a plaque on a wall in our homes—while both are great ways to help us grow in thankfulness—can only ever be a monument to a memory. What God wants for our spiritual health is gratitude that lives in the daily rhythm of our lives. 

That’s what I want too…don’t you?

It seems that thankfulness ties directly into all the best things we desire—like peace and wisdom. For example, read this carefully:

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3:15-17)

Notice how thanksgiving isn’t tacked onto the end of that passage as an afterthought. It’s woven through every part of it, ruling our hearts, filling our worship, and shaping our words and our actions. This is what it means to walk according to the Spirit instead of the flesh. Gratitude is the atmosphere in which everything else operates in. Paul says something similar and even more direct in Philippians.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Thanksgiving isn’t just what comes after the prayer is answered. It belongs inside the prayer itself, right alongside the request. If I’m asking God for help and thanking Him in the same breath, trusting He is already working, gratitude stops being reactive. Gratitude produces the settled confidence that we already know how the story ends. Paul makes the standard almost impossibly clear in his letter to the Thessalonians:

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Everything. David wrote:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. (Psalm 103:2)

He’s talking to his own soul, reminding it not to forget. That’s the discipline. The flesh will always drift toward selfish forgetfulness, but the soul, if we speak to it and direct it the way David did, can be called back to remembrance again and again.

If you’ve noticed this same pattern in yourself—worrying hard, praying hard, and then letting gratitude slip away within mere minutes—you’re not alone. It’s simply the ongoing battle between your soul that wants to give thanks and a flesh that never will. The good news is that our born again soul is empowered by God. We have the very mind of Christ.

The hidden cost of an ungrateful heart? Well, it’s to live as a slave to the works of the flesh instead of in the blessings of the fruit of the Spirit. But the reward of a grateful heart is we experience the goodness of God—His love, joy, peace, wisdom, strength, and comfort!

Prayer

Lord, I confess that my gratitude often fades far faster than it should. Teach me to have thankfulness inside my prayers. Help me walk according to the mind of Christ You have given me rather than the selfish mind of the flesh. Shape a thankful heart in me, Lord—in every area of my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.