Thanks

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.

He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him–and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17:11-19

It is in this story that we find two attitudes in which to live. One way is to live life in a way that says, “I deserve,” whether regarding what I have or what I want. The other way is in an attitude of gratitude that says, “Thank You.”

As a new father, I’ve been blessed with many opportunities these past five months to see life with new perspective. I’m amazed by the amount of sacrifice that is required by such a tiny individual. Anyone that has had a child can relate to sleepless nights, insistent pleas to be picked up, the messy diapers, and the shrill crying fits (that I guess I’m suppose to see as God’s way of gifting me with patience). And I’m pretty sure that I’ll never once get a thank you… just as I have failed to thank my own parents. Hmm….

Growing up, my dad liked to quote James Stewart from the movie SHENANDOAH, who began every meal with the same prayer, “Lord I planted the seeds, I plowed the ground, I gathered in the harvest. If I hadn’t of put the food on the table, it wouldn’t be here. But we thank you anyway.”

Although we may find this prayer amusing, this is often the approach we take with grace. We sit down at the table of life and immediately seek to fill our bellies. If we do give “thanks,” it is quickly mumbled through habit, devoid of heartfelt gratitude. God is great, and God is good, but shouldn't we thank Him for more than our food?

Often our prayers reflect that of a spoiled child’s wish list. We only thank God when He gives us what we wanted, pitching a fit if a requested toy is missing, and asking for a receipt if anything other appears under the tree. We have the audacity to strut through life, believing that we actually deserve the gifts God has given us.

We are usually reminded of this important truth after great tragedy. For how many of us think to thank him for giving us a clean bill of health after a visit to the doctor, when we’ve been blessed with the same for the past twenty years? We may recognize God’s blessing of protection when we narrowly escaped a deadly collision, but how many of us think to thank Him for safe travels on our ride to work this morning?

We don’t notice his bountiful blessings we breathe every day until we begin to suffocate. It seems we must subject our bodies to periodic starvation to truly appreciate the daily bread we mindlessly consume.

I imagine that the ten lepers appreciated good health, and longed for past vigor when they saw Jesus passing by.

I find it interesting that in some cultures, if you are stricken or born lame, they do not attempt to help you because they believe you were cursed. You simply got what you deserved. Perhaps they have a point.

Because if everything good comes from God, and even our most righteous efforts do not prime the pump enough for an ounce of the almighty. Perhaps charity is not about reaching out to those that received an undeserved dose of bad luck, but a natural outpouring of a heart that recognizes that we all deserve the same.

For we all have the disease, this infectious curse that runs deeper than the skin, spreads, isolates, and defiles our very soul, and ultimately destines us for the fire. No, it’s not leprosy, it’s sin. And we’ve all been given the dreaded news, “It’s terminal.”

But God has granted a measure of grace and mercy to each human being. He has withheld his wraith, giving us time for repentance (Romans 2:4). And for those of us that humble ourselves enough to cry out for mercy, He extends to us forgiveness and healing. We are saved, not just from physical pain and death, but from an eternity of darkness and isolation. And all He wants from us, is a “Thank You!”

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

–1 Thesselonians 5:18

I conclude this to be at the very core of the Christian Faith. For it is in this that we find how to live. Thankfulness is the thing that separates contentment from apathy, ambition from greed, obedience from religion, giving from obligation. It divides the humble from the proud, the righteous from the sinful, not so much in practice, but in heart. For this is the attitude of the Christian—Thanksgiving.

We are not to follow God’s commands to ease our guilty consciousness, nor to abstain from certain practices to appease His wraith. We are not to spend time in study and prayer to earn divine favor, nor to give generously in order to reap a greater return. We follow Christ simply out of gratitude of our hearts for the great things He has done for us.

So which leper are you? Have you returned to your savior to offer up your meager life as thanks, or are you one of the other nine, racing to live the life you were given without a thought to how you received it?