Part of living a life of humility is living a life of gratitude. Are we truly grateful for the things that God has given us or do we take for granted the gifts we have received?
Read Luke 17:11-19 and journal your thoughts
This is one of those verses that could be misinterpreted if we don’t really understand what’s going on. After a quick reading, it could seem like Jesus just wants credit for what happened. What we have to understand is in their culture the people practiced this act of blessing God for His provisions. For a very devout rabbi, it was not uncommon to bless God over a hundred times a day for the blessings he’s given them. For example, when they woke up they would bless God for allowing their soul to return to their body. When they got dressed they blessed God for providing clothes for the naked. Basically gratitude was deeply woven into their culture. So here, Jesus is not looking for gratitude for himself, but for God (verse 17).
What’s interesting about today’s text is that Jesus heals 10 people, and the only one of them who comes back to offer their gratitude to God is a Samaritan who from a 1st century Jewish perspective was like the lowest of the low. Yet he is the one who gets it, not the other nine. To be fair, the text does not say the other nine are Jewish, but it’s safe to assume that some of them were.
So the question for us is are we thankful for the things God has given us? We live in a culture where it’s hard to show gratitude when someone else always has something better. In fact, part of what fuels are economy is that marketing is driven by our own covetness. We want what others have, plain and simple and Apple keeps putting out new ipads and iphones. Ford puts out newer cars with cool new gadgets. So at what point are we content? At what point can we just be thankful for the blessings God has given us? When was the last time you thanked God for allowing your spirit to return to your body in the morning?
Today take some time to mediate and thank God for all of the little blessings He has given you.
No comments:
Post a Comment