Thank You

This is the title of today's devotional. Anchor verse, "Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine?" Luke 17:17

My devotional is a story of two women talking. They are discussing how one of the women and her husband are going through a tough time, due to the husbands job loss. The other woman tells her that she knows they are going through a rough time, and how it can seem that God is far away. She tells her friend how she was going through a dry time and they had a Sunday School lesson on how Jesus had healed 10 lepers and only 1 came back to thank him. She told her friend that she decided to start a gratitude journal. For 30 days she would write down 5 different things each day she was grateful for. She says that towards the end of the 30 days she was getting to the nitty gritty of gratefulness to God for the things she was blessed with, and realized just how blessed she really was.

I am so like the nine in the anchor verse. Oh don't get me wrong, there are things that I am continually grateful to God for. But I find myself being like the spoiled child and expecting to be blessed, and being ungrateful for the blessing. I often wonder why is this happening to me, why do I keep having to go through these things Lord?? When if I would step back and be grateful, and mindful, I might be able to see some purpose, His purpose in the things I endure. I think it's easy for all us to see that the nine were ungrateful towards Jesus, as we read this. Just like it's easy for us to spot how the Isrealites were repeatedly stupid in their disobedience to God when we read of their journey through the dessert. As we read we say to ourselves, why didn't they just do what God told them to, then everything would have been fine. But we can ask ourselves the same question. Why don't we just do what God tells us??? I know I don't, and then I wonder why things are all messed up. I think the next time my children are ungrateful for something special I have just done for them, I will remember this and praise God for the many blessing he has given me.

Deeper walk: Luke 17:11-17 NAS Jesus Heals Ten Men with Leprosy
"While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine-where are they?""