I bet you’ve been there. A really real crisis threatens to smash all the pieces, so in your desperation, you cry out to God for help. Weeks, months, and even years pass as you struggle with or stare down a worst-case scenario. And then, one glorious day, the issue goes away, and also you experience relief, exactly as you asked.
Then something strange happens. You are rightfully elated in the intervening time, but before you realize it, the busyness of life sweeps you away into the subsequent calendar event or issue. Soon, you ] rarely think concerning the very crisis that after consumed your thoughts and energies. Why does this occur? Because one of the best things in life are also probably the most easily missed.
To lose sight of the nice shouldn’t be only a human thing, it is usually a biblical one. In Luke 17, we discover ten lepers living in probably the most desperate predicament. These poor people in such a wretched state cry out to Jesus, and in his mercy, he heals them. But then a crazy thing happens: only considered one of them actually slows down long enough to return to supply gratitude, prompting a well known reply from Jesus: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the opposite nine?” (verse 17)
Ouch. My whole life, I’ve read this story and thought to myself: be the one good, grateful leper, not considered one of the nine bad ones. But what if there may be more to it than that? Here are six insights concerning the ten lepers and gratitude that just might slow you down and alter your life.
1. I’m All Ten Lepers
Most people are likely to boil life all the way down to two options. Good or bad. Nice or mean. Grateful or ungrateful. Yes, sometimes life is this straightforward, but often, there may be way more than simply one thing occurring inside us. The “fools” repeatedly referenced within the book of Proverbs aren’t all the time the identical person—that’s, there isn’t only a idiot who does all the pieces mistaken and a clever one that does all the pieces right. Depending on the situation and my response, I might be clever, or I might be silly. I’m never all the time one or the opposite. I is perhaps clever with money but silly in relationships. Wise in how I cope with my boss, but silly in how I cope with my child. Solomon himself was clever in some ways yet silly in lots of others.
In the identical way, I don’t should interpret the major takeaway of the biblical narrative of the ten lepers as merely a black-and-white cautionary tale about one good guy and nine bad guys. Truth is, I’ve acted like all ten guys in some unspecified time in the future in my life. More clearly stated: for all that God does in my life to reply prayer and show up for me, nine times out of ten, I don’t decelerate and truly return to Christ to say thanks.
I doubt the opposite nine guys didn’t return because they weren’t feeling grateful. They probably just got caught up within the speed of life, including the brand new miraculous blessing of being leprosy-free. Feeling relieved and returning to present gratitude are two various things. Gratitude forces us to pause and examine God’s work in our lives, not only profit from it as we keep moving forward. The fast speed of life makes gratitude difficult, however the slower speed of gratitude makes life in Christ real, evident, and fulfilling. Gratitude slows us all the way down to the speed of real life—life that’s everlasting—since it requires us to look at what God actually does for us.
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