Answered Prayers

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? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17:12-19

photo by my brother, Colton (: 

This is an excerpt of the Bible that I think shows human nature pretty darn well. There are ten men who have had their incurable disease miraculously cured by Jesus, yet only one goes back to praise God. After receiving healing, the others were too busy to thank the one who healed them!

Side note: If you are wondering what a Samaritan is, they were a group of people living in Israel who were hated by the Jews (and vice versa). So basically, the only person who expressed thanks was the person who was supposed to "hate" Jesus. 

The point of the story is that it's so "normal" of people to receive the greatest gift and not appreciate it, even just moments later. These nine ungrateful men weren't a rarity, it's true of all of us. Once things are going well for us, we tend to forget about how our lives were before. Even if the most miraculous event happened to us, soon it will be forgotten and taken for granted. 

I think how many times I've prayed for things that happened and then didn't even thank God for it. I've heard before that we should thank God for an answered prayer twice as long as we prayed for it. So if I prayed for 2 years to be healed of a disease, I'd be thanking God for 4 years if I was healed!

A few years ago, when Daniel and I were in the process of getting his getting married and getting his immigration visa, we tried to do this. We had prayed about it for about 6 months, so for a long time afterwards we thanked God. It was actually a real lesson in being grateful. It made me remember how desperately I had prayed that Daniel would get his visa. Now that he had it, I didn't want to stop being thankful for it!

Don't forget to thank God for His blessings on you. Happy Tuesday, friends!