As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered a village there, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
He looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves
to the priests.” And as they went, they were
cleansed of their leprosy. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done.
This man was a Samaritan.Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the
other nine? Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And Jesus said to the man,
“Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”
Luke 17:11-19 New Living Translation (NLT)
I am reminded this Thanksgiving week of Christine Pohl’s words on gratitude. She writes,
“Our capacity for gratitude is not connected with an abundance of resources but rather with a capacity to notice what it is that we have.” We can live such distracted lives. Sitcoms and baseball games, doctor’s appointments and beauty magazines, laptops and hurricane updates and piano recitals, beer ads, Bible studies—all of these clamor, crowd, and compete for our attention. “We are very distractible people in a very distracting world”, writes Leighton Ford. We so rarely exercise an undivided attention. Our distracted minds seem to have little space for the things that matter most to us, the things that actually need our undivided attention.
When we fail to regularly reflect upon what we are thankful for, we lose sight of both the gifts and the givers in our lives.
“Gratitude and Distraction,” Rob Loane
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NLT)
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
His mercies begin afresh each morning.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT)
Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again. I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:3-6 (NLT)
If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)