“Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” (Lk 17:18-19)
The Gospel passage this Thanksgiving Day, about the grateful man healed of leprosy, could not be a more appropriate selection. A reminder to us to always give thanks for the good things the Lord has bestowed on us: health, financial security, food, shelter, clothing, friends, family. We must remember to give thanks daily for our blessings, regardless of whether today’s blessings are the same as yesterday’s, or yesterday’s the same as the day before. God doesn’t tire of hearing “thank you,” not because He needs to hear it, but because we need to say it. A thankful heart is the only way to a peaceful one.
In all circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thes 5:18)
The thing is, when we read this Gospel, we’re not particularly impressed by how grateful the healed man is. His running back to Jesus with a “thank you” doesn’t strike us as remarkably virtuous; in fact, it strikes us as behavior that is to be quite expected! It is true, we ourselves have been guilty from time to time of forgetting to thank others for the gifts they have given us, either because we are busy and distracted, or, shamefully, because we take their gifts for granted. But in general, saying “thank you” when we are genuinely grateful for things we have received comes pretty naturally. Gratitude cannot help but well up inside of us when we receive a gift that we had been hoping for but never really believed would be ours. Multiply that by a thousand when it comes to things like miraculous healings and long-awaited cures! No, the fact that the man healed of leprosy came back to thank Jesus doesn’t strike us as extraordinarily impressive. What does strike us, however, is the lack of gratitude in the nine others.
So what made this one man recognize his gratitude while the other nine failed to acknowledge it? Scripture does not reveal the answer to us. But there is one thing we can safely assume: the man who came back to give thanks had been in the habit of giving God thanks in all his circumstances.
Every day will I bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever. (Ps 145:2)
When the man came back to thank Jesus, no doubt he was exuberant at the realization of his healing; there would have been a song in his heart, an abundance of joy overflowing and spilling out! But the thing is, in all those years spent in the leper colony, as a Samaritan isolated among the isolated, covered with raw sores ravaging his body, eroding his limbs bit by bit … still, we can imagine, this man would have been giving thanks and praise to God. In the most terrible of circumstances, his act of the will—one which no part of him felt like doing but rather chose to do—would have been his lifeline to the Spirit that kept him persevering in faith and hope.
They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds and declare your greatness. (Ps 145:5)
Gratitude would have been the only thing that would have restored this man’s peace, and it’s what would have gotten him through another day. Why? Because gratitude is the means by which the Spirit enables us to see God’s hand working in our own “terrible” circumstances. It’s why this leper who didn’t “feel” grateful, genuinely was grateful. His act of faith, with all the courage he could muster, was what opened his eyes to the good that the Lord was working in his life—not just despite the leprosy, but specifically because of it.
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Rom 8:28)
In other words, the man’s leprosy was not the result of random chance or bad luck. God had a reason for allowing it. God created this man—exactly as he was—for a greater purpose in His plan of salvation.
And now, bless the God of all…Who fosters people’s growth from their mother’s womb, and fashions them according to his will! (Sir 50:22)
Friends, it is not easy to be thankful for our blessings when we have a heavy heart over difficult circumstances that are beyond our control. In these moments, our focus is consumed by our worry, not by our gratitude. And while we must make ourselves give thanks to God for all the good that He has done in our lives, this is not the secret to restoring our peace—at least not entirely. If we want our peace restored—if we want our exuberance in the Lord pouring forth from our hearts, spreading out to the souls around us—then we must give thanks for the very circumstance that causes us pain.
The Lord has turned all our sunsets into sunrise. – St. Clement of Alexandria
Giving God thanks for our pain, admittedly, is counterintuitive to our human nature; why would we thank God for the thing we’re begging Him to take away? Let’s understand: thanking God for the thing we don’t want doesn’t cause the Lord to misinterpret our intentions and think we secretly like it. No, the Lord knows exactly how we feel and understands perfectly well that we don’t like our trial.
Jesus Himself told the Father precisely what He thought about the plan for His torture and crucifixion: He begged God for another way! So the Lord knows when we don’t like what He has dished out—and it is okay to tell Him that. It is okay to ask for help accepting the unacceptable. In fact, the Father wants us to ask for help. Why? Because it is the acceptance of our trials, ironically—and not our having everything go our way—that ultimately gives us a peace that “surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7).
We will still experience sorrow in life, but when we accept our “terrible” circumstances with gratitude, an interesting thing begins to take place: Jesus gives us eyes to see. We now see that God is taking care of things, even though we can’t imagine how our trial could possibly end well.
We now recognize an intervention here, an act of providence there—all adding up to a renewed trust that the Father holds us in the palm of His hand. Suddenly, we go from being able to “see,” to being at peace—just as Jesus was, by the time He left the Garden of Gethsemane. And when that happens, “fixing” our current terrible circumstances becomes a little less urgent to us. Now we see that our circumstances are the Lord’s circumstances, all working together magnificently in His plan of salvation.
Friends, if our current circumstance is difficult for us, let us have confidence that the Father in heaven has entrusted it to our care. And if He trusts us with His precious treasure, then perhaps we can find it in ourselves to trust Him too.
May we always remember to give Him thanks.
Photo by Libby Penner on Unsplash
