May I Never Forget to Be Thankful

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. - Luke 17:11-19

My, my, my! How rude! How completely and totally ungrateful. I'm sure those healed lepers were anxious to go home and see their families, but certainly they could have spared a moment to say, "Thank you," right?

How about us? How often are we guilty of the same thing? So often we come to God with our expectations. We expect Him to work. We expect Him to meet our needs. We expect Him to answer our prayers in the way we see fit. When He doesn't, we get angry, we pout and complain. When He does meet our expectations, we often have no reaction. We're pleased that God did what we asked, but we don't voice that pleasure in the form of thanks. We expect so much and give thanks for so little. Shame on us!

Today, be thankful for all things, even the little things that don't seem like a big deal. Let's spend the day giving thanks and praising the Lord for who He is and for all He's done.