10 Lepers and Jesus

I've been studying Luke for a little while this year, and this story always fasinates and convicts me at the same time.  You find the account in Luke 17:11-19.  A summary would be that as Jesus is traveling between Samaria and Galilee, he comes upon a group of 10 lepers on the side of the road, and they call out to Him and ask for His mercy.  He sends them to the priests, and on their way they look and see that incredibly they have been healed!  And then, one of those 10 lepers praises God and goes back to worship Jesus and give Him thanks.  Only one went back, out of 10 who were healed.  Jesus is surprised as well, and then the one who came back was a Samaritan... Jesus tells him his faith has made him well, and sends him on his way. 

There was a point in my life where I only identified myself with the one leper who gave thanks for his healing.  Of course I am grateful to God for my life, my salvation, my community, my many blessings.  With longer life and experience though, I suppose a humbling nature might be acquired, or maybe given is a better word, because I'm not sure we ever acquire humility of our own discourse and direction.  What I mean to say with that is that now I'm aware that often I am like the 9 lepers who did not return to praise and thank Jesus for their healing.  (Now, I do think that people can have varying amounts of humility through the common grace God gives humanity, but that might be a different blog post.)  I think beyond that gift of common grace though, our sinful natures draw us to defend our selfish and sinful ways and hearts, and as we see in this passage, the only hope of salvation from this disease of the soul, is Jesus the King. 

There have been times in my life that have been eclipsed with an overall sense of gloom, depression, and dissatisfaction.  Maybe a lack of gratitude summarizes this well.  But these periods have been filled with complaints, and frustrations.  I would think, why am I here, God, in this uncomfortable place, and could you come and save me from it?  I want deperately for my circumstances to change, whether that means another job, moving to another city, a new church, a new career, a new start at school, a new place to live, new relationships, new friendships, a boyfriend, etc etc.  And I think, well, if such and such actually happened, of course I would give prasie and thanks to God. 

But, that is not really the case, or at least not often the case.  Here is my most recent example.  Last fall I began a job with a really terrible boss.  She yelled at her employees, often in front of customers, she berated those around her... I was pretty desperate for a job at all, so I stuck with it, but I trained a lot of people who decided this person was a little too... mean to work for.  I was thankful for a job at all, but I wanted something else for sure. 

Well, right at Christmas time, someone at church referred me to another job more in the social work field, working with individuals with developmental disabilities.  And I was at first so thankful for the job!  But after a few months there, I've found myself with a new list of complaints.  The hours are weird, there's no gas reimbursement and I drive all over the place, I'm working more hours than I actually get paid... how quickly did my grateful heart turn to complaining?  Too quickly, I admit, embarrasingly. 

So, if I'm looking to my circumstances to change as my salvation, instead of to Christ as my salvation, I am always going to be disappointed.  There will always be something else, something new, something different, that I will foolishly think, if I just obtain THAT, I will be happy and grateful to God for His blessings!  But, who could predict that I would respond as the grateful leper over the lepers that forgot their source of life as soon as they were physically healed? 

If instead I learn to look to Christ for my salvation, and if I learn to cherish Him in all circumstances, my finicky heart might start to learn to worship Christ in the middle of my circumstance.  And in that discipline, I might learn to recognize His Hand over every area of my life, and adopt an attitude of gratefulness.  And I pray that that would be the case. 

Because truthfully, my heart was destroyed and dead in sin, and that is infinitely worse than having a flesh eating disease, for one affects my entire eternal existance, whereas the other only destroys the body.  And when I begged Christ for mercy and forgiveness and healing, He offered such salvation freely.  Yet this salvation caused Him to take on my death and punishment for sin upon His body at the cross.  His death brought about my life. 

Yet that death could not bind Him - He rose from the grave, and his death and resurrection as what purchased my new life. 

I know I do not praise Him perfectly for this gift of salvation that should always be at the front of my mind.  Maybe I am sometimes like the lepers that were healed, but still spiritually dead.  Except for this, I know I am spiritually alive, because the faith God has given me does drive me back to worship Jesus.  I may fail a hundred thousand times a day to properly give thanks to a perfect King who deserves perfect worship from His creation, but I do cling to the cross where I know He did give me a new life, and a new heart, and salvation from all means of leperousy, temporal and eternal.  And sometimes, I even give thanks for the circumstances He has put me in, when I have a brief moment of cognitive clarity, because His salvation and healing is not for one moment, but for eternity.  I pray that God would continue to change my heart to more reflect the Samaritan who praised and gave thanks to Jesus, so that it would declare the amazing grace of God to my community and the world.