Giving Thanks

Gratefulness is the key   to a   happy life that we hold in our hands,    because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have,   we will not be happy-- we will always want to have something else or something more.    BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST Benedictine teacher

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks.    I have come to the conclusion that there is a difference between being thankful and giving thanks. What do you think?  Last Sunday morning at Breakfast Club we talked about the story of the ten lepers found in Luke, Chapter 17. They stood along the road, these men with smelly, contagious sores on their bodies, and when Jesus walked past they called to him, asking him to heal them.   And he did. All ten lepers were healed on the spot. Wow.   Now I'm sure they were all very "thankful" for their new-found health! But, interestingly, only one of them went back to thank Jesus personally. Scripture says the one leper returned and "...threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him..."  Then Jesus said something interesting to him. He said, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." The word for "well" in this verse is sozo in the Greek, often translated as "whole." The literal meaning, according to Young's Translation, is "to save."   All ten men were healed; but it seems this one man received wellness beyond the physical. He received a wellness that saved him and made him whole. And when did that happen? When he bowed at Jesus' feet and gave thanks. Perhaps this "giving thanks" triggered a deeper dimension of his faith that released wholeness and wellness to all of his being in a far deeper way than just the physical healing that occurred.    So it would seem there is something about the actual giving of thanks that is important for us. Maybe that's because being thankful is an attitude--a passive stance, while giving thanks requires something more from us. It requires action on our part. We need to speak it out loud, or write a note, or even throw ourselves at Jesus' feet.    The Bible is full of encouragements for us to give thanks, not just be thankful. It looks like giving thanks is a necessary part of living life to the fullest, an essential part of living well and becoming whole. A good thing for us to ponder on this day of thanks.   "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm 107:1 Happy ThanksGIVING!  Greg