Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:12-19)
Sometimes we need to stop and listen to ourselves. If we recorded everything that we say during the day and played it back at the end of the day, what would we find about our speech? I am not talking about profanity and foul language. Hopefully faithful Christians would never hear that in their recordings. What I am talking about is what attitude would our speech show us as having?
If we are honest with ourselves, way too often the largest percentage of our words are negative – complaining about this or that. We complain about having to get up to go to work or worship. We complain about our families. We complain about the weather. We complain that the temperature is not right. We complain about the sun in our eyes on the way to work. We complain about our jobs. If we are not careful, we can waste away most of our day with words of complaint.
I want to encourage us (most definitely me included) to watch our complaining. We need to show an attitude of gratefulness to God for all we have. We need to be thankful we can get up to go to work or worship. We need to be thankful that we have loving families. We need to be thankful that we have a day in which to live, no matter the weather or temperature. We need to be thankful for our jobs.
Will we ever have reason to complain? Of course, it is life. Yet, may we overwhelm the complaining with thanksgiving. Remember Paul says, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
