Devotional - December 29th, 2020

So, my dad said I could write once more before the year is over. I probably won’t write much next year because I don’t know too much about the Bible. Anyway, I am in BIG trouble right now because I got bored last night, and I ate some of the thank you notes my Dad had written to people. He writes thank you notes all the time because he told me it is important to say thank you when people do things for you and things that are nice. He was talking about something called Finish Strong and I ate some of those notes. But some just had teeth marks on them so I apologize to people who might one with teeth marks. The others he had to rewrite. So now I am in the doghouse.

There was a story in the Bible my Dad was reading about some men who at first, I thought he said were leopards, but the right word is leper. It is some kind of disease where your fingers and toes and sometimes ears and nose fall off. Anyway, they had to live outside of the town so other people didn’t get the disease. And anytime somebody came near them they had to yell our unclean, unclean. It sounds like a really bad way to have to live. But these ten men all had leprosy and lived outside of their town and one day Jesus came along with a whole big crowd of people. The lepers yelled out unclean, but Jesus didn’t care, and He walked right up to them and told them to go and show themselves to the priest. The only way a leper could go to the priest was if they had been healed.  The men took off running and as they ran, they were healed of this awful disease.

I bet they were really excited because that meant they could go back to work and they could see their families again and all their friends. And they had a pretty cool story to tell as well. But here’s the funny thing. Jesus healed all ten of the men but only one of them stopped running and came back to where Jesus was. He came back to say thank you. I think Jesus was happy with this man but sad the other nine kept on running.  Because it is important to say thank you.

There are other people in the Bible who said thank you too. A lady named Miriam…she was Moses sister…told God thank you when He helped the Israelites cross the Red Sea when the Egyptians were chasing them. She even sang and danced while she was saying thank you. And there was another lady, and her name was Hannah. She couldn’t have children for a long time and one year when she and her husband went to the temple to pray and give offerings to God she prayed to God for a child. And God answered her prayer! So, she said a big thank you to God for answering her prayer and for the son God gave her. King David said thank you to God a lot, every time God helped him in battle. And the writer of lots of the songs…Dad says they are called Psalms…said thank you many times too.  

The Bible has lots of places where women say thanks. Elizabeth who was John the Baptists Mom said thank you because God gave her John and Mary thanked God in a really pretty song called the Magnificat because she got to be Jesus earthly Mom. I bet there were days though when she wondered why God picked her and when Jesus got arrested and the people treated Him bad, I bet Mary wasn’t thanking God for that.

Even Jesus said thank you to God. That time when He had all the people following Him and it got late and they didn’t have anyplace to eat, and Andrew brought Jesus some boy’s lunch of bread and fish…Jesus looked up to God and gave thanks before he broke the bread and fish into enough pieces to feed everybody. And there were A LOT of people to feed. So since even Jesus said thank you, I guess that means it is really important that we tell people thank you too. That guy named Paul was always saying thank you for all the people who believed in Jesus when he wrote them his letters. My Dad says there are lots of people at church to say thank you to. There are all the people who wipe down the pews after each church service to get rid of germs. And there are people who usher…I don’t know what that means…and people who help serve communion and lots of other people too, like the church council and people on something called the budget team. It sounds to me like there are A LOT of people to say thank you to. I probably shouldn’t eat any more notes or my Dad won’t have enough.

So, this is my chance to say thank you. Thank you for reading what I write. I have fun writing to all of you. And I have to say thank you for my mom and dad who give me a place to live and take care of me. They love me too, even when I do something wrong. But Dad says that’s what Jesus does for us. He loves us even when we do something wrong. So maybe Jesus gets the biggest thank you of all. Because without Him, we don’t have anything.

In His Grip
Casper Wiswall