Article May 18, 1987 Issue

The link between gratitude and healing

We shouldn't wait until we're healed to give thanks to God. Praising God is a natural part of Christian healing, part of our awakening to man's spiritual perfection as God's child.

Gloria Delroy

Am I one of the nine? This question arrested my thought while I was reading about Christ Jesus' healing of ten men who were leprous: "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." But Jesus asked, "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?"^{Luke 17:15-17.}

Ten men were healed; only one "turned back" to give thanks. What prompted these different reactions? The one returning "glorified God." He returned not only to offer thanks to Jesus but to acknowledge the power behind this wondrous happening. Something more than an improved sense of physical health (as wonderful as that was) had occurred for him.

Actually, Jesus had demonstrated the verity that health is a spiritual quality—the normal state of man's being; the gift of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had taught, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."^{Matt. 5:48.} Could a perfect cause create an imperfect effect? Naturally not. Jesus' active recognition of the spiritual perfection of God's creation resulted in a restoration of wholeness and purity.