Being thankful and showing it on the outside is a quality that we must teach to our children if we want them to live joyful lives. Joyfulness and thankfulness go hand-in-hand; you will rarely see one without the other. Thankfulness is perhaps most important because God expects His children to be thankful. It is not an optional character trait that we can add to our lives if we feel like we should. Nor is it something that we should focus on only on Thanksgiving Day every November!
During the earthly ministry of Jesus, there were ten men in His area who were lepers. Leprosy was a dreaded disease that made its victims outcasts from society. When these ten lepers met Jesus, they asked Him to heal them, and He did! They just didn’t know it yet, because they couldn’t see the difference. Jesus commanded them to go show themselves to the priests at the temple, because according to Jewish law, the cleansed leper had to be pronounced clean after examination by the priest. As the lepers began to walk to the priest, they began to be cleansed of their disease! What happened next is almost shocking—nine of the men kept on walking to the temple, but one turned around, came back to Jesus, and fell down before Him to give thanks. Just one of the lepers did what we would consider normal behavior from someone who was just cured of a dreaded disease–he returned to thank Jesus. The situation was so unique that Jesus Himself asked the question, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? Thankfulness is obviously expected by God in the lives of His children. God was honored in the healing of all of the lepers, but God was especially honored and glorified by the one who showed his thankfulness to Jesus.
We must also be more than just thankful in our hearts; we are to show thankfulness by our actions. Our children, especially, may need training in showing their thankfulness. It takes a humble spirit to express thankfulness, because you are admitting that you do not deserve anything and that you are not entitled to anything. Begin early teaching your children to express their thankfulness to God, to you, and to others who help them or give to them
It is not always easy to be thankful, especially when things do not go like we think they should. God commands us in I Thessalonians 5:18, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Being thankful like God wants us to be for “…every thing…” can sometimes be very hard, because not “…every thing…” that happens is perceived as good. It will be helpful to remind your children of characters in the Bible like Joseph, who was thrown into a pit by his brothers. The brothers reported to their father that Joseph was dead, but actually they had sold him into slavery! He was taken to a foreign land far from home. He was then lied about and put in jail in Egypt although he had done nothing wrong. That would be pretty hard to endure, but Joseph did it; through it all, we never see Joseph complaining about his circumstances or his brothers’ treatment of him. In fact, later on in Joseph’s life, he actually expressed thankfulness for all of those negative things that had happened to him.
In Character Connection, your children will hear the true story of those ten lepers who were healed. They will learn about the one who turned around and expressed his thanks to Jesus while the others continued on their way. Character Connection lessons also feature Joseph and all the times he could have complained and given up serving God but instead remained faithful and thankful. Be sure to ask your children about the true Bible stories they hear in class and the truths that they have learned. We pray that thankfulness will become an everyday occurrence in the life of each child.
MEMORY VERSE
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I Thessalonians 5:18