Jesus never did a single miracle of healing just to clear out all the sick people.  There were many sick people in the world when Jesus was born and there were many sick people in the world when He died.  Jesus didn't do any miracles to try and get us to pretend that the world we live in isn't real.  Jesus did miracles to demonstrate an even greater reality than the one we see.  Sickness and death are real and their power and effect continue.  But someone greater and more powerful exists.  By healing people who were sick Jesus gave glimpses of this greater reality to which He spent His life inviting people.  The only way to participate in this greater reality is to expand our being to include things that we cannot see nor control.  Christianity is not wishful thinking but it is an expanded awareness which requires that we fully utilize our whole being.  People are not put off by faith because it means trusting things we can't see or touch.  People are put off because it means trusting in things we can't control or manage.

Healing had come for these ten.  Nine of the men took their healed bodies and their new lease on life and ran for their lives.  Were they simply ingrates whose mothers didn't make them say thank you often enough?  Had they failed to take the proper etiquette training?  Did they just have bad manners?  Were they some of the mean people?  When Jesus asked where they were did He just want to be appreciated?  Is the issue here simply about taking the time to say thank you?

Jesus had no need to feel appreciated and He was not concerned about good manners.  He knew that though their bodies were healed, they still bore the confusion of great blessings.  The book of James tells us that every good thing comes from God.  It also tells us that nothing that God does is random and purposeless.  Every good gift has purpose and intent.  Gifts are not simply random outpourings but part of a designed approach to mankind.  To acknowledge a gift is to acknowledge the approaching Giver.  To say thank you is to acknowledge someone who had given me things I could not give myself.  To say thank you is to accept a form of dependence and a need for submission to a greater provider.

What does it mean to ultimately accept the fact that life is a gift?  It means that we must accept the reality of the giver.  For these other nine men to say thanks meant they had to go back and acknowledge that this was not some random act of goodness.  It was not just some sweeping divine act that happened to include any lepers in the area.  There was more to their healing than simply a removal of leprosy but they did not want to accept that.  Jesus knew there were ten and He knew the nine who were healed but did not return.  You are not breathing now simply because everybody breaths.  You have not been given all the good things in your life simply because lots of people randomly get good things.  You haven't made your life what it is but you have been specifically blessed.  Jesus knows what God has done for you and perhaps wonders why you keep pretending otherwise. 

Gratitude requires three vital ingredients.  A giver and a receiver and a gift form the whole.  There is no gratitude if any one of the three is forgotten or ignored.  The foundation of any relationship with God is gratitude.  In the Book of Romans the very description of mans movement away from God is summed up by this thought.  Though they knew God they did not honor Him as God and they were not thankful.  Some people are not grateful because they view themselves as provider.  Some people are not grateful because they do not see themselves as recipients of a gift.  Some people are grateful but not to God as God but to some unknown cosmic order.  Some are not grateful because they do see themselves as sufficiently blessed.

Your life will never be full until you acknowledge that everything meaningful has been given to you as a gift.  You will never truly enjoy these gifts until you fully acknowledge the one who gave them.  Gratitude is not some humble disposition that good people take.  Gratitude is simply the result of finally getting a grasp on the base reality of life.  We don't give our parents gratitude when we become adults because we want to be nice.  We give our parents gratitude because we finally are no longer children and we can honestly grasp what they have done for us.  Grateful people are the ones who have finally realized what has been done for them and who has done it.  Everyone else still thinks they earned what they have or they gained it by their brilliance or some stroke of luck.

No person has ever gotten more of what they wanted by withholding their gratitude.  Our lives are made better by a greater awareness of all the good things we have been given and our lives are reduced by constant attention to what is missing.