We’ve all heard the advice:

Don’t buck the crowd.

Go along to get along.

Don’t rock the boat.

When I’m with a group of people, often the last thing I want to do is buck the crowd. Children are especially vulnerable to this feeling.

As a child, I was the “goody-two-shoes.” The one who always said please and thank you. The one of whom my friends’ parents would say, “You can go only if Ava goes.”

No kid wants that kind of reputation—to be the one who made everyone else look bad by comparison. Kids want to fit in, not stand out.

I wonder if that’s what the ten lepers were thinking. Remember the account in Luke 17? Ten lepers were healed by Jesus. In their joy at being healed, off they went, seemingly forgetting their Healer. But even if it weren’t a case of faulty recollections, I wonder if each of the ten was simply reluctant to break from the group.

Yet one man did buck the crowd. The most unlikely of the ten—a Samaritan—one who the Jews considered to be a pagan. This pagan returned to give thanks.That pagan man convicts me today. Like the other nine healed from leprosy, I am associated with the community of believers. I am a believer. I have a relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ, His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Sadly though, also like those nine, I often ask God for things without going back to say thank you for answered prayer.

I don’t want to be like the nine. I want to be like the one. So as part of my prayer time, I added another list. A “Thank You” list. When God provides and blesses, I move that request to a “thank you” page. My goal is to thank God daily for as long as—or longer than—I was petitioning Him.

It’s time for me to leave the nine and join the one. How about you? Let’s buck the crowd…and give thanks.