Jeff Adams

On a cold Monday, December morning the phone rang in my assistant’s office. The year was 1984 and I was still trying to adjust to the Midwestern winter cold after having recently moved back to the United States.

As happens in about 99.9% of the cases, my assistant explained that I was currently occupied but that if the caller would leave leave a number and explain what the call was in regard to, she would see if I could call back.

The voice on the other end of the phone was a high-powered salesman in a city about an hour and a half away, a man who had not wanted to acknowledge his drinking problem but had heard me on television the day before. He had been walking by the television set and for whatever reason he paused to hear what I was saying. He wife came back a few minutes later and he was sitting on the arm of the sofa still listening. When she returned later he had settled into the chair, still fixed on every word.

“Aw, he’s just like all those TV preachers,” he told his wife as he hung up from talking with my assistant. “You just wait and see. I’ll give him until 10:ooam to call me back.”

At 9:50am, by the grace of God, I returned his call. I told him I had just had a cancellation for a time that Wednesday and invited him to come. He did.

Within a relatively short period of time, this man had put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this particular case, his desire for alcohol evaporated like a drop of water on a hot stove.  From my office he made a beeline to a nursing facility to share what had happened with his elderly mother who had faithfully prayed for him for decades. Thirteen days later she passed away with a great peace in her heart. My new friend went on to succeed in business and life in general.

Fast forward to 2009. My phone rang again, and my current assistant answered with the same familiar script. The voice on the other end was the same. This time his request was that he and his wife take Cheryl and me out to lunch following this past Sunday’s service. And that they did – 25 years to the day after he had come to faith. This was not the first time I had seen him since that initial meeting 25 years earlier, but it was a very special time for all of us. They even presented us with a very generous donation for the church.

I reminded him of the story of Jesus having healed the ten lepers, but only one returned to give glory to God and thanks to Jesus.

Yesterday I told my friend, “You are that one leper in ten!”

I don’t know about you, but I find that it’s easy for me to be thankful for something someone has done, yet forget to express my thanks to them personally, specifically and intentionally.  Events like this one yesterday remind me of my own need to be a thankful person.

Is there someone in your life to whom a sincere appreciation of thanks would be in order? Why not be that one individual in ten!