When Jesus came into a village, ten lepers met him and asked him to have mercy on the them (heal them). Jesus didn’t ask them how long they’d been lepers, he didn’t tell them to go wash themselves or mix up a special pot of herbs, didn’t want to know if their parents had been lepers or whether they’d recently been around other lepers, didn’t talk to them at all, except to say, “Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And… as they went, they were cleansed.”

What would it mean for a leper to show himself to a priest? What would the leper have to go through in his thinking? To allow oneself to be vulnerable and be “seen” by one who is holy would take great courage and trust and faith that those seeing you will only see what’s true and good about you. And if they see anything else, they would not attach it to you – the real you – who you truly are.

When healing takes place, there’s always a shift of thought, of consciousness. There’s always a new (more inspired) view of self, connecting oneself to a purer, more spiritual sense of one’s nature. Jesus saw the change that was needed in their thought for there to be healing. He knew they needed to “show” themselves to the priest. Did they need to be more humble, to see themselves more purely or as God sees them? Was it to allow themselves to be seen by those who were holy, to be seen as worthy? We can’t know for sure, but we can know that there was a change in thought and heart, a willingness to be obedient and humble, and a willingness to do something that was asked of them. Healing and a purer self was the result.

So the next time you need healing… do something. Do something that will turn your thought outward, turn your thought to your purest self. See yourself the way God sees you, focus on what’s true about you, what’s real about you – see yourself the way the holiest in the village would see you.