Thanksgiving and Humility

Can you belive it’s thanksgiving already! My how the year has gone by. As I write this to you, I’ve just mulled over thanksgiving and the idea of giving thanks over and over this entire week.

At church we talked about it, at our bible study we discussed it — every year there’s an attempt for a profound or richer meaning of thanksgiving. Here’s one. What about, “giving thanks is an act of humilty.”

Humility is a word that we rarely hear or see in our news and radio. I would expect that now more than ever this word would be associated with this upcoming day of Thanksgiving, yet it remains to be seen.

If you stop and think about giving thanks, you are in essence admitting to a giver. You’re admitting that someone has given you something and in return you give gratitude. To admit that you’ve received something and to be thankful about it requires humility!

I don’t think you can be genuinely thankful without being genuinely humble. Sure its easy to say thanks but to be sincere about it requires humility.

So what about Thanksgiving Day? When we give thanks tomorrow, is it possible that we would be humble enough to admit that we’ve received something that we ourselves could not provide? We are in a very proud provide-for-yourself culture where humility is rarely taught and if humility is absent, our thanksgiving will be absent also.