Editor’s note: Last week, our Options Blog featured a Thanksgiving perspective piece about the sacrifice of giving thanks. Today, lead editor Michelle Melchor also discusses gratitude, but from the thoughtful perspective of having a debt of gratitude.
By Michelle Melchor — 05 December 2025
This is the time of year when our thoughts turn to gratitude, expressing thanks for the blessings God has graciously given us. It can be a challenge since we are so busy gathering, maintaining and even protecting those blessings that we sometimes don’t have time to enjoy them, let alone give thanks for them.
This year, I’ve been seeing a different aspect of thanksgiving — its connection to humility. Lately, I hear a lot about entitlement and the struggle to reduce it in our society, especially in our young people. Children grow up with the assurance that they deserve to have what they want just “for being you.” Commercial marketing tells us, “You deserve a break today!” “You’re worth it!” and “Have it your way!” There’s a flourishing industry around “self-care,” pampering oneself to recover from the stress and strain of daily life (not to say that taking care of oneself is not important).
“There’s a flourishing industry around ‘self-care,’ pampering oneself to recover from the stress and strain of daily life.”
When I find myself thinking that I’m being hardly used, especially by God, that things should be going my way more often, I remind myself, with the help of the Holy Spirit, of some truths that can change my attitude and perspective like a dash of cold water in the face.
- God is no one’s debtor. Every breath I take is by God’s grace and will. Should He decide not to give me the next one, my life would end. I don’t pay Him anything for that, there’s been no deal or transaction. It’s all God’s grace and mercy.
- The most I could earn with my best efforts would be death and hell. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a, New King James Version) and “all, (including me) have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, NKJV).
- In His great love and mercy, God did what I could not do for myself by giving the best and most that He had, His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sin.
So, like the man in the parable of the unforgiving debtor, who owed millions of dollars to his creditor, I owe a debt, which, given the whole of eternity, I could never repay (Matthew 18:21-27). I have been forgiven of the debt of my sin, even though I have done nothing to deserve or earn it. It is all God working His love and mercy.
“Like the man in the parable of the unforgiving debtor, who owed millions of dollars to his creditor, I owe a debt, which, given the whole of eternity, I could never repay.”
Unlike the debtor in the parable, I don’t intend to shake down family and friends to make good what I owe. Since everything I am and have is from the Lord, there is nothing material I can use to pay Him back because He does not need anything. But I can offer the Lord what He asks for, the sacrifice of thanksgiving from a humble and truly grateful heart.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name (Psalm 100:4, NKJV).
Looking again at the issue of entitlement, there is a temptation that comes with the blessings of the Lord — to think that I deserve them because I earned these blessings, I made this happen. Moses warns the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8 to be careful that when they get into the promised land, and begin eating good, dressing well and living large, lest they become proud and forget the Lord who brought them out of slavery and through the wilderness.
They should not think,
I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy. Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, … (Deuteronomy 8:17-18, New Living Translation).
Moses tells them that God led them through all that hardship, meeting their needs with water from the rock and manna from heaven,
to humble you and test you for your own good (Deuteronomy 8:16, NLT).
Obviously, God knows what’s in our hearts, but often we are blind and oblivious to the pride that stubbornly holds on to control.
Again, Moses warns,
If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything (Deuteronomy 28:47-48, NLT).
I should examine my heart to see if I am serving the Lord joyfully. Am I doing so enthusiastically and gratefully because of all the undeserved blessings He has given me, or do I sometimes think God is lucky that I’m working for Him; that the good things in life I enjoy are just what I deserve, or worse yet, what He owes me?
An undue focus on the blessings, and not the blesser, can lead to getting what I want but at the cost of a leanness in my soul (Psalm 106:15, New King James Version).
“An undue focus on the blessings, and not the blesser, can lead to getting what I want but at the cost of a leanness in my soul.”
A grateful heart is a humble heart because it knows the proper order of things and its place in that order.
Do not be rash with your mouth, And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few (Ecclesiastes 5:2, NKJV).
Humility is to have not just a modest, but an accurate view of one’s value or importance. If I humble myself before God, I recognize that I am completely and totally dependent on Him for my life and everything in it. So in humility, I lavish praise and thanksgiving on the One who richly gives us all things for our enjoyment (I Timothy 6:17b, NLT).
I owe a debt I could never repay, but I can surely try with a humble heart of gratitude.
Michelle A. Melchor is a writer and lead editor for Cru Inner City. She has served with Cru for 50 years.
