I recently came across a story involving Rudyard Kipling, the famous British poet. It seems that Kipling was approached by a newspaper reporter who said, “Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over $100 a word.” Kipling’s eyebrows raised and he said, “Really, I certainly wasn’t aware of that.” The reporter cynically reached into his pocket and pulled out a $100 bill and gave it to Kipling and said, “Here’s a $100 bill Mr. Kipling. Now you give me one of your $100 words.” Rudyard Kipling looked at that $100 bill for a moment, folded it up and put it in his pocket and said, “Thanks.”

In a culture whose go-to phrase is “talk is cheap”, what is the value of words? More specifically, how much value might there be in a simple word of “thanks”? (To Kipling, about $100!) But that is where the irony lies—payment made to either receive or give thanks has a way of becoming more of a mechanical response to services rendered than it does in being the gratitude that comes from truly giving thought for what, and from whom, one has received.

To thank someone is to think upon someone with gratitude. I suppose that is why, at so many Thanksgiving Day meals, there is a pause so that we may give thanks. This year, let us pause to give thought—to give thanks—to express the value we see in what we have received, or in what we are able to give. May this year, this month, the day, this moment of thanks be as priceless as God has intended all of our thanks to be.

Blessings, Pastor David