Humility Month
As we begin the New Year of 2026, we in America will be looking forward to celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country. There will be lots of celebrations planned, and lots of talk about how great America has been and how it can be greater in the future. But before we get to those celebrations, it would perhaps be best to prepare, not with yet another “pride” month, but instead with a healthy and much needed “humility” month.
There have been some very encouraging (to me) signs of a spiritual awakening in America, but before we get too far ahead of ourselves with any of this, we should harken back to the instructions Jeremiah, the prophet, gave to the Israelites for when they emerged from yet another period of discipline for having violated the commandments of God. (The history of God and His people resembles raising young children: they don’t catch on quickly.) “23 Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; 24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord." (Jer. 9:23-24 RSV)
To “glory” in what we might think of as our accomplishments is really “vainglory”. As Abraham Lincoln noted during the Civil War:
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. -- April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer
He went on to say, “It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
To know and understand the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth is what real glory is all about.
So, before we begin any attempt at a national celebration, let us take the time to humbly admit that we have been blessed far beyond what we deserve, yet God chooses to be gracious enough to grant us more time to consider how we might respond to that grace and live like one nation, under God, and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
What would such a “humility” month look like? It could start with a serious and humble admission of our sins of commission (those things which we have done that we should not have done) and then our sins of omission (those things we did not do which we should have done). The sins of commission, just off the top of my head, could include: Abortion; Overspending (the national debt); not keeping the Sabbath; Divorce; Cohabitation; Sexual immorality; Sexualizing children; Drug abuse; Human trafficking; Lack of enforcing the borders; Lack of enforcing the law; “Pride” months; Education having turned into indoctrination; Releasing repeat offenders; and that’s just a few. The time would be well used for us all to make our own lists and lay them out for everyone to see what we consider to be bad. We might not all agree (ok, we certainly wouldn’t all agree) on the lists, but if we could agree that there is such a thing as right and wrong, and that we are accountable when we do it, that itself would be a step in the right direction.
As for sins of omission, the list would be longer if we tried to think of all the good we have failed to do, but perhaps some categories themselves would be a good place to start. We have not been a tolerant society so much as we have been an indifferent one. If the problem did not involve us personally, we just haven’t cared. And we have been horribly cynical. Because if a problem could not be solved in an episode of our favorite show, or at least a “mini-series”, then we labeled it impossible and resigned ourselves to things getting nothing but worse. And we have foolishly turned anywhere but to God to give meaning and purpose to life.
As I said, the list could go on and on, but the exercise would be pointless without someone to confess to! And so, we would need to bring these things to God and seek His healing for our nation. “… if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chr. 7:14) I realize that not everyone in America is a Christian and some do not believe in God at all. I don’t know to whom they would confess, but I believe that as believers, we can do so on their behalf. And this is not meant judgmentally, but generously. If they think we are doing something that is pointless, I would hope that they would understand that we seek to include them for their own – our own good. We are all in this collectively, whether we want to be or not.
Jesus called his church to be the ‘salt and light’ in this world. It is far past time for the Church in America to be that kind of influence again on our culture. Too often the Church has failed to recognize that, in a democracy, politics is downstream from culture. Influencing and shaping culture is what we should have been doing by being the presence of God’s Kingdom wherever He has placed us. And it is high time we learn that, in a democracy, as politics is downstream from culture, that culture is ultimately downstream from character! In the 1980’s we were told that ‘character doesn’t count’ – ‘it’s the economy, stupid’! Well, I hope we have seen that this was anything but the truth. It is not the ‘wise man’ or the ‘mighty man’ or the ‘rich man’, but the person of integrity, character, goodness, in whom the Lord delights. Culture has always been ‘downstream’ from the people who make it up.
So, I would ask President Trump to take a page out of Abraham Lincoln’s presidential playbook, and call for a time (day, week, month, I don’t really care) for some national soul searching and seeking after the God who continues to bless us even when we don’t deserve it.
And even if President Trump doesn’t do it, I would call on the Church in America to rise up and do it. It is time for us to be the ‘salt and light’ Jesus called us to be. That won’t be playing politics, that will be transforming the culture by being the presence of God’s Kingdom, here, where He has placed us!