Illustration: Thanksgiving

A minister's wife and worship leader used to lead the congregation in that old song, "Count Your Blessings." When the congregation got to the part where it would sing, "Count your blessings, name them one by one/Count your blessings, see what God hath done," she would say, "One is not enough. Let's count them by twos."

Sermon Illustration: Kindness

Officer Jeremy Henwood was a well-respected military veteran and police officer. He was killed Aug. 7, 2011, while sitting in his car in an unprovoked attack. Three minutes before the attack, Officer Henwood was getting his food in a McDonald's when a young boy came to the counter short of cash.

Illustration: Integrity

In his book The President is a Sick Man, Matthew Alge tells the story of a man who in August of 1893 wrote a story in which he claimed the President of the United States Grover Cleveland had cancer. He went on to tell of a risky and secret operation to the president's jaw performed on a yacht. The man was Elisha Jay Edwards, and his story appeared in the Philadelphia Press.

Illustration: Empathy

When we have a hard time understanding people, perhaps we would do well to consider what the French writer Michel Montaigne said in 1533. He wrote, "I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty."