In this season of Harvest Festivals and Thanksgivings we so often are reminded to be thankful and to say ‘thank you’. This is right, as there are many things in our world to worry and concern us, and always plenty to complain about! But as we begin most of our Harvest Services ‘Come ye thankful people come…’
Much has been written about our late Queen and how thankful we must be for her long and faithful life and reign of great service to us. But often it’s not stated to whom we are thankful. As another Harvest hymn also reminds us, ‘All good gifts around us are sent from Heaven above; so thank the Lord for all His love’. The Queen was a wonderful gift from God to us in our troubled world and we are so thankful to God for how long she was among us.
Another Harvest theme in our hymns is one of Praise, which is different from thanksgiving, because it involves not just a state of being, but doing something active. A verse sometimes used in our Communion Services when we prepare to give our offerings is Jesus’ words
‘let your light so shine before people that they may see your good works and praise your Father in Heaven’.
I pray that this Harvest as we remember all the good things we have - and the special people around us, we respond in Praise, worship, service and obedience to God in our lives and that this is stirred by our active thanksgiving and praise also in the lives of others.
Timothy Wilson