Harvest festival is a big celebration in the church each year, and is very much the theme this month. It’s also the season for church and village fetes. When we talk about Harvest, we’re often thinking about an ending, a completion of gathering everything in. But in Jesus’ time, the Jews also celebrated the start of each harvest, which was called ‘first-fruits’.

This really caught my attention because it speaks of a mindset which looks forward to the future abundance of God, not just about endings and what we’ve already got. It says, Thank you God for what we have now, and thank you that we will have plenty still to come.

I wonder what this change in approach might mean in so many aspects of life. Living each day trusting in the future promise of God, not focussing on counting and hoarding what we have now in the hope of getting through to the next harvest.

Revd Talisker

Photo by Daria Shatova on Unsplash