This year our fields and lands produced enough grain for our daily bread. The work and effort which we put into the cultivation of crops and into irrigation of the fields was not in vain. We decorated the altar in the church with the produce of the land.
We are thankful to the Lord for His many blessings. At our worship service on the 7th of October, we prayed and gave thanks for the wonderful harvest of the earth. We are thankful to God for His material blessings and especially for His spiritual blessings. During our “Thanks for the Harvest of the Earth” celebration, we thought about our work in the earth’s garden but also about our work in God’s garden.
Pastor Milan Kubik, who preached the Sunday worship service, reminded us all of how important it is to remember that it is God who gives us everything we have (Deut. 8:11-29). We must not forget this! We should not be like Israel, who was so often lukewarm and constantly forgot the Lord. Pastor Milan reminded us that this command– “Do not forget!” is in the Bible more than 150 times!
“Trust in God is hardest when we feel good and have everything we need,” Pastor Milan said. It is a paradox, how we are most likely to forget God in times of prosperity. This why it’s so important to be aware of how much we have received because of His grace. His love and grace never end.
“The harvest of the earth, which is bringing daily bread to our table, is not by ‘the power of my hands,’ as we used to say under Communism. The most precious things we have are not our hands, our work, or our property, but the Lord,” said Pastor Milan at the end of his sermon.
The students from the Lutheran Elementary School in Martin also participated in the Thanks for the Harvest of the Earth celebration. For a whole week, they tried to eat healthy things, like fruits and vegetables. They also thought about the harvest of the earth and recognized that this is not something that should be taken for granted. There are many countries in the world who suffer from hunger and lack of drinking water. Students learned that it is because of God’s grace that we have such an abundance of good things on our tables.
We also learned that it is important to share these gifts God has given us. “Every man, as he decides in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). On Sunday morning, we took a special offering for the second phase of reconstruction of the heating system in the rectory. Full of gratitude to our God, we thank Him for His grace and blessings!
