All year long, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us. When we sleep and when we wake, his mercy attends to us. The sun may leave us in darkness each night, but our God never stops shining on his children with beams of love.

Like a river, his lovingkindness flows constantly, with a fullness as inexhaustible as God himself. Like the atmosphere that wraps around the earth, always ready to sustain human life, so God's kindness surrounds all his creatures. In him, as fish in water, we live and move and have our being.

But listen! Just as the summer sun warms us with stronger, brighter rays than other seasons, just as rivers swell with rain and overflow their banks, just as the air itself can suddenly turn fresh and invigorating, so it is with the mercy of God. It has its golden hours. Its days of overflow. Times when the Lord magnifies his grace before the children of men.

And among all the earthly blessings that flow from heaven, the joyful days of harvest are a special season of extravagant favor. This is autumn's glory: the ripe gifts of God's providence poured out in abundance. This is the mellow season when hopes turn to reality, when expectations become experience. Great is the joy of harvest! Happy are the workers who fill their arms with heaven's generosity.

The psalmist tells us that harvest is the crowning of the year. And surely these crowning mercies call for crowning thanksgiving! Let it rise from deep within. Let your heart warm with gratitude. Let your spirit remember, meditate, and dwell upon this goodness of the Lord. Then let praise spill from your lips. Magnify the name of the One from whom all this goodness flows.

But don't stop there. Glorify God by giving back from what he's given you. The truest proof of gratitude is a thank offering to the Lord of the harvest.