August 1, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness." — Psalm 65:11 · KJV

All the year round, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us; both when we sleep and when we wake His mercy waits upon us. The sun may leave us a legacy of darkness, but our God never ceases to shine upon His children with beams of love. Like a river, His lovingkindness is always flowing, with a fullness as inexhaustible as His own nature. Like the atmosphere that surrounds the earth and is always ready to support the life of man, the goodness of God surrounds all His creatures; in it, as in their element, they live and move and have their being. Yet as the summer sun gladdens us with beams warmer and brighter than at other times, as rivers are sometimes swollen by the rain, and as the very air is at times fresher and more bracing than before, so it is with the mercy of God: it has its golden hours, its days of overflow, when the Lord magnifies His grace before the sons of men. Among these blessings, the joyous days of harvest are a special season of overflowing favor. It is the glory of autumn that the ripe gifts of providence are then abundantly bestowed; it is the mellow season of fulfillment, whereas all before was but hope and expectation. Great is the joy of harvest; happy are the reapers who fill their arms with the liberality of heaven. The Psalmist tells us the harvest is the crowning of the year — and surely these crowning mercies call for crowning thanksgiving! Let us render it: let our hearts be warmed, let our spirits remember and meditate upon this goodness of the Lord, and then let us praise Him with our lips and magnify His name, from whose bounty all this goodness flows. Let us glorify God, too, by yielding our gifts to His cause, for a practical proof of gratitude is a thank-offering to the Lord of the harvest.