For the Fruit of All Creation
“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 107:1
This past Sunday we sang a song at church I was not familiar with. It is called For the Fruit of All Creation. The song was written by Fred Pratt Green almost forty-five years ago but it is new to me. It is, appropriately enough, a hymn of thanksgiving. The first verse speaks particularly of the blessings of nature: “For the fruit of all creation, thanks be to God; for good gifts to every nation, thanks be to God; for the plowing, sowing, reaping, silent growth while we are sleeping, future needs in earth’s safe-keeping, thanks be to God.”
Thanksgiving is obviously a time for us to pause and give thanks. Hopefully when we offer our thanks today we will remember to express our gratitude for “the fruit of all creation.” This will, by necessity, also include acknowledgement that God has graciously provided for us a planet that produces fruit, a good earth that has for eons sustained us and all other life forms.
Most of us will sit down today to a table of plenty. We will have abundant evidence of God’s provisions and nature’s bounty right in front of us. On this day and every other day we should indeed give thanks for the “fruit” of the earth that sustains us. Through Creation God has provided everything necessary to meet our physical needs.
In recent days I have once again been reminded that “the fruit of all creation” meets more than just my physical needs. I would have a difficult time surviving both spiritually and emotionally without its abundant fruits. I found myself a couple of days ago in desperate need of the healing balm of nature. I told a friend I was visiting with at the hospital that I was going to see my therapist. I went on to say that by that I meant I was going to drive out to Henderson Sloughs Wildlife Management Area to look at the birds. Being out in the open surrounded by the beauty and wildlife of this area truly is therapeutic for me. I’m not sure I would be able to maintain my sanity for long without “the fruit of all creation.”
With that in mind I hope that as you give thanks for God’s blessings today that you will include the many different ways the fruit of all Creation blesses and enriches our lives. Happy Thanksgiving!
–Chuck
(The pictures used in this post are some I’ve taken in recent days at Henderson Sloughs Wildlife Management Area in western Kentucky.)