Did I See You at the Fair?

Fall is my favorite season of the year.   As I have shared before, the month of October is the month I fell in love with two persons important in my life:  the Lord and my wife Ann.     There are many things I enjoy doing in the Fall, and one of them is going to the fair.   For many of you, the fair has already happened where you live.   Ann and I usually will make one or more visits to our local county fair.   We have gone several times to a regional fair in Winston Salem called the Dixie Classic Fair and also to the N.C. State Fair in Raleigh.  

One of the things I especially enjoy seeing at a fair are the exhibits of livestock and farm products.  While I certainly do not qualify as an expert on farm animals, I like to see the cattle, horses, and the bees.   I enjoy looking at the displays by 4-H students and the assortment of canned foods, large pumpkins, and the like.

I suspect that there are fewer of us today in this country that are directly connected to agriculture and the farm.  A crisis is brewing in this country I understand as farms are disappearing and fewer persons are becoming farmers these days.   Few of us see the cattle that produce the milk we drink or the chickens that produce our eggs.   As one saying on a farm several years ago put it:   “Don’t complain about the price of farm products with your mouth full.”   The exhibits of  livestock and the like links us to the farm and reminds how important it is not only to our economy, but also our way of life.

These agricultural exhibits at the fair also remind us how much God is apart of the life of the farm.   Through the graciousness of the God who makes things grow, we know the harvest that is important to the food we eat and the things we wear.   Psalm 67: 5-7 puts it this way:  

⁵ May the peoples praise you, God;
    may all the peoples praise you.

⁶ The land yields its harvest;
    God, our God, blesses us.
⁷ May God bless us still,
    so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

If you make a trip to the fair in this season, take time to look at the livestock and the like.   As you are perhaps eating a fried oreo or a funnel cake, give thanks not only for that food but also for the harvest God provides.  Have a joy-filled week. --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  thank you for the harvest you provide this year and this season.  Thank you for those who product the fruit of the field I enjoy every day; through Christ our Lord. Amen.