Never before has the accumulation of material goods been at such an all time high in Northern Ireland, but so too is the number of people who feel increasingly empty. It just goes to show, money can't buy happiness.

We see here in Proverbs that giving firstfruits was a real mark of faith. For, having given their firstfruits, there was no guarantee that a family would have enough food for the rest of the year. Perhaps this is something we can't fully relate to in our own experience.

Yet undergirding the action of giving firstfruits in Proverbs 3 is something we can all identify with: the putting on of wisdom.

Proverbs asks us to put on the necklace of wisdom: verse 3 'Let love and faithfulness never leave you bind them around your neck', verses 21-22 'preserve sound judgement and discernment for they will be life to you, an ornament to grace your neck'.

Wisdom simply means walking with God. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her, providing shade when we feel the pressure, and nourishment for the journey.

More than this, wisdom is the very characteristic that God used to put the world in motion. In verses 19-20, we catch a glimpse of Yahweh with wisdom as his tool, setting the earth on its foundations. He put the heavens in their appointed place and broke up the depths to irrigate the dry land, watering the earth with dew from the clouds.

Therefore, when we offer our firstfruits at harvest, we are stopping at the roadside to remind ourselves that God, through wisdom, created everything.

However, like many around us, Christians can also end up living lives that are disjointed and compartmentalised: we go to school to satisfy our hunger for knowledge, we have relationships to satisfy our hunger to be loved, we work hard at our jobs to satisfy the hunger to be recognised and we go to church to satisfy the hunger for spiritual meaning.

In a similar way, our harvest celebrations can fail to fully tap in to the rest of our lives: the fruit that we bring is not really connected to the fruit of our labour. The challenge of putting on wisdom is to bring the fullness and wisdom of Christ into all that we are.

In 1996 Jon Kraukauer attempted to climb Mount Everest. One of his leaders was high up on the mountain and, because of the altitude, he was in desperate need of more oxygen. He started to radio base camp for help but the rest of the group knew that he was already carrying several canisters of oxygen. They tried to tell him this, but his oxygen-deprived mind made him insist that the canisters were empty. The very thing he was holding in his hand was absent in his brain; he couldn't make the connection. Part of celebrating harvest is to make the connection that this is God's world. He, in his wisdom, made it. Let's walk with wisdom round our necks so we can appreciate the life we have in this world: life in all its fullness.

Karen Campbell

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Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land is the title of the Centre’s Conference 2005, taking place on Saturday 5th November. Stuart and Sian Murray Williams will be exploring the theme of social and cultural change and its impact upon the witness of the church. For more information and to book online, click here.

The Centre for Contemporary Christianity presents: The Road to Bethlehem, A Candlelit Celebration of Christmas in St. Thomas' Parish Church, Belfast on Friday 2nd December at 7.45pm. Contact the Centre (events@contemporarychristianity.org, 028 90325258) to obtain tickets £10 (£5 students, seniors, unwaged; under 16s free).

The Centre's latest resource, Power and Providence: Studies on the Book of Esther is now available online (click here) or by contacting Anna Rankin.