The Moravian Harvest

On August 13, 1727, a small community of refugees gathered for communion in the village of Herrnhut, Germany. They were Moravian believers, exiles who had fled persecution in Bohemia and found shelter on Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf's estate. That morning, something broke open among them. The Holy Spirit fell with such force that the congregation wept, embraced, and could hardly speak. They described it as their own Pentecost.

What happened next is what makes this story remarkable. The Moravians did not hoard that blessing. Within five years, they had sent missionaries to the Caribbean, to Greenland, to South Africa. They went to places no Protestant missionary had ever gone. A congregation of barely six hundred people ultimately sent out over three hundred missionaries in two decades. They sailed to peoples whose languages had never been written down, whose names most Europeans had never heard.

Their motto captured it perfectly: "May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering."

This is the heartbeat of Psalm 67. The psalmist prays, "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us" — but not so the blessing stops there. The very next breath declares the purpose: "so that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations." Every blessing the Almighty gives is a seed meant to be scattered. The Moravians understood that God's favor always flows through His people, never merely to them.