Leave a Little Behind

Thank you for joining us for this daily encouragement from the Our Daily Bread devotional. Today's reading titled Leave a Little Behind was written by John Blaise. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and occasionally a half dollar. That's what you'd find in the nightstand beside his bed. He'd empty his pockets each evening and leave the contents there, for he knew eventually they'd come to visit. They, being his grandchildren.

Over the years, the kids learned to visit his nightstand as soon as they arrived. He could have put all that spare change in a coin bank or even stored it away in a savings account, but he didn't. He delighted in leaving it there for the little ones, the precious guests in his home. A similar mindset is what's expressed in Leviticus 23 when it comes to bringing in the harvest from the land. God, via Moses, told the people something quite counterintuitive, not to reap the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

Essentially, he said, leave a little behind. This instruction reminded the people that God was behind the harvest in the first place and that he used his people to provide for those of little account, the strangers in the land. Such thinking is definitely not the norm in our world, but it's exactly the kind of mindset that will characterize the grateful sons and daughters of God.

He delights in a generous heart, and that often comes through you and me. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Leviticus chapter 23 verses 15 through 22. From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of the firstfruits to the Lord. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the Lord, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old, for a fellowship offering. The priest is to wave the two lambs before the Lord as a wave offering, together with the bread of the firstfruits.

They are a sacred offering to the Lord for the priest. On that same day, you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come wherever you live. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, when we look back on our life and see what you've accomplished through us, we can do nothing but thank and praise you. Thank you for sustaining us with our work and giving us the means to support the work you are doing through others. Help us to be generous with our money, and when we see a need that we have the ability to fulfill, may we gladly give out of gratitude to you, remembering that everything we have comes from you. Thank you, Father. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.