Leave a Little Behind

<p>Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and occasionally a half-dollar. That&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;d find on the nightstand beside his bed. He&rsquo;d empty his pockets each evening and leave the contents there for he knew eventually they&rsquo;d come to visit&mdash;<em>they</em> being his grandchildren. Over the years they 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&rsquo;t. He delighted in leaving it there for the little ones, the precious guests in his home.</p> <p>A similar mindset is what is expressed in Leviticus 23 when it comes to bringing in &ldquo;the harvest of your land&rdquo; (v. 22). God, via Moses, told the people something quite counterintuitive: not to &ldquo;reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest&rdquo; (v. 22). Essentially, He said, &ldquo;Leave a little behind.&rdquo; Such instruction held the value of reminding the people who was behind the harvest in the first place (God), as well as a means of His provision, via His people, for those of little account who were strangers in the land.</p> <p>Such thinking is definitely not the norm in our world. But it&rsquo;s exactly the kind of mindset to characterize the grateful sons and daughters of God. He delights in a generous heart. And that often comes through you and me.</p>