WHAT a hard-working woman we have before us in our picture! Do you know what she has on her shoulder? You have seen wheat growing, and know how it is put into shocks all over the field. This woman has been busy in the wheat field all day, picking up the scattered bits of grain which the reapers have dropped in their days’ work. We do not see women do such work as this in our country, but if we lived in the poorer parts of some foreign country, as in Germany or France, it would be a common sight to us. Other women are also gleaning in this field, you see. These gleaners will take the leavings home with them, beat out the grain, and have it ground into flour.
In the Old Testament God commanded the owners of fields and vineyards not to do any gleaning after harvest, but to leave that for the poor and needy. “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.” Lev. 19: 9, 10.
Can we not draw a lesson from this for ourselves? The Lord gives us all that we have, and supplies our needs. If you are old enough to work and earn money, it is lie that gives you the strength to earn that money. Should you then keep all the good things He thus gives you, and use them just for yourself? No, if you want to please Him, you will be thinking of others, and leaving bits here and there for needy ones, as He may direct you. These bits may be in money, food, clothing, or even in the paying of a visit to some poor, lonely one, for the Lord’s sake, when it may cause you real self-sacrifice to go. Such doing and giving may not increase one’s wealth down here, but the Lord notes each little thing really done for Him, and is going to reward those who thus live for Him. Then how happy it makes one’s own heart to be cheering others along the way.
ML 12/08/1912