Leaving room to be a blessing

A few years back I decided to take a new approach to my bible reading and I took up an endeavor to read through the bible chronologically that year. It was a fun journey. One day in my reading I came across something that made me see personal stewardship and finances in a whole new light. It is found in Leviticus 19:9-10 (NLT):

“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”

As I came across this Old Testament command, I really felt that it had some great present day application for us. I believe generosity should be in the heart of every follower of Jesus. It should be second nature, a part of our DNA. Yet the issue for most people is not that they don’t want to be generous (I guess there are some who don’t want to…), but they lack the ability to be generous because they have consumed everything they have.

God commanded the people to basically “leave room” for generosity. But most of Americans don’t just consume everything they take in, they consume more than that (which is known as debt). God commanded his people to leave the edges open so the poor could receive from what they had. And He also said not to pick up that which the harvesters had dropped.

How often do we get something and consume all of it? Then when we get an opportunity to be generous, the ability is not there. I am challenged by this to “leave more room” for others, and not just consume all that we have.

Let’s live lives of generosity.