I was recently meditating on the passage in Leviticus that tells us not to harvest the edges of our fields:
“And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 23:22
I don’t have crops. I don’t have a harvest. And I don’t have a field. But what I do have is a calendar. And I need to leave room in my calendar – space around the edges for whatever comes up & whoever needs the time.
See, God’s plans are wiser than mine. His knowledge is greater than mine. He knows things that I do not know, and this means that his will for me contains jobs and responsibilities that I’m not aware of. I can’t plan for them and I can’t put them in my calendar. I can’t see all the details ahead of time.
This means I have to leave room in my calendar for the wisdom and the omniscience of God. And then I must trust God to use that time. I must keep my eyes open for the opportunities God will bring my way to serve him, to bless other people with my time and to meet the needs of those around me.
If I don’t do this, and if I don’t leave space in my calendar, then when the opportunities to glorify God and to serve others arise throughout my day, I will be too busy to pursue them. In fact I’ll be too busy to even notice them. Each minute will be accounted for and I will always have things to do and places to go. My day will be too full of my own will for it to have any space for God’s will.
I will pass by people in need of a cup of cold water. I will pass by those people who need a moment of my time, or who need a bite to eat. I will be so busy doing all the things that I think are Gods will, that I will never notice God’s will slipping right past me.
we must apply the wisdom of Leviticus 23:22 to our work today. But our work today is not a field and not a harvest. It’s a calendar.
