Gleaning

She stoops, shuffling through the remains of what, just a few hours before, had been a field of golden-crowned green. Her back bent with toil and age, she retrieves the missed stalks one, maybe two at a time. Her worn hands tell the story of her life: work, hard and long. The end of her sari is drawn over her head, shading her from sun and scorn. Over and over she bends to add a few more grains of rice to the family pot.

When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 23:22

. . . not so in this place where each bundle is carefully cut, wrapped, and counted. Very little is left for the poor, and so many are so poor. And each must earn her keep.

She struggles on, moving from field to field, finding only a few bits left over. Hopeless.

Is this how I approach you, LORD? Tiredly following behind, occasionally gleaning a bit of hope or truth or life?

Do I not realize this truth:

The believer is a favoured gleaner, for he may take home a whole sheaf, if he likes: he may bear away all that he can possibly carry, for all things are freely given him of the Lord. --Charles Spurgeon

I settle for so little. Yet He has said that everything we need is available to us!

Oh, LORD, you have given so much, yet I notice so little. You have provided thoroughly, yet I seem to prefer the scant pickings I happen to find. Help me to embrace my position as a favoured gleaner, that you may receive more glory!


Art: detail of The Gleaners by Millet