Yesterday, I noticed this story on the Bright Side website:
My grandfather started planting one extra row of vegetables every
season specifically for the local food bank, a habit that began small and modest, barely worth mentioning at the time. Three of his own grandchildren now run our own version of that same extra row in our separate gardens across three different states. None of us were formally taught the tradition. We simply absorbed it from watching him do it every summer of our childhoods. He passed years ago. His one extra row is now four separate gardens’ worth of vegetables reaching food banks he never once visited himself.
Three thoughts and a question:
A deed of kindness has no borders, no boundaries. In response to kindness lavished on Him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.” (Matthew 26:13 NLT).
Lessons taught through a life lived are more powerful and lasting than any formal teaching or preaching. “There is an eloquence far more powerful than the eloquence of words in the quiet, consistent life of a pure, true Christian… The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian… No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life…” (Ministry of Healing, cha. 40).
Grandpa planting an extra row of vegetables for the food bank reminded me of the words of God in Leviticus 23: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you.” I am not a farmer. I do not have a field of grain to leave an edge for the poor, so how do I apply this to my life and my world?