Do not Harvest

The area we live in is an agricultural based area and the main crop is soybean. Paraguay is the 4^th producer of soybean in the world. This time of year the fields are green everywhere. Rolling hills of green. When the soy begins to dry, the farmers come in with their combines and clear the fields. They then load all the dry soy into trucks and haul them off. Some of those beans fall through the trucks on the way leaving dry soy on the side of the road. Many poor people sweep up the dry beans and bag them in order to sell the beans or eat them. You can see whole families on the side of the road gathering soy.

This reminded me of Leviticus 19:23, 23:22 when God commands the Israelites not to harvest every little bit of the crop, but to leave it for the poor to gather. The Lord is deeply concerned about the poor and weak amongst us. We see it in the Law and the judgments that come on Israel. Let’s not neglect this teaching, but look for ways to help the weak amongst us.

Here is a field before it is harvested.

Here is one of the pods. These fell before they dried.

These are some of the gathered soybeans.

Soybeans that had fallen from a truck on the side of the road.