Hunter Bethea

Stop Overpacking Your Life for Others’ Sake

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For years now, a verse in Scripture has haunted me:

“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 the LORD your God.”

Leviticus 23:22

Why, you might ask, does that haunt you, Hunter? I’m glad you asked. After all, I don’t have a field that I reap or a harvest that I glean. At least not a literal field or harvest.

But the reason that it haunts me is because I have something everyone has—time—and I try to squeeze every bit of life and productivity out of that time until there’s nothing left.

Too often, I wake up early and go to bed late. I try to multitask while brushing my teeth and driving in the car and even while in conversations with others. I stack productivity hack on top of productivity hack and get frustrated when even a few seconds are wasted.

And I think God is telling me, through this obscure verse in Leviticus, not to do that.

It’s not that He’s been telling me not to be productive. Just that my whole life doesn’t need to be about how much I can fit into my life.

What God has been using that verse to teach me is that I reap to the very edge of my field of life. That I try to fill all of my time with things—important things—and don’t leave any time for others.

That, my friends, is what I call convicting.

What I have been convicted of is that when I don’t Sabbath or hold to my boundaries or when I get home late or fill up all of my free time so that an interruption ruins my day, it doesn’t just affect me. It affects those around me.

In Genesis 12:2-3, God tells Abram (later Abraham):

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

Often, you hear these verses summarized like this: “You were blessed to be a blessing.”

That was certainly true for Abraham. I also believe it should be true for us. You and I have been blessed—with certain gifts, skills, experiences, and resources—and God wants to use those to bless the world. We are conduits, channels, for God to share His love and grace with the world.

If you’re anything like me, the problem is that you’re already reaping to the edge of the field and don’t have anything to share with those around you.

Each of our fields looks different, but maybe one of these sounds familiar:

We spend all of our money and can’t give money when a neighbor’s house burns down.
We spend all of our time and can’t offer to give someone a ride.
We spend all of our energy and can’t get off the couch to play with our kid.
We spend all of our patience and can’t show kindness to the Walmart cashier.
We spend all of our vacation time and can’t volunteer for Vacation Bible School.

My most recent post was about how we too often overpack our bag of life. I encouraged you to add margin and remove things from your life. I talked about some of the benefits you’ll get from not overpacking your bag of life. But I didn’t mention one of the primary reasons we shouldn’t overpack our bag of life: because we need room for others.

Whether you are an apprentice of Jesus or not, I think it’s safe to say that Jesus was a really good man (I believe He’s more than that, but if you’re not there yet, I’m just really glad you’re reading this far. Thanks for being here!). He lives His life with an underpacked bag of life.

How do I know this? Because when He was interrupted by someone who needed Him, He was patient and willing to be interrupted. If His bag of life was overpacked, He might have snapped at them or ignored their request or wouldn’t have time to care for someone else who also needed Him.

Jesus lived His life with an underpacked bag, with a field that wasn’t reaped to the edge, with margin.

Margin, though not specifically mentioned in the Bible, is exactly what Leviticus 23:22 is talking about: Leave margin in your field so that others can enjoy it.

God is absolutely saying in Leviticus 23:22 to care for the poor and the foreigner living amongst you because God cares deeply about the poor and the foreigner. But I think we can also take a wider definition of “the poor” and “the foreigner.”

Who are the poor and the foreigners living among you?

Maybe a child who lives in your home.
Maybe a coworker who others don’t want to associate with.
Maybe someone of a different race than you.
Maybe a widow who is lonely.
Maybe a family with several kids.
Maybe a college grad looking for a job.
Maybe a neighbor who just moved into town.

Who are the poor and the foreigners living among you? Your bag isn’t big enough to help all of them. And God doesn’t ask you to give what you don’t have. So ask Him and let Him tell you who and how He’s calling you to bless the poor and the foreigners around you. And let Him tell you if your bag is empty enough for you to have space for them in your bag of life.

We moved into the town we live in a little over two years ago. We had never lived here and frankly, we felt like foreigners (and sometimes we still do). So many people—out of the kindness of their hearts and the best of intentions—would say things like, “We’ll have you over soon!” or “Let’s get together!” or “We’ll take you out to ___!”

Those comments were music to our ears. We were in a desert of isolation and these people were offering us oases of fellowship and community.

Sadly—and understandably—most of those oases were mirages. We kept waiting and waiting for the invitations to come, but they never did. If I had to guess, I’d say that less than 10% of those promises ever materialized.

For a while, I took it personally. I felt that, once people got to know me better, they actually decided that they’d prefer not to hang out with us.

But what I realized was much different than that: simply put, their bags were overpacked. If they had margin in their lives—if they weren’t running their kids all over town, if they weren’t traveling so much, if they didn’t work so much… the list could go on and on—I genuinely believe most of them would have followed through. But they didn’t—they couldn’t—stuff one more thing into their bag of life.

For a while, I was sorry for myself about this; I was really looking forward to spending time with these people and getting to know them better. But I get it. It’s so easy to overpack our bags and let the calendar take over, with us just holding on for dear life. Over these two years, we’ve found friends and have built relationships with people who did have room in their bag of life. And we’re all the more grateful for it.

But now, more than feeling sorry for myself, I feel sorry for my community. How many of these people have neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances who are living in deserts of isolation, desperation, and condemnation, and could use someone to offer them friendship, hope, and forgiveness? And who better to do that than those who call Jesus their Lord? But what I’m realizing is that so many of us have overpacked bags, bags that don’t have room to help the other.

I don’t know when you’re reading this, but as I write this, it’s the beginning of a new school year. You’ll be bombarded by extracurriculars and volunteer activities and social invitations. It will be easy to fill your bag of life, to reap to the edges of the field. Ask yourself: Is this reaping to the edge of my field? Is this overpacking my bag of life?

Better yet, ask Jesus, and give yourself margin to listen to Him.

May we be a people who slowly, but surely, unpack our bags so that we have margin in them to be a blessing to others.

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● About Me

I’m Hunter, a husband, father, pastor, and avid book-buyer in Wetumpka, Alabama. I write primarily about discipleship, leadership, and family with an occasional sports reference or two!