Well, I'd like to share a discovery in my gleaning to one of the ancient version of Pride and Prejudice. A love-story that happened on a summer season.
☺Yes! it happened on one summertime during barley harvest (Fyi, grain harvest happens only during summer season.) The love-story of Ruth and Boaz where the grain field has been their love nest.☺
So
summer, the warmest among the four season {winter, spring, summer, and fall). Where there is intensified humidity.
Alingasa.
Init. Can makes us thirsty and uncomfortable. Exposure on too much heat can burn your skin, can make you prone to heat stroke and can lead to death.
QUENCH YOUR THIRST. GO GET A DRINK.
RUTH 2:9
Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.
Way back on ancient times, offering of water or drink to someone would mean hospitality and wanting to get to know a person more.
There is an invitation. Jesus wants to quench the thirst of your heart. There is an invitation to a deeper relationship. Would you honor His offer?
At times, our heart gets thirsty due to an intensified heat. The heat of pressure from our culture or friends. The heat of a desire of wanting to have someone on to be your companion or be intimate with someone. The heat of the need to love and be loved. All of these things can be quenched by having an intimate relationship with God. For those intensified "somethings" should be quenched and mastered. Pressure, desires and needs are not bad at all but they are to be mastered. Mastering those are like burying them in your weakness and raising when you are in your strength. For if intensified in our weakness, that can consume and burn your heart alive. So for a while that you are in your weakness, master it. Quenching your thirst by having an intimate relationship with Him that birth outs contentment in God alone. For in contentment comes the quiet strength or inner peace.Whether we cannot have fulfillment of our desire or needs weren't met -- at least when you are contented in the Lord,
parang nasayo na ang lahat.
☺
"
Nasayo na ang lahat..." as Daniel Padilla sings. ☺
SUMMER GRAIN FIELD
This is where God has put you in your season. Embrace it. Understand the purpose of your season.
So be...
- selfless. Think of others. Take out your focus to your self. Being self-focused makes your need and desires intensified!
1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain., giving yourself fully to the Lord.
Give yourself fully to the work of the Lord. Know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Malay mo, sa paging selfless and focused mo kay Lord, it will cause your mate to notice you! ☺
Di ba mas nice na makita ka ng mate mo na busy in doing the work of the Lord than seeing you nawerla dahil antagal nyang dumating? ☺
- persevering, hard-working and determined.
Persevere in improving your life's status without someone as your mate. Get a life and maximize it while your spouse is still on its journey.
Kasi mas maganda na magkikita kayo ng spouse mo na may maximized-life ka.
☺ When both where maximized in their single life,
mas mamaximizes pa yan when you get into marriage (The power of one/ couple.). You don't need a mate to improve your life -- you will need it when God says you need it. Do some
hard-work on your character, your life. Be
determined in serving others-- to the work of the Lord.
- a gleaner. Being a gleaner is humbling for one must be qualified as an orphan, widow and a foreigner. Thinking that you are one of it can be humiliating. As for Ruth, she has been qualified to almost-- all. Orphan? For she is been living at her mother-in-law. Widow? For she had her husband died on summer. He died for he didn't not survived the intensified heat. Tsk! For her husband was named Mahlon, meaning weak or wasting (as his name declares, no wonder he did not survived the season. So, don't get yourself involved in a Mahlon. That can be traumatic.) Foreigner? Yes. She was moabite who stepped the land of Judah --land for Israelites. Hmmmm, back to being a gleaner--yes, she was all qualified. As being a gleaner, one takes humility to approach a field like that so she could glean in a field.
So what does the gleaner do? Every gleaner do follow the harvesters and pick the left over from the harvested grains.
Gleaning can mean learning. It takes humility to learn one. Learn all you can.
Kung kailangan yumuko para makaglean... sige, yuyuko ako even if theres an intensified heat
gagawin ko! Endure!
Gora lng!
☺The more humble you are, the more you grains you can gather in your gleaning. It is worth the glean!
☺ Glean in the life of others by watching and following the harvesters (mentors) before you. OBSERVE, WATCH and APPLY.
Proverbs 24:30-32 NIV
I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.
I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw.
- a listener, stay in the boundary and obey.
Ruth 2:8 NIV
So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me.
Ruth 2:22-23 NIV
Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Going far beyond the set boundary can be harmful or trespassing can make you pay the price without the joy of paying it -- in fact it can force you and put you to jail. Taking the very freedom that you should be enjoying. So, listen to your leaders or to the right people who are concerned with your life. There is no loss for taking a wise advice or responding to a caution.
Proverbs 22:3 NIV
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.
By obeying a wise advice it makes you stay on God's boundaries. GOD wants your heart safe and protected, not be harassed by someone or anyone who doesn't even know how to care. God knows the value -- the preciousness of you heart. Therefore, care also not to allow anyone to trample your precious heart. Be wise in giving it to someone.
SOoooo....You don't have to be that discontented person, slacker (complacent), be a trespasser or foolish when it comes to your heart.
For God knows everything about you.
Ruth 2:11 NIV
Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about...what you have done...."
He has heard you.
He seen all your efforts.
So, He invites you to His best providence in for life that leads to joy.
Ruth 2:14 NIV
At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.
(Bread means providence. Wine means joy.)
God is treating you with His kindness.
God's favor always conspire on you.
God wants to overwhelm you with His favor.
Until you can't resist its overflowing and seeing yourself before him asking all the "Why-s" of such.
Why he is treating you with such favor? For He knows you deserve his favor when you don't understand it. ☺ And every favor God have set in your life, that will lead a life of gratitude and blessing. Moreover, leading you to be in love with the Lord all the more.
Therefore, never settle for less. For He will give you His best. So while you're on a summer grain field, meditate on God's intensified favor and kindness to you where you will be quenched! Pursue that intimate relationship with him. Leave the choice to him.
"God always gives His best
to those who leave the choice with him."
-- Jim Elliot
