Threshing Floor

 Hi Everyone,

Earlier in the month, I was praying into some ministry-related concepts and felt like the Lord said, "Watch the Threshing Floor". I'm not going to go into all the details of why and what I was praying into. However, because I didn't know what a Threshing Floor really was, I had to do some digging. I knew the basic concept of separating good from bad, but I needed to know more. It's my new understanding that I want to share with you.

First, Threshing is part of Revival. This is part of the blog on Jesus flipping the tables. 

To understand threshing and threshing floors, I would like to provide you with a mental picture. Imagine a big flat slab of cement either outside or indoors. On this slab is wheat from many sheaves of wheat piled high, and often an animal, such as a donkey, goes around and around to break up the grain (don't ask me where the excrement goes, perhaps it's used for flavoring?) The trampling by the animal and the grain beating against itself separates the fruit or grain from the chaff. At a glance, this is a slow, tedious process, but if you consider the grain's perspective, it would be a slow, brutal experience that is equally delicate, as those same hooves that separate the grain can also destroy it. Next you have the winnowing. Winnowing is the process that follows threshing; it involves the farmer using air and a special fork tool, such as a pitchfork, to separate the smaller chaff from the final wheat grain. A threshing floor essentially separates wheat stalks from wheat. It is the less delicate and often more violent process, and so aligns more with God's justice. I personally equate the winnowing with the Holy Spirit, especially given its reference to the use of wind or air.

I had never realized that revival comes with threshing, both from threshing and leads into threshing, and that's why both Revival and Threshing create good fruit; they are intertwined.

A threshing floor is about God's glory. We can't barter with him or barter out of our messes. The purpose is to preserve good fruit and create more good fruit. As the threshing happens, seed is sown in hope of a future harvest, and progress is made during the threshing season. It is not a sit-and-wait season; it is an assess-and-do season. I'm glad for a good threshing, while brutal, what would the world be like without it? This is why many organizations are quick to address sin issues, as they realize that they can become caught in the chaff of the threshing floor just as easily as anyone who doesn't know the Lord or is unrepentant for their sin.

Threshing is not a quiet thing that happens unnoticed; it is a powerful event that disturbs the very nature of the material being threshed, and if left too long, can destroy even the fruit that would have been born from the event. Threshing takes different forms for different types of product production, but in every case, it creates a product so valuable that robbers try to steal it if they can. Robbers may also be "Believers" if we pull from Paul's stories. While Paul doesn't typically call people robbers, the false doctrine of the "Super Apostles" in 2 Corinthians, where people are trying to steal the fruit the Lord has given to Paul, could certainly qualify as robbery through spiritual manipulation. I believe we see a modern microcosm of this when church denominations attempt to harness revivals for their own monetary gain and benefit. I think that when this happens, it stifles the harvesting and creates another round of threshing instead of moving into the winnowing that the Lord intended for us. He has to thresh until he can winnow; he has to preserve the good fruit.

Threshing floors often become an altar to the Lord as the fruit he yields from threshing is so powerful that his Kingdom doesn't just grow, but it triumphs via the threshing, bringing Glory to God.

Praise God for threshing us all!