Encouragement for the Threshing

The Threshing. It sounds like the name of horror movie. And in some ways, maybe it is. I see it happening around me, and I’ve been hesitant to say anything, to speak anything because aren’t we all these days—about SO many things. But I can’t get the idea out of my mind. The Lord is sifting the wheat from the tares. Now, I’m sure He’s been doing this for centuries, it’s just not every generation lives through a season of threshing. Some have only ever known the decades of planting, some the decades of growth, which means some must live through the decades of threshing as well. It is the process of harvesting after all.

Threshing is the process of harvesting grains of wheat by the use of cutting and/or beating. The object being to loosen and separate the grains of wheat from the stalk of the plant. If you’re the wheat, it’s a violent process.

So, what does this look like for people? Adversity. Every Christ-follower I know is facing one adversity after another. Much like the process of threshing, the beating is constant. It doesn’t stop. One blow after another. One punch in the gut, one slash to the spirit after another. Just when you think you can come up for air, more adversity comes crashing into your life again. I’ve been there. Am there on some days still. It’s been over a decade of waves of grief for me. For some it’s been over a decade of physical traumas and complications. For some, they’ve never known anxiety and depression so personally. They can’t escape it or find relief from the onslaught of voices. The adversity is real. It is high. It is hard. It is not stopping.

It makes you question the goodness of God. It makes you wonder if everything you’ve ever believed is a lie. It makes you shout at God for Him to stop! Haven’t I been Your faithful child?! Haven’t I kept the faith, proclaimed your glory, stood by the promises of Your Word even when they didn’t “feel” true?! Haven’t I endured enough? Hasn’t my family and friends endured enough? The questions and doubts assail our minds and hearts. We wrestle with God, with our faith, with each other.

Friends, fellow believers, we are being sifted, and only the wheat gets gathered.

I’m not talking about the unbelievers from the believers here, the goats from the sheep (Well, maybe I am a little.) I’m talking about the wheat from the tares. The types of seed along the path without deep roots, choked by the world, drying out. I’m talking about the people who have grown up among us, who look like us, talk like us, act like us, say they believe what we believe, say they love and follow Jesus, who read His Word, who claim His name, yet adversity wipes them out. Somewhere in the process of wrestling with their faith and wrestling with God, they give up, and they walk away. They can’t take the threshing any longer. (Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)

I’ve been there. Some days I am still there. There will be days I am there again. This generation is living through a season of threshing. I’m not saying Jesus is returning tomorrow. I’m not proclaiming the end of the world as we know it is near. (Although, come Lord Jesus, come!) I’m saying I see the Lord using adversity in the life of His children to draw them close, to gather us together and to Him. He wants us to be free of the weeds for a little while. He’s causing the tares to fall behind and be consumed by the burning fire of this world, while He gathers His own to Himself.

Will you let bend your heavy, fruit-laden head of wheat, and allow the Master to thresh and gather you unto Himself? Will the words, “Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him,” fall from your mouth (Job 13:15)? Will you mean it? Will you live it? Will you choose to trust your Master’s careful, purpose-driven Hand? And if not, as an old song by Babbie Mason reminds me, when you can’t trace His hand, will you trust His heart? Do you even know His heart for you enough to trust it?

And that is the question separating the wheat from the chaff inside our churches today.

Do you know His heart for you enough to trust it? I believe we have been living in the era of growth for quite some time. The wheat and the tares have been growing alongside each other for decades now. While growth can be difficult and uncomfortable, it’s rarely traumatically painful. Growth pains are short lived. During a time of growth, it’s easy to become complacent, apathetic, content, comfortable, energized by the growth of yourself and others, encouraged, hopeful, the future is yours—bright and possible. It’s easy to forget we were once seeds in the dark, and no one wants to ponder the threshing on the horizon. We just bask in the glory of the sun and grow!

Be encouraged, friends, fellow believers, your time of growth has been producing fruit. Heavy fruit. Fruit which bows its head to the Sower. Fruit able to withstand the threshing. Take heart! Our Master will gather you to Himself when His work is accomplished. In His presence there will be times of refreshing and renewal, feasting and reward. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Acts 3:19-21, Jeremiah 31:25)

But only after the threshing.

Jesus’ children may wrestle, question, argue with Him all they need, but in the end, when the threshing floor grows still and quiet, their fruit will remain, and they will be gathered to Him. (Mark 13:7, Psalm 50:5, Jeremiah 23:3)

I want to be gathered to Him so badly. And I’m not just talking about my final resting place with Him for all eternity, I’m talking about today, now. In the middle of the adversity, the threshing, I am learning to savor the moments when Jesus runs His hands through the fruit of my life and nods with knowing affirmation or smiles with approval or holds me in love in His hand in the middle of the hard things happening around me. In the presence of my enemies, right in the middle of them, He prepares a table for me (Psalm 23:5). He is fully present in the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things.

In your time of growth, did you put down deep roots? Did you learn about His heart for you enough to trust it? To trust His purpose in the adversity even when it makes no sense? Even when the pain is unbearable? When you no longer feel His goodness, will you still choose to believe He is good? When you are not the recipient of what you think His favor should look like, will you still choose to believe His favor is present somehow, someway simply because you are His child? Is being His child enough for you?

Is being His child reward enough in itself?

I believe when the answer to this question is a broken, beaten, threshed-out, “Yes, Lord,” followed by child-like trust, producing humble obedience, and dogged, determination to live a life grateful for the cost of adoption into the family of God—when this happens, we are gathered unto our Jesus, pulled up into His lap and able to fully rest in the enjoyment of just Him. Just Jesus. Just being His child.

The gathering will come, but only after the threshing. Someone you know is being threshed right now. Someone you love is breaking open and falling apart. Someone needs you to be the worker in the field gathering them to Jesus because by God’s grace someone else is gathering your brokenness to Jesus. God’s kingdom on earth is not free of suffering, yet. Yet. But the kingdom He established, the one He began on earth when He sent His Son, this kingdom can be a safe place, a haven, a place of gathering and being gathered for His children.

Take heart. Take courage. Endure. Stand fast. Hold on. Persevere.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

 Hebrews 10:35-36

But remember, what God has promised is Himself! HE is the reward. He is the promise. Those who are disappointed by this truth are the tares falling away and being left behind.

Do you know His heart enough to trust it? Is He truly Enough for you? Is He all the reward and favor you need?