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?

Media, Refugees, Vaccines, Politics: How Christians Really Should Be Posting

I've read them all. I can't help it. Every article, post, rant, comment about the refugees. I've read them all--and my heart is still torn.

Torn because I don't receive every homeless person around me into my own home for many of the safety reasons being presented. Our country is in debt trying to take care of its own poor and needy. Why would our country welcome refugees it knows nothing about? And try to support them using money it does not have?

Torn because the Bible is very clear about how, as believers, we are suppose to welcome and care for the poor, the children, the widows, and the foreigners. And I want to be obedient to God's Word with a right attitude. And when I read those stories about the Holocaust growing up, I swore I wouldn't have been one of those people who looked the other way.

So how do you care and not look the other way and still use discretion and wisdom concerning what you let inside your own borders?  I think this is the question our government is trying to answer.  It's just our government doesn't function very well these days. Everyone is at odds with everyone.

Maybe the better question is, as Christians, why do we expect the government to act with a godly mindset? Why is the Church not being held responsible for acting like Christ? And while everyone is trying to make up their minds, what should we the people do in the meantime?

Well, we've got to stop fighting over social media. 

1) Because everyone, no matter which side of the fence you stand on, just ends up showing their worst side of themselves to everyone else behind the anonymity of their device.  Yes, you have a right to your opinion.  Yes, it's a free country. Yes, you can even argue with people over the internet. That's your right too.

But are your arguments and opinions benefiting your cause directly or are they simply a source of tension relief, to feel like you've been "heard"? Are we unifying the body of Christ with our opinions or are we simply causing more division? If you're bracing yourself for an attack before you post, should you even post? Is the Holy Spirit guiding your clicking or is it something else?

I have friends on my Facebook feeds from all sides of every fence, and I read articles and postings from people I care about that share different views about life. I scroll down through the comments, and I see vicious, cruel, unloving words. Christians getting angry with other Christians makes us unattractive to an unbelieving world. (1 Corinthians 6:1-7) Christians getting self-righteous with unbelievers makes us an abhorrent, arrogant, stench in the nostril of unbelievers, and they are turning away from us because of it every day, never to look back, never to read another thing we post.

As Christ followers, we will be attacked by the world and its followers.(John 15:18-21)
We should be responding with grace and truth if we feel the Spirit lead us to respond at all. (Colossians 4:6)
Turning the other cheek is still always an option, my friends. (Matthew 5:38-44)
Speaking the Truth of Jesus in the Holy Spirit led attitude of selfless love is the other option. (Ephesians 4:15)
Honestly, neither are easy. What IS easy is spouting off my opinions while I'm not being led by the Spirit. That's mostly what I read online, what I hear in the tone of so many God-fearing friends whose hearts are good, but whose intentions are not Spirit-led in the moment. I have been just as guilty.

Christ desires for us to be unified in Him, functioning as one unit, as one Body. That's what I really want. To see my dear Christian friends united in grace and understanding toward one another DESPITE their differences in opinion. To be the living, breathing picture of Ephesians chapters 5 and 6. 

2) Because fighting over social media really accomplishes NOTHING. If you want to accomplish something, get a group of your friends together who have the same opinion and write your representatives, organize and participate in a march, a peaceful demonstration of your beliefs, go to your church or local non-profit and see what there is you can already do now, before our government decides. Send money, food, clothes, prayers. Get your hands and lives dirty being the hands and feet of Christ. Seek the heart of God in prayer, real prayer. Get others to pray with you.

And then, AFTER you've done all those things, then maybe you have some first hand, real life opinions to add to the conversation, and that's what this should be, a conversation, not a stand off to the death, not a I'm-right-you're-wrong-so-let's-hash-it-out arena. As with all things, social media can be used for good, to spread hope, love, and the truth about Jesus Christ, but I am so messed up in my flesh that too often that just doesn't happen, and now there's this arena called the internet the devil is using to expose just how not Spirit-led the body of Christ can be--on display for the whole world to see! Wouldn't it be better sometimes to simply not share anything at all?

Reposting various articles from various sources supporting your viewpoint just passes around more fuel for the fire (whether that be intentional or unintentional, the effect is still the same), and honestly, our media is so biased, how do you really know you can believe EVERY WORD written by anyone these days, regardless of what side of the political fence you stand on. Unless you know the author personally, like you have a personal relationship with the person who wrote the article and can vouch for their unbiased journalism or at the very least the integrity of their character, why share at all? 

Satan wants Christians to be divided. To cut the body of Christ into so many pieces it becomes useless, ineffective, and lifeless. We are almost there.

So while God and I still wrestle with where I stand on the issue of refugees, here is where I know I stand...

God is Sovereign. (Isaiah 46:10) He is in control.(Proverbs 19:21) He appointed the leadership of our country. (Romans 13:1) If He directs me to take a stand against the refugees, then I will write my representatives and do my part to sign petitions and take a stand accordingly, without posting articles and opinions on Facebook. I will take action where the Lord directs to influence the decision makers who are not reading the bickering comments of the rabble on social media.

If the Lord directs me to open my home, my heart, my wallet to pour out of myself on behalf of the refugees, then that's what I will do. I will go to my church or find an organization where I can aid in their voice to actually benefit the real people, the refugees themselves. I will follow the voice of the Lord and actually BE the hands and feet of Jesus instead of just talking about what I SHOULD be to a faceless mass who doesn't know me, instead of rallying people to an opinion and a cause that I actually haven't done one physical thing to actually support other than share an article on Facebook.

God knows me. And He knows you.(John 10:14) He knows your heart and hears your prayers, and He doesn't think it always needs to be plastered on social media.(Jeremiah 17:10) He wants it to be plastered across His social media. He wants our knees to the earth and voices raised in intercession for the least of these. He doesn't need our powerless typed words. He needs our powerful spoken ones.  The ones spoken in secret, laced with tears, battling hard for our fellow believers and for those who don't believe.

He wants us to pray fervently for our government and then graciously accept that their decision is allowed by Him and part of His design after we have followed His individual instructions to us in our own lives on how to best influence that leadership.

But the division has got to stop. On every topic. The conversations need to continue, they need to be had, they need to be heard, but this is not the space for it. The space for those conversations should be the four walls of your home or the Starbucks table with a friend. That's where we should have the courage to have the real and the hard conversations. One on one. Face to face.

So my solution, my resolve? If it's an article or post that might aid in the division of the body of Christ, I'm not liking it, sharing it, or commenting on it from this moment on. I won't aid the devil in continuing to divide the people of Christ. I just won't. 

But if you want my opinion about divisive topics, I'll be happy to have those conversations in a more personal space where we can be together and unified and civil and brave--together. Not separated by cyberspace. My prayer for this country and the people of Jesus Christ is that we be unified in love of our Savior and not fall into the snares of the devil, be they ever so sly, ever so slick, ever so seemingly harmless, ever so temptingly well-intentioned. 

God wants His voice to be heard, His story, His heart. We are His messengers. (2 Corinthians 5:20) May our message, in every word and every motive of our heart, always reflect His heart.  And if it doesn't, we are more prudent to stay silent. (Proverbs 17:28)

If it doesn't unify the Body of Christ, then it doesn't glorify Jesus Christ. (Notice I said unity within the body of believers--we will always be at odds with those who don't believe. Trying to achieve unity in that arena is a losing battle, and that's an opinion for another day;)

So to all my family and friends whom I love and who are my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not give up spurring one another along toward Christ! (Hebrews 10:23-25) But if it's not spurring each other in that direction, let's all choose to pray before we click. That's all I ask, that's how I'm trying to change myself--a prayer before a post, then at the very least as many prayers are being said seeking the heart of God as there are opinions flying around :)

For Those Who Suffer

One set of parents woke up one day to find their 5 year old has an inoperable brain tumor.

One family has lost one husband/father, and now their new husband/dad faces stage four lymphoma.

Another husband/father faces the hard truth of chemo treatments every week for the rest of his life just to keep the cancer at bay with no hope of a cure.

Still another friend just lost her third round battle with breast cancer after being in remission twice.

And these are just the people I know that come to mind in this moment. There are countless others.

It seems like cancer is everywhere.  It seems like it is encompassing the lives of so many.  It seems to surround and cloud and choke at the heart and lives of so many I love and care about.  It can appear hopeless at times.

And in the midst of that lie from the devil, I hear the small whisper of my Big God say, "But I have been there, I am there, I will be there.  I have already been there.  I go before you, before them, I AM before you, and I AM before them.  They will not take one step in a place in time where I have not already been, where I AM not already present."

And somehow in those words, there is great comfort and great hope.

I cannot tell any of my friends that their loved one will not die.  I cannot tell them definitively that God's will is healing in their lives.  I will not remind them that God works all things for their good because right now, reality is life may not be good for them, God may not feel good to them, and those words are of no comfort.  I will not preach that God knows best to them because even when I tell that to myself, it feels flat and lifeless and cold.

But my friends, fleshly feelings deceive. And truth is truth whether I feel it or not.

My God is not cold (Psalm 86:15).  He is not distant (Psalm 34:18).  He is not a puppet master pulling the strings of our lives for His own cosmic entertainment (Isaiah 55:9).  No.  No matter how it may feel, the Truth is my God is Love (1 John 4:8).  The truth is He embodies Hope (Romans 15:13).  The truth is He is Creator God that always has been and always will be (Revelation 22:13). So for all my friends who are struggling deeply with the paths He has asked them to walk, with the difficulties He has entrusted you to endure, I pray my words can point you to Who God is, not what He can do for you, but simply to Who He is.

Because in the moments when we don't understand His will, His purposes, His actions, His choices for our lives, in those moments we must lean hard into who He actually is.  And He said, "I AM."  He promises that you, my friends, will not walk anywhere He hasn't already actually been because His presence knows no boundary of time and is limitless and beyond comprehension.

So when life seems beyond hard, and God seems unfair, know that I will be lifting you in prayer, and I won't be praying that God's will will be done, and I won't pray that He works all things for your good; I will be praying that you never lose sight of who He is--your Refuge, your Strength, your Banner, your Protector, your Provider, your Hope, your Love, your Light, your Life, your Truth.  I will be praying that His ever-present Presence is tangible even in the moments when you might give up on Him, you will know He NEVER gives up on you.  He never lets you go.

There is comfort and hope in Him alone.  Just the knowledge that He IS and always will be is comfort and hope alone.  I pray you know and cling to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the God of the living, not the dead (Matthew 22:32).

He is present, and He is enough.