Spring Cleaning

The dictionary says that chaff is the seed coverings and other debris separated from the seed in threshing grain, it also says that chaff is something comparatively worthless¹. I imagine threshing wheat is hard work, repeatedly throwing the harvested wheat in the air while the heavier wheat berries fall to the floor, and the outer, lighter husk hangs in the air a moment then falls to the ground away from the wheat berries. Threshing, also called winnowing, is ideally done where there is a breeze, like you can find on the top of hills. On the other hand, after harvesting grapes, you would want to press the juice out closer to the source. I mean you really wouldn't want to haul all those grapes up a hill, would You?


[The Call of Gideon]
[11] Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
(Judges 6:11 ESV)


The Midianites had their own form of gleaning; in the Spring, during the harvesting season of wheat, they would just simply camp out near the Israelites and watch for people threshing, quite easily seen on the top of hills, then come take the wheat from them. The poor person who had done all the work, was left with nothing, while at the end of the season, the Midianites went home with their booty, but beforehand, they destroyed the Israelite's homes and villages, taking whatever they wanted.


Reading about the Israelites in the Old Testament, we follow a cycle repeated many times, the Israelites: *follow and serve God, fall into sin & idolatry, become enslaved and or oppressed, cry out to God, God raises up a Judge, they are delivered, repeat from *. In Judges 6, the Israelites need God, they realize they can't do it themselves and they also know that their idols can't save them either, so they have been crying out to God because the Midianites have been oppressing them for seven years!


Gideon means “Destroyer”, Mighty Warrior” or “Feller (of trees)”, an apt name for someone who saves Israel, right. Wait, Gideon is threshing in the winepress? He must have been pretty scared, don't you think? I image him there, sweating like crazy, while throwing the wheat in the air and a lot of the chaff is sticking to him. What happens in between Gideon being so scared and hiding in order to thresh out the wheat and not attract the attention of the Midianites, and him leading a great army into battle and then chasing the kings of Midian with 300 men?


God happens. God loves to use people who are weak and unable to do much, because His glory can really shine through. Repeatedly He calls people something they are not, like Abram, who has no children, becomes Abraham, father of many. The Lord looks at Gideon and calls him what he will be. As we read Judges, we follow this frightened man, who is hiding and threshing in the winepress, until he becomes so confident in God, he tells his men that if they are frightened, they should go home; then we follow him until he really is “a mighty man of valor”!


I can apply so many lessons here to my life. I have a muscle movement disorder. Even though I'm doing so much better than I was, I'm still in a wheelchair because I get tired and fall so easily. I am on oxygen because the oxygen in my blood is low. Now imagine me doing something like Gideon. God threshes me like wheat, using circumstances to cause the useless chaff in my life to be blown away, leaving the valuable wheat, God really can use me to bring glory to Himself! The Bible is full of people that God takes, in spite of all their shortcomings, circumstances and problems, and transform them into people, who God uses powerfully!


¹

merriam-webster.com

Why Do We Do Not What We Should?

I have asthma, which has over time gotten worse, so now I am supposed to do a breathing treatment four times a day. This consists of putting the medicine in the little nebulizer cup, putting my lips around the mouthpiece and turning it on; about 20 minutes later, I remove it from my mouth, shake the little bit of medicine out of the nebulizer cup and turn the machine off. Afterwards I can breathe better. As you can tell, it isn't hard, or terribly time consuming, I can even do this while continuing in many of my activities. So it absolutely confounds me as to why I hate doing it so much? In fact, there are many things that I have great benefits from, but avoid doing; why is that?

Something else that many of us have trouble with, is our diet. According to WHO "An unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors for a range of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and other conditions linked to obesity" Now granted that I have a special situation, in that having hurt myself cooking more than a few times, my husband would prefer I do nothing more than microwave, and he gets take-out food for me and given the financial situation these days, this means from much cheaper options these days, but even if money weren't so tight, getting healthy vegetables and fruits from take-out isn't very easy, is it? I really like fruits and veggies and actually prefer them over meat. Even still cooking at home, we still don't make or eat all the healthy vegetables in each meal that we should.

What really confounds me, is that God calls us to live a life led by the Spirit and to do all that He asks us to do; if we do this, we are happier and feel better emotionally, so why don't we? Everything He asks of us is because He knows that it is the best thing for us. For instance He asks us to walk in the Spirit instead of the flesh, then we have have more joy and peace. I really like joy and peace. Yet think of how peaceful and joyful we feel after watching a movie filled with death in all it's gory details. Think of how hard it is to do the right thing, if we are on a strict diet and we belly up to a buffet with lots of all the wrong stuff, while we are famished. Why do we put ourselves in tempting situations when we are weak?

I could go on and on with examples, but my point is that long term good benefits are usually better than the short term consequences of doing what we should, even though sometimes the "long term" part is only 20 minutes. Yet I'm still flummoxed. I just don't understand myself as to why I don't do what is best for me. Only part of it is instant gratification. Yet perhaps if results were tragically instant, such as when Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark at Nachon's threshing floor in Samuel 6:6; or in Numbers 21:6 where God sent snakes among them and they needed to look to the golden snake in order to live. What a good example for us to walk with my eyes trustingly on Jesus instead of thinking about, or looking upon other things as well as looking to Him for life eternal. O how I look forward to when I shed this flesh and when all of us can bask in the light of God forever!

Hanging On Desperately

Hanging On Desperately

As is my custom, I listen to Dr J. Vernon McGee on my iPod when I lay down for a nap. Dr McGee talked about the life changing night Jacob became Israel and that he didn't really want to fight anybody, as he had Laban his father-in-law behind him and Esau his twin brother in front of him, and both had been breathing out threats and curses last time he saw them. He said that the angel he fought with was the Preincarnate Jesus (he also cited reasons that this was  what he believed) and that He prodded Jacob until he would wrestle with Him. 

Dr. McGee said that Jesus could have done things differently, but that He needed to cause Jacob's spirit to yield. He then quoted a story he had told previously about a little boy who had gotten in trouble and was therefore sitting in a corner as punishment.
His mother heard a noise and said “Billy, are you sitting down?”
“Yeah”, little Billy replied “but I'm standing up on the inside!”


Dr. McGee said that Jacob wrestled with Jesus until he had nothing left, tied and not strength he could only hang onto the Preincarnate Christ. He then talked about how we too need to yield to God and to hang on to Him just as hard as we can.


Once upon a time, I was like an octopus, my hands doing many things at once and at the end of the day there was a long list of what *I* had done, but as my strength and stamina has declined, God has really been teaching me that He “designs disability, [which has been] designed to produce within us a desperate kind of dependence”. and also that “life with a disability and with Jesus is infinitely better than a healthy body without him.¹” Amen! We are to hang on to God desperately. “God loves those who desperately need him because God delights in being desperately needed. Therefore, in our desperate need, we exult in the truth that he is rich in mercy to meet our needs (Ephesians 2:4).” 

God has caused me to have low energy and pain because then I tire more easily and therefore have been able to fight Him less, which caused me to realize, once I had to slow down enough to think about it, that is, how desperately I do need God and also to hang onto Him because sometimes that is all I can do. There have been times when I can only lay in bed praying and praising God, and Jacob quit fighting the Preincarnate Christ and yielded, he then began to change into Israel. Sure he didn't become mature overnight, none of us do yet as long as we listen to the Spirit, we will continue to grow.
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I've been trying to memorize the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:23-24), and so I listened to a kids song about them by Steve Green, and in it it says that when Jesus left the earth He left behind the Holy Spirit to be our leader and we are to follow the leader, the Holy Spirit and then we will develop the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. By walking with Him, each day we become more like Him until after many days, we can look back and see a remarkable change in us.

To download the entire 5 Years Thru the Bible radio program by Dr. J. Vernon McGee, click here. To learn more about Bethlehem Baptist Church click here. To listen to Fruits of the Spirit by Steve Green on youtube click here. 
¹ A Letter From Pastor Jason Meyer, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN to see the letter click here.