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