Have you Ever Threshed wheat

Have you ever threshed wheat?

       Probably not but stay with me, because this matters more than it sounds. In Judges Chapter 6 we find Gideon, hidden in a wine press threshing wheat. Threshing wheat wasn’t a quiet, hidden process. It was work that happened best out in the open. You would take the harvested wheat to a threshing floor, usually a high, exposed place where the wind could move freely. You’d beat the wheat or crush it so the grain could separate from the chaff. Then you’d toss it up in the air and let the wind do its job blowing away what didn’t belong and letting what was good fall back down.

       It was messy. It was physical. And it also required the right environment.

      Now let’s talk about a winepress. A winepress wasn’t open. It was the opposite.

It was a sunken pit or carved out space, designed to keep things contained while grapes were crushed underfoot. No wind. No elevation. No room to really toss anything. It was made for pressing, not separating. And would have made the job harder.

      And yet when we meet Gideon in Judges 6, where is he?

“Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.” (Judges 6:11)

     He’s trying to do the right process in the wrong place. And as brave as it is, he's still being driven by fear.

Have you ever felt like that?

    Like you’re trying to do what God asked you to do but everything about your environment makes it harder? Like you’re working, praying, believing but you’re doing it in hiding.

Not because you want to but because life has made you feel like you have to.

      That’s Gideon.

He’s not lazy. He’s not disobedient. He’s just afraid. So he adapts. He takes something meant to be done boldly and tries to do it quietly. I can relate so much to Gideon. I’ve lived that. I’ve been in seasons where I knew what I was called to do, but fear made me do it hidden. Not because I didn’t believe God but because I didn’t feel safe enough to fully step out.

     Threshing is about separation. It’s where God removes what doesn’t belong. Fear, lies, old mindsets, things we carried out of “Egypt.”

But Gideon is threshing in a place without wind. And in Scripture, wind often represents the Spirit of God. So here he is doing the work without the environment that is needed.

    And We do the same thing. We try to grow in God while staying in places that keep us hidden. We try to let things go but we never actually release them into the wind. We try to become who God called us to be but we’re still operating out of fear.

    And then God shows up.God meets him in the winepress. And he says something to Gideon that doesn't seem to fit just right...

“The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

        Mighty? He’s hiding.

        Warrior? He’s threshing wheat in a hole.

But God wasn’t speaking to where Gideon was. He was speaking to who Gideon was becoming. That just does something to me. It gets 

me excited. God doesn't look at us in our mess, he doesn't see our weakness..He looks at us and sees who we are becoming and he calls it out. 

     God didn’t shame him for hiding the winepress. He didn’t say, Get out of there and then I’ll use you. He met him there and then called him out of it.

     Maybe you feel like you’ve been doing the right things in all the wrong places, shrinking back when you know you’re called to step up,

hiding parts of yourself because it feels safer...

       But I need you to hear this today....

God will meet you right where you are but He loves you too much to leave you there. You weren’t created for the winepress. You were created for the threshing floor. You were meant to be out in the open, where the Spirit can move, where what’s heavy falls away,

and what’s real remains.

      God sees in you the places you've been hiding. He sees the fear, the hesitation, the places where you've tried to make things work in environments that weren’t meant for you.

And he will meet you there anyway. But he won't leave you there. He will call you out and strengthen you. Hecwants to Blow through your life like wind on a threshing floor separating what needs to go and settling what he's placed inside of you..

     Let him Remind you of who you are today. even when I don’t feel like it.

Love Pastor Mandy 

Ark of Hope Ministry 

@highlight 

Daily reading Judges 6