Lent: Chaff

The wisest people I know have discovered how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Chaff is light, airy, useless fluff; wheat is the kernel of  nourishment.  So they lay their commitments, their attitudes, and their goals down on the threshing floor and pound.  

This process can hurt.  It hurts to give up good things for best things.  It hurts to relinquish long held attitudes and habits in an effort to align with Christ.  It's risky to ask God to direct your future and shape your goals.  What if he calls you to do something radical?  

This process is confusing.  A single activity can be both wheat and chaff.  Facebook, for instance, can be used for encouragement and ministry or can stir up trouble and sin.  Mundane tasks can be frustrating burdens, or, if taken to the threshing floor, can become sacred moments.  

Picture this:  you step into the sanctuary of the laundry room.  You smell the staleness of sin and the freshness of new life mingled together.  You move dirty clothes into the washer, close the door, and watch the magic. You pull out fresh, clean clothes from the dryer, thinking on each person represented by t-shirts and underwear and little wadded socks.  You give thanks at the white metal altar.  Suddenly, what once felt like chaff becomes nourishment to the soul.  

Christ spent his life and sweated blood trying to help people see the difference between the wheat and the chaff before his own body was flailed.  

His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.  Luke 3:16