A Place of Worship

 

"These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold-though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." I Peter 1:7 (NLT)

 In Bible days, threshing floors were places where they gathered the wheat and threshed it, either by animals or instruments to separate the chaff and the grain. Then it was prepared to be winnowed where the chaff and grain were separated- the chaff was the loose, outer covering on the grain and was useless in making flour. When it was winnowed, the chaff was blown away by the wind and grain fell to the ground.

The threshing floor- was a place of separation. In the Bible, it was of great significance in their culture and religion.  Many times it was also a place of divine encounters.  We, as believers, go through a similar process in order for God to clean out all the worthless stuff in our lives and to separate it from the qualities that He wants to use- so we can further the Kingdom of God. Usually the threshing floor in our lives is a place of discipline, a place where God purges us- gets "us" out of us, so that His Spirit can move freely in our lives. It may come through sickness, financial struggles, family issues, job related circumstances- anything that we consider an inconvenience or hardship, pain or trial. But the thing that I want to point our here- is that our threshing floors can become place of divine encounters if we let them. In the midst of our trials and sufferings, if we allow ourselves to worship God and give Him praise- not "for" the trial, but "in" the trial, in spite of the tribulation- when we build an altar there- right in the middle of our trial- He will turn those times of struggles into places of worship. We can open ourselves up to "divine encounters" during those times. 

In 2 Samuel 24:1, and 15-25- David was repenting for a sin that he had committed in numbering the people of Israel. God was going to send a plague but David repented and He built an altar at the threshing floor of Araunah- this later became the site of Solomon's Temple. Judges 6:11-14 tells us about Gideon- who was threshing wheat when an angel of the Lord appeared to him and called him a "mighty man of valor". He went on to win the victory over their enemy.  His threshing floor became a holy place of a divine encounter with the Lord. 

We never know what God will do or what He will show us when we turn our eyes off of our problems and turn them onto Who He is. When we allow God to do the threshing, the separating of our grain from the chaff- it can be a place of divine encounters. Those trials, sickness, whatever-- when we just raise our hands and say- Lord have your way! Rely on what God is doing and stop trying to figure it all out, fix all the problems on your own. Psalm 121 tells us to not look at the mountains for our help- stop looking at worldly things to solve our problems, stop looking at others to make things right- but look to God- our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth-- and you!  

"But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were loosed." Acts 16:26

  Taking this even beyond ourselves- our threshing floors will not only turn into places of worship and divine encounters- but they will stand as a witness to others- even long after we have passed on into eternity. Others watch us as believers. They want to see how we are going to handle stress and heartache in our lives. They want to see the "proof" of what we have been telling them about Jesus. They want to see the difference in our lives- and they will- as long as we yield ourselves over to God and allow Him to bring us through the process. We won't go through our hardships with a smile on our face 24 hours a day- but we will have the peace of God that passes our own understanding. We will have the faith that God will see us through to the other side. We will have that inner sense that God is orchestrating our lives and that He knows what is best for us. One place of worship in our life will open the door to more and greater places of worship. We will be amazed at the divine encounters we will have with God- the revelation that He will show us of Himself- the sense of belonging to Someone greater than ourselves.

A place of worship. What are you going through in your life that you could turn into a place of worship? He is processing all of us, in His own way. We all go through times of discipline, learning, struggling- trails. When we look to God and turn our trials into a place of worship- there is no end to what God can do- in us, for us, through us. 

A place of worship. Are you willing to get your eyes off your problems, and begin to just raise your hands and give it over to God? Are you tired of feeling defeated and discouraged, depressed, and hopeless? Turn your threshing floor into a place of worship and see what God will do.

 

~Blessings, Donna