Celebration after the Winnowing Process

Spiced ciders, warm fire place, the smell of freshly baked bread from the oven are all smells I love during the fall season. Besides all the yummy foods to eat and company to be had during the fall season I have decided it is much more than all of that, it is a time of true thankfulness.

At the beginning of the fall season, harvesting begins. During the harvesting season farmers gather their crops from the fields marking the end of the growing season. Our Christian walk has been compared to a farmer’s harvest.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Gal. 6:9 (ESV)

For Christians the growing season is often filled with pain and we cannot see what the Lord is teaching us during this period of time. But hold strong, the harvest is coming!

The book of Ruth was written during harvest season, and they celebrate the beginning of Harvest with a huge feast and celebration. But before there is a feast the barley has to go through the threshing floor. To “thresh” the grain means to hit the wheat or barley plants until the grain falls out. The grain was then thrown into the air and the evening wind would blow away the chaff. The chaff surrounds the part of the plant that was the grain. The chaff would blow away and the grain would remain, this was the winnowing process (basically to get rid of the undesirable parts, the chaff was used to kindle their fire). So what you have left is the good, refined grain ready for people to enjoy.

God does the same thing to us. First we are planted somewhere to grow, we are watered, cared for, and allowed to flourish. Then just as the plant we are set to dry out during a season, I call this our desert time. Then life comes at us hard and we are cut down from where we were growing. We are then thrown on the thrashing floor where the chaff and the grain are separated. The chaff being anything in our lives that is not pleasing to God, images we have formed, bad habits we have developed, etc… Then we enter the winnowing process where only the good stuff remain and the rest is blown away and used for fire. God removed of all the undesirables in us. What we have left is what is good, what is refined and what is pleasing to God.

I love a good party just as much as the next person. So once there is a harvesting and the grain is refined there is a big celebration. In the bible, Boaz was celebrating the Feast of Shavuot, which one of the things celebrated was “first fruits”. This symbolized the very first grains of the Harvest, and a promise of the rest of the harvest to come, of the resurrection of all of God’s people.

This is why I like Fall! It represents a time of celebration, and time of surviving the growing, threshing, and winnowing period of my life. It is a time to give thanks for the blessings in my life.