Before there were machines for such things, a threshing floor was used remove harvested grain from its stalk and husk. It was a flattened surface, usually circular and paved. Often it was shared by several families or entire villages, and it was usually placed outside the village where it could be exposed to wind. The farmers would spread the sheaves of grain across the floor and use animals such as donkeys or cattle to thresh the grain by walking around in circles and dragging a heavy board behind them.

This activity would literally tear the ears of grain from the stalks and loosen the grain from the husks. Afterward, all the grain and broken stalks would be tossed into the air with a tool called a “winnowing fan”.  The chaff and straw would blow away with the wind, while the heavier grain would fall to the floor, ready to be collected.

I keep bumping into references to “threshing floors” while reading scripture lately. The last time it happened, I was finally curious enough to find out what a threshing floor actually is. In researching threshing floors, I uncovered the information above, and I came across an article by Don Walker who wrote:

“I believe that worship for us is to be a time of “threshing”, when God separates the “wheat’ from the “chaff” in our lives. When we enter into worship, we are stepping on to God’s “threshing floor” where He deals with those things which need to be “winnowed” out of our lives. ”  http://www.preteristarchive.com/PartialPreterism/walker-don_pp_04.html

More broadly, I feel like this is a metaphor for our ongoing relationship with God. I’ve written before about circling the drain and consistently encountering and addressing common challenges and issues you have.  While we circle, I also believe we undergo this threshing process, where God literally separates us from those things that separate us from Him.

Threshing is such a painful sounding word. The entire process sounds painful. Especially if you are the grain. Think about it. First, you get harvested from your resting place and carted over to this pit in the middle of nowhere with gusting winds. You are thrown on a paved surface where heavy animals trample about while dragging a large, heavy piece of wood over you, with the specific intent of tearing you into pieces. Then, as you lie there in several pieces, you are scooped up, tossed into the air, where the wind blows scatters parts of you across the way and the rest of you lands back in a pile on the floor. Ouch.

A relationship with God is going to include pain. Really choosing to be in a close relationship with Him requires threshing. A lot of threshing. A violent battle with parts of yourself. A tearing, trampling, wind-blown experience. I have been carried to the threshing floor several times this past year. Each time, it is painful, uncomfortable, slightly agonizing. But every time I commit and see it through, I exit in a better form, cleaned of unnecessary parts, more focused and concentrated, closer to the grain He planted in the first place.