Let’s Make this Bread

A wise king winnows out the wicked;
he drives the threshing wheel over them.
Proverbs 20:26 NIV

Making bread from scratch is a labor of love. First, you have to winnow the wheat berries. To winnow is to blow the chaff, or husk, off of a wheat berry, or a piece of wheat.  In the event that you don’t get the chaff off by winnowing, you have to thrash, or beat, the wheat stalk to help loosen it up. After the wheat berries are exposed, they are ground into flour, mixed and kneaded with water, yeast, salt, oil, and a number of other ingredients (if you’re fancy), and baked in the oven to make bread.

I think God is getting ready to make some bread in my life, in our lives. But before He can make it, He needs to remove the chaff. This quarantine period has been a time for God to winnow some things off of us and thrash others. Chaff is anything that’s keeping Him from using you in His recipe. Right now God is winnowing generational alcoholism, cookies at 2 AM, and impatience off of me. If I’m honest, He’s thrashing off the procrastination, four hour Netflix marathons, and gossip. What’s your chaff? Whatever it is, let it go and allow yourself to be fully available and ready for His purpose for your life.

Winnowing and thrashing off chaff is like testing the ripeness of your spiritual fruits. Is your self-control ready for your next promotion and pay raise? Is your forgiveness ready for this new relationship? Is your patience ready for another child? If you dared to think that your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, forgiveness, gentleness, goodness, or kindness was not important to the advancement of your life and the kingdom of God, then you are sadly mistaken. Whatever habits that you’ve been holding on to that are blocking your gifts, your fruit, your wheat berries, are about to get beat out of you. So, buckle up. It’s about time to make this bread.

Call to action: What bad habits have you been indulging in during quarantine? Take some time to lay those things before the Lord and ask yourself these questions: When I’m doing (insert habit) is it pleasing to God? Is (insert habit) worth not being close to Him? How can I step away from (insert habit) and get closer to God? Spend at least 5 minutes doing that every day.