The Threshing Floor

Winnowing Winds & Faithful Grain

This week’s Reflections may feel heavier; less like a journal entry, more like an unfolding of long crumpled notes from history books and the uncovering of dusty volumes on library shelves. I invite you to sit with me here, not as a scholar, not as someone who has all the answers, but as a fellow sojourner in a time of rising winds. The kind that shake loose what cannot stay.

Allow me tell you a story.

It begins on a wide, open plain somewhere ancient and current alike. The sky is high and cloudless, and the wind moves steadily through the barley. A stone platform lies at the center of a hill. This is the threshing floor. A place of separation. A place of truth. Here, the harvested stalks are laid down, and the oxen’s hooves crush the grain beneath them. A man wielding a winnowing fork lifts it into the air. What is weightless and empty—the chaff—catches the wind and floats away. The true grain falls back to the floor. Ready to be kept, to be made into what can nourish and sustain.

We are standing there, I think. In the world. In history. In our hearts. All over.

Scripture speaks of this space as holy ground. Ruth came quietly to Boaz on the threshing floor, seeking shelter not in sentiment, but in covenant (Ruth 3). King David bought one with silver and offered repentance there, building an altar where once judgment had stood (2 Samuel 24:24–25). And John the Baptist, fierce and lean in the wilderness, told of One who would come with a winnowing fork in His hand—ready to clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the kept (Matthew 3:12).

The floor is not a place of ease. It is a place of clarity.

Perhaps you’ve felt it—the wind in recent days. A grief that moves through you like dust, a rising heat, a quiet fury. In America, we are watching a world unravel in old and familiar ways. Racial injustice, state violence, systems that consume the vulnerable. Children taken. Families undone.

But the wind does not stop at our borders. It crosses oceans and carries with it the cries of many lands.

Let me take you now to Punjab.

A few years ago, I visited this northern region of India, where the air is thick with spice and diesel and the song of car horns. We still have friends there—brothers and sisters who love Christ, who pray for us daily with gentle and persistent intensity. India is often misunderstood by our American eyes. I know it has been, and still is sometimes, in mine. It is spoken of in caricature, reduced to color and chaos, poverty and polytheism.

But what I saw in Punjab were the people: men with dust on their hands and tea kettles in their shops, women sweeping stoops and singing under their breath. I saw dastars (Sikh turbans) among Abercrombie tee shirts and beautiful kurtas. I saw children curious about us. I heard in every home laughter rising over plates of delicious curry. I smelled the chai and coffee while seated among believers. I watched farmers walk the roads with their herds. I saw threshing floors and piles of sifted grains. I saw devotion and complexity. And I saw the gospel living there—quietly, faithfully, among those who had counted the cost.

Modern open-air threshing/storage area for grains in Punjab

You may well know that the story of Christ reached Indian shores long ago. According to early church tradition and supported by archaeological finds, the Apostle Thomas journeyed to the Malabar Coast in the first century—possibly as early as 52 AD. The Syrian Christian communities of Kerala, still active today, trace their roots to this very mission. What we know for certain is that by the third century, Christian communities were already rooted in India.

The gospel traveled slowly—but it traveled faithfully. On ships. On foot. In hidden gatherings and whispered prayers.

And this, too, is part of the story.

In America, we forget how vast our land is. We think a trip across a few states is ordinary. But let me offer you a picture:

Driving from Tennessee to Colorado covers more than a thousand miles—more distance than crossing several countries in Europe. From Paris to Warsaw is a shorter journey.

We are used to movement. To airplanes. To near-instant delivery. But the gospel spread through footsteps, dust, and danger. And somehow, by God’s grace, it reached the edges of, piercing the hands and feet of empires.

When we forget this, we lose the awe of it. When we assume our own countries are the center of the story, we miss the scope of what God is doing in the world. And when we confuse nationalism with discipleship, we end up worshipping Caesar.

So what do we do, in the face of so much sifting?

We remember. And we test the spirits.

There is much today that calls itself Christianity and is not. Not all who bear the name of Christ follow Him. Heresies have taken hold in our land, often clothed in the garb of goodness. I say this not with condemnation but with sorrow: we must be discerning. The gospel is not a tool of empires. It is not a mechanism for control. It is a rescue.

If you are seeking truth, I urge you to read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Strobel was not a pastor—he was an investigative journalist trained in legal analysis. As an atheist, he set out to disprove the resurrection. Instead, he found it to be historically credible: the manuscripts, the eyewitness accounts, the corroborations held up under scrutiny.

You might also explore the work of biblical archaeologist Joel Kramer, whose documentary work and book Where God Came Down examine the physical spaces of Scripture with clarity and reverence. His videos on the Expedition Bible Youtube channel walk through ruins, inscriptions, and evidence that affirm and explain the claims of the biblical record. Even the stones cry out.

I do not have proper credentials, but these men and others do, and I encourage you to hear what they have to say and show you.

America, for all its power, is not eternal. In fact, it is still quite new. We are not the first empire to meddle in foreign lands, nor the first to ignite long-burning fires far from home. Generations have paid for the pride of kings. The same patterns of conquest and collapse we read in Scripture still play out across our many, many headlines.

And yet. Still.

The gospel moves with the Spirit. Not always in grand halls, but in small rooms. In homes. A classroom. Forgotten spaces. In the wilderness. In the prison songs of believers in Tehran. In the faithful prayers of widows in Gaza. In the quiet courage of those who kneel to wash feet when the world would rather raise wars and fists.

So now I invite you to return with me to the threshing floor.

Modern threshing floor/grain processing area in Punjab India

This world is under winnowing.
The chaff is being blown away.
We are being asked to understand what is real.

The man who stands there with the winnowing fork is Christ.
And it is not wrath that He offers, but invitation.

“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
—Matthew 3:12

And yet—this Judge is also the Shepherd.

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice.”
—Isaiah 42:3

And the invitation is still open:

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
—Matthew 11:28

We do not come to the threshing floor to be destroyed.
We come to be made true.

So may we come with open hands.
May we recognize the grain.
May we lay down our pride, our power, our idols, and all that cannot remain.
And may the wind of the Spirit blow through us
until only what is of Christ remains.

Selah,

-Flourish & Fray