Tried, Tested, and True: Lessons from the Threshing Floor

Stay at home orders, social distancing, fear and loathing—the whole COVID-19 experience sure makes it feel like we’re in a season of testing, doesn’t it?!
 
Recall, from Deuteronomy 8:2, how the Lord led the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years to humble and test them in order to know what was in their hearts and whether they would keep His commands. Likewise, Proverbs 17:3 states that just as the furnace is used to purify silver and gold of dross, God uses challenging times to test (and prune) us.  
 
In the Bible, the threshing floor is also understood symbolically as a place of testing. Threshing floors are where grain is separated from chaff. Spiritually, it’s the place where good is sundered from bad, true from false. Like the wilderness and the furnace, it’s where God molds and transforms us into Christlikeness.
 
In chapter 3 of the Book of Ruth, we find Naomi coaching her daughter-in-law, Ruth, on what Ruth should do when she was at Boaz’s threshing floor. Naomi’s advice concerns how Ruth ought to approach Boaz, their “family redeemer” (Ruth 2:20c):  
 
“Now do as I tell you—take a bath and put on perfume and dress in your nicest clothes. Then go to the threshing floor, but don’t let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking. Be sure to notice where he lies down; then go and uncover his feet and lie down there. He will tell you what to do.” —Ruth 3:3-4 NLT
 
The above also serves as excellent counsel to us for our present season of testing, where we find ourselves on God’s threshing floor. It’s where Christ our Redeemer invites us to encounter and experience Him! Naomi provides us a few tips on how to prepare ourselves to meet with Jesus.
 
1. Washing
 
“Now do as I tell you—take a bath and put on perfume and dress in your nicest clothes” (v. 3a).
 
Firstly, we’re to bathe, perfume, and dress ourselves in our best togs—symbolically, that is! In short, we’re to consecrate and purify ourselves by circumcising our hearts rather than our flesh, by rending our hearts rather than our garments (Deuteronomy 10:16; Joel 2:13).
 
In this season of testing, consecration may be the farthest thing from our minds! Yet the threshing floor is also where all our worldly foundations are shaken and even shattered—as COVID-19 has seemingly done. Indeed, so many have been responding to God’s call to humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from wicked ways (2 Chronicles 7:14). Let’s seize the opportunity and wash up!  
 
2. Waiting
 
“Then go to the threshing floor, but don’t let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking” (v. 3b).
 
Secondly, we’re to wait for the Lord. Ruth’s great-grandson, King David, would say a hearty amen to that! David once penned, “I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1). He also wrote, “Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD” (Psalm 27:14). I like that David was utterly convinced he would experience the Lord’s goodness this side of Heaven—while David was “in the land of the living.” And so too shall we, as we wait patiently for the Lord’s deliverance!
 
Note also that Ruth was to wait until Boaz noticed her. Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, “it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord” (Lamentations 3:26). Waiting quietly for God in the best of times isn’t always easy, what more during times of severe testing! I want God to answer my prayers, and I want it yesterday! Yet God will not be forced. Neither unruly trampling of His courts nor crybaby antics before Him will do (Isaiah 1:12; Ephesians 4:14-15).
 
I don’t mean to imply we shouldn’t cry before God. After all, the Lord welcomes our heartfelt honesty in prayer, He sees our tears. “You keep track of all my sorrows,” David once wrote, “You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8). We can rest assured that God will surely respond, but in His time and way (Isaiah 55:8-9; 2 Peter 3:9).


3. Watching
 
“Be sure to notice where he lies down; then go and uncover his feet and lie down there” (v. 4a).
 
Thirdly, we’re to notice where the Lord is, we’re to watch for Him! Differentiating himself from the ungodliness of his fellow Israelites, the prophet Micah said, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). Like Micah, we watch in expectation for our Lord and Savior because He is the One in Whom we rest our hope!
 
Bible commentators aren’t certain what the business of lying down by uncovered feet means precisely, but they seem to agree it involved an act of submission, surrender, and trust on Ruth’s part toward Boaz, her benefactor. Amid bewilderment and uncertainty brought about by the pandemic, there’s no better thing than to submit and surrender to our omniscient and omnipotent God, is there?! In these times of forced inactivity at home, let’s take a hint from Mary (in Luke 10:39) and sit—or, like Ruth, lie down—by Jesus’s feet, watching Him!
 
Tried, Tested, and Proved True!
 
Washing, waiting, and watching are spiritual disciplines not for the fainthearted. They strip us to our very core. Yet it seems like God has done us “a favor” in leading us to His threshing floor, much as when He led the Israelites into the wilderness. Ruth’s time on Boaz’s threshing floor is rewarded with his response: “He will tell you what to do” (v. 4b). It is on that floor where we—washed, waiting, and watching—begin to encounter God and experience Him afresh and anew, where He speaks with you and me, where He tells us what we are to do in this crazy “Corona Time”!
 
God is on the lookout for “washers, waiters, and watchers” who, forged in the furnace of hard times, come out as pure gold!

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