July 20

Jul 20 - Today from Proverbs 20 we look at verse 26
"A wise king winnows out the wicked; he drives the threshing wheel over them."

In 1987 our family volunteered to take a van-load of aid (food and clothing, and some commodities such as coffee, which were actually used as 'money' in place of the useless national currency), behind the Iron Curtain to persecuted Christian families. I was considering becoming involved with the ministry organization committed to supporting the suffering church primarily in Romania. We drove from the Netherlands, across Europe, and up to Communist Romania, posing as camping tourists. The Romanian border patrols were armed with automatic rifles, and represented a regime that hated Christianity. We had already committed to memory and destroyed the written names and addresses of our contacts, for they were the ones placed in most jeopardy by our visit. We were totally inexperienced, and extremely apprehensive. The director said that a trip to meet the people we served would help to confirm our commitment - so we found ourselves sitting at the Communist Romanian border, wondering if it was such a good idea after all. But we crossed, and we made our contacts. We didn't know the language, we knew little of the culture, we couldn't read road signs, and we were a danger to the people we came to serve. It was a daily exercise in faith. When we arrived back at the Netherlands, we were 'debriefed' by the director. As we recounted the visits, shared the information we gathered, and told of our experiences, the director said that he now felt confident that we could become involved with the organization. "This was a big test for you," he explained. "If you got to the border and were too nervous or scared to cross, then you probably wouldn't be the right person to handle the responsibility of representing the suffering church. You needed to know a little of what they experience each day." For this wise leader, a trip into Communist Romania to meet the persecuted church was the threshing wheel. It separated the chaff from the grain.
This is the principle found in today's proverb. You can line four candidates up for a position of authority and responsibility, and they can all say that they are capable to handle it. But how will you ever know? That's why employers require resumes with reference contacts - to see how the candidates performed in previous positions. It may be the only threshing wheel available to them. I remember when my oldest son applied for his first real job at the age of fifteen. There were lots of applicants, but he got it. The personnel manager that hired him traded at the company where I was employed. My manager asked him, "With so many young and inexperienced applicants, how do you begin to make a selection for hiring?"
He replied, "When I read their applications I look for one of two things; if they worked for a farmer or if they've had a paper route for any period of time, I hire them almost on the spot. I haven't been sorry yet." My son handled a paper route for over five years. The personnel manager has his own threshing wheel. He figured that the applicant who worked for a farmer or had a paper route, had already learned volumes about responsibility and would carry that over into working for his organization. Apparently he was right.
God also uses threshing wheels. In 1 Peter 1:6, 7 we read, "Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kind of trials. . . These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - my be proved genuine. . ." Ah-h-h-h. There's the word - genuine! The threshing wheel does not crush the grain, it only separates it from the chaff and straw. Once the whole selected bundle goes through the process, only the genuine grain remains. The rest is discarded. God tests our faith - to separate bravado from genuine faith. If it hasn't been tested, how can we know it's genuine?
People can attempt to deceive and fool others - sometimes even themselves. But when the threshing wheel passes over, only the genuine remains. Wise leaders learn what threshing wheels are most efficient to find the 'genuine' needed for their purposes. It may at first seem like extra effort, but in the long run it pays off many times over.