When I was a kid growing up on my daddy's wheat farm harvest was a huge affair. Our neighbor would come with his combine and daddy would have his and off they would go. The big machines gliding through the golden wheat fields cutting down the wheat that stood tall and glistening in the sun. I was always kind of sad to see the wheat cut because I loved to stand at the edge of the field and watch the wind move the wheat to and fro..just like the waves of the sea. I loved the smell of it the taste of it. Daddy would take the heads and strip them in his big calloused hands and roll the head in his hand and we would eat what was there. Just to see if is was ready to cut..I don't guess that was real scientific but that is what he did at every field.
After the harvest was in and all the grain that was to be sold was hauled to the elevator we would go to work on the seed wheat. Daddy always kept back some for the next years planting. I loved to climb up into the back of the truck and just sit in the loose wheat. I don't know why...just a kid thing I guess. I would pick it up in my hands and let it funnel out. I loved the way the heavy seeds felt. Smooth and hard. If you laid on it it would conform to your body and being a kid I would try my best to get up and not disturb it so I could see where I had been laying. I would lay there in the wheat and look up at the sky playing the cloud game...you know where you look at clouds and try to decide what they look like..an elephant...a dog..a huge mountain..etc. Do kids even do that anymore? I guess maybe they don't. They spend so much time looking down at computers, games, I-Pods phones that they never look up. They are missing a lot.
At some point Daddy would drag out the ancient auger that we had. There was no telling how old the thing was. He always had to spend at least two days working on it getting it running and such. But finally he got it all fixed up and it ran like a champ. He would hang the end over into one of the rooms of the old barn and back up the truck and tilt a little and the wheat would run down into the place he had prepared and he would hand me a scoop shovel and he would grab one and we would scoop grain where the auger would pick it up and it would swirl to the top and blast out the end and the good grain would fall like rain into the room of the barn. I loved to do this. I loved watching the grain being sucked up into the auger and seeing it fall loose and heavy into the barn. You had to be very careful in keeping the gain moving into the auger and Daddy was always telling me not to stand to close and be careful not to get anything hung up...As a kid we always heard horror stories of farming accidents and I guess it made an impression because even at a young age we knew what was safe and what wasn't. We never questioned him when he told us to back away..or to pay attention. We knew he knew that bad things can happen in an instant and we respected that.
As fun as I thought putting up seed wheat was there was a down side. An itchy miserable downside. Chaff. Wheat was bad...but oats were worse. I think oat chaff went all the way to the bone. As the wheat fell into the barn it was separated from the chaff. The good wheat was heavy and it would fall but the chaff was just junk. It was dirt, grime, the bad seeds that had no life in them. Empty and useless. And it blew all around you. Covering your clothes and your skin. It made breathing difficult at times and the itch! Hot sweaty skin was a magnet for it. Daddy always hoped for a south breeze as it would blow it away from us but even then it was just everywhere.
I have not been a farmers daughter for 30 years. But I still have a love for farming in me. My cowboy husband scoffs and truly believes that he saved me from a life of misery and degradation. And I tell him that if we lived in Bible times that while there were cattle in the Holy Land he would most likely be a sheep man since there were probably way more sheep then cows. I digress.
I love how the Bible uses agriculture to make a point. Back in those days everybody understood agriculture. Even if they lived in the village and made pottery, or wove cloth they all lived close to the land. They understood nature and its cycles. They understood drought. They understood what a good rain meant and a good crop. They knew their food didn't come from the back of a store. They had to toil day to day to feed themselves. They understood the seasons. They understood the work. They understood and were grateful for the food that was set before them. And they knew that what the Word said was true...If you didn't work , you didn't eat.
The Bible is the guidebook for our life. It tells us everything we need to know on how to live a Godly life and it tells us what will happen to us if we don't.
In Matthew Chapter 3 Verse 12, the word says this.... "His winnowing fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
I don't know about you but that verse makes me stop and think. Am I the good wheat. The wheat that is full and heavy with life. The wheat that if planted in the good soil will sprout and bring forth more life? I look back into my memories and I see the wheat spilling into the storage bin. The fat golden seed falling in a golden stream, heaps upon heaps of it stored for the fall planting. Then I see the chaff. The empty seeds. Seeds that are just nothing. They fly in the wind going every which way. They hold no promise. They are just something that can't be used for anything.
I don't want to be chaff. I don't want to be burned up with "unquenchable" fire. If I am to be "winnowed" by His hand I want the seeds of my life to amount to something. I want to be the good wheat. Wheat heavy and full of life. Lord make it so.
God Bless and Happy Trails
Ranchwife
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