“Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or juice from the winepress.”
Numbers 18:27
I have seen a few different varieties of wine-presses. None of them were appealing to me to imagine being a grape and going through the process of becoming wine. One method I witnessed involved women holding onto suspended ropes from overhead while their bare feet stomped on juicy grapes piled in a long stone trough surface with carved-out little spouts that deposited the flowing juice into a stone trough. The other process was a heavy wooden block of wood that was slowly lowered onto a pile of grapes and slowly squished down, the juices running into the little “ditches” and flowing into large pots at the end. Both processes made me glad that I was not a grape.
God’s “picture” language gives us a glimpse of our human life. “Grain offerings” and “Drink offerings” were visual examples of what God sees as “offerings . . . gifts” to Him. They were not things that could be bought on a shelf in a market. They required a process of selection, giving, and removing from the ‘source’ of life from which they had grown. The culmination of the offering’s destiny was for consumption of people. . . for nourishment and health.
We go through experiences . . . seasons of life where we feel like we’ve been “stomped on” …walked on . . . used. . . Jesus knew that feeling. He spoke of being “poured out like wine”. . . kneaded and put through the fire, like bread. But He always kept before Him the ultimate result.
It was all for us and for our good . . . life-sustaining essentials not only for our own personal world, but for those others in our world as well.
Imagine the grain opting to stay in the field to avoid the threshing floor. They’d likely become birdseed. Or the grapes clinging to the vine . . . they’d end up raisins. Or bird food. Both alternatives end up as _________ on the ground. (you can fill in the blank)
When we are being “squeezed” by life and circumstances, it’s time to trust our Vine-dresser. . . our Seed-Sower. He sees the end result of His careful Work in our lives. It’s not to be put on a shelf or in a sack or left on the ground. His Purposes are for the good of the people in our world. It’s the Purpose that we, who have been in His Field . . . and in His Hands . . .are His.
Be available for Him to use to bring Life . . . Nourishment . . . Strength . . . Healing. . . to your neighbor . . . your family . . . your world.
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