Good Grain

   Imagine you had to go out and harvest items in order to make dinner. In Bible times they had to do just that. They did not have a store they could go to in order to buy food. They had to work for their food.
   One activity they had to do was grain threshing. It kind of reminds me of searching for gold in one of those strainer like pans. Except, rather than sifting, they threw the grain up in the air. Why did they throw the grain in the air? In Psalm 1 we find the answer: "Not so the wicked, They are like chaff, that the wind blows away." Chaff is not a word that we hear too often nowadays. Chaff is the parts of the grain we don't use in the bread. The grain is the good part that we need to make bread.
   Why should you care about grain and chaff? I am not saying you should. What I am saying is that there is another lesson in this activity. Each day you go out and work in some way, shape, or form. I am sure that you don't come home from work every day saying, "I can't wait to go back. I love my job." More than likely you wake up thinking, "Oh I have to deal with that situation again." Or, "I cannot believe I have to work with that person." Those thoughts are like the chaff. We must hold on to the grain, which are the good thoughts.
   We have a choice. We can choose to focus on the positive each day, the grain. Or, we can focus on the negative things, the chaff. I don't know about you but I don't want to focus on something that won't produce anything. Grain gives life because it makes bread. Chaff will just bring death if that is all we focus on.
   So, do you focus too much on the negative? What can you do to stop focusing on the negative chaff? How can you focus on the good grain today?

   Philippians 4:8 and Proverbs 17:22

   Image from here.