[Opie]

I was thinking today as we were driving down the road about God's beauty...I just looked out the window and saw all the scenery and all the things that passed by and wondered what God sees in us...It was made apparent to me that I tend to be a depressing person...I tend to be sinful and stupid...You wonder why anyone...especially the God of heaven and earth would spend time to create this amazing earth for people as miserable and annoying as we are...I heard a quote somewhere from someone that said "Most Americans never take the time to talk to God unless we're asking for forgiveness or some other thing that we happen to need at the moment..." In 1st or 2nd Samuel(one of the two) David takes a survey over all of his lands to see the extent of the army "he" had raised up...so God, enraged, struck out and killed tons of David's army...and his citizens...So when David realized the travesty he had committed He repented and it was half hearted...and God killed more...So when God saw he was truly sorry He sent David out to a Threshing Floor...A threshing floor was an area that was used to seperate the wheat from the husks...Cows and animals would trample the wheat until it was seperated and the wind would blow all the of the undesirable things away...Well God used this as a metaphor...He wanted David to go there and get on his face and have all of those things that were in his carnal nature "trampled" out of him...And he did it and got a sweet repentance and a purging of the sins that had one time bound him...God said...David I am so sick of your man made spledor...turn it back over to me...show me that you love ME...When you do I'll give you those things back in return but it will have been me that gave them to you and me that gets the glory...

God wants the same thing for us...to go to that threshing floor and get all of those horrible things trampled out of our lives...I think it's such an awesome story...The threshing floor is a wonderful metaphor for the altar of sacrafice...For the purging fire that gets rid of all of the imperfections...I've learned to never go to the altar unless I find the threshing floor...To get purged and to learn the things that I need from God and then to just spend time talking to Him and spend time listening to Him...because thats a large part of prayer is the response from God...Don't you hate one sided conversations where you just get your ear talked off? Well I wonder how many times God is so sick of us talking His ear off and never listening to what He has to say...With that said...Find the Threshing Floor...A deeper commitment to God than you've ever had will ensue and He will rock your world!