Chaff in the Popcorn

But not the wicked, they are like chaff which the wind drives
  away.  Psalm 1:4

One of the fond memories I have of growing up in Hoyt was the huge garden we planted every spring. My Dad always had (and still has) one of the most beautiful gardens in town.  One of the things I enjoyed most from our garden was the popcorn.  Dad had an old flywheel corn sheller we used to take the popcorn off the cob.  After we finished that job, he would set a window fan on a stool and slowly pour the popcorn from one bucket to another in front of the fan to blow out the chaff. When I came across this Psalm not long ago, I couldn’t help but remember those days on the back patio watching the white chaff blow into the green grass making it look like a December snow.

Everyone in our house loved popcorn so helping with the planting and harvesting was no big chore because we knew how much we’d enjoy the fruits of our labor! When helping dad blow away the chaff, my job was to hold the bottom bucket still so it didn’t spill.  As I knelt there on the patio carefully doing my assigned task, I remember asking why we had to blow that stuff out.  I wondered why we had to go to all that fuss if the stuff didn’t have any flavor or didn’t cause any harm…seemed like extra work to me! 
Dad tolerated my chatter and my dozens of questions patiently but when I
was persistent about the chaff he had to come up with something to shut me
up! I still remember what he said. His reply was simple enough to make sense to a child and practical enough to stick to my mind like glue for
decades.  He said, “Chaff is useless; it has no purpose and no reason to be in the popcorn.  If we don’t blow it away, it clumps up in the popper and prevents the popcorn from popping right.  It may seem little and light and harmless but we have to get it out of the popcorn or it ruins everything.”  

How many things that distract and discourage us could be considered chaff?  How many things do we fuss and worry over that really have no purpose other than to clump up our hearts?  I’m guessing we could all use a good driving wind to whip through our life and drive away the chaff.   Maybe we have someone we need to forgive; maybe we have an apology that needs to be made or perhaps one or two of us have some people we need to make things right with.   Maybe our chaff comes from bad habits that are unhealthy or contrary to God’s plan for us.  Our chaff might even come from selfishness that could be standing between us and a great blessing from our Loving Father. I suppose to stretch the wisdom of my dad, chaff is anything that fills our thoughts and hearts that is useless and has no purpose in helping us love the Father who created us.  Now that the warmer spring breezes are beginning to blow, maybe we should all go outside and stand in the wind and ask God to drive out our chaff and get rid of the clumps that are ruining our relationship with Him.
 
A Seed To Plant:  Make a list of the “chaff” in your life.  It could be behaviors or attitudes or feelings then take the list to the Lord and stand in His driving wind to become pure and clean!

 Blessings on your day!