The word tribulation comes from the Latin word tribulum which was an ancient tool that was dragged over harvested grains to separate the seeds from the chaff. Seen from the perspective of the plant, the violent mangling it receives from the tribulum is certainly traumatic enough to qualify as a “tribulation.” But from the perspective of the farmer, the plant has fulfilled its purpose. The stalks, the stems, the leaves - all of these were absolutely essential while the seeds were developing, but when the grains became ready to harvest, the rest of the plant no longer had a use. In fact, everything except the seeds themselves is just dead weight. That's why so much effort has to go in threshing the plants to separate the valuable seeds from all of the other now useless parts of the plant. When we go through tribulations, the Lord is trying to help us separate the valuable seeds from all of the parts of ourselves that, while originally absolutely essential for our development, now no longer serve a purpose but are only holding us back. This can be a very hard process. While we were growing all of these grain-bearing plants, it is only natural that we would come to identify with them and to feel and damage inflicted upon them as damage to us. But we are not the plant. We're not even the seed. We're the field, and if we want to bring forth seeds in abundance, then we have to let the Lord of the Harvest get on with His work. We have to lose ourselves - the parts of us that went into making those plants - so that the tribulation process can effectively separate out the seeds and clear the fields and the Lord can plant in us a new crop of seeds of faith to be cultivated once more. It is hard to let go of even one part of ourselves, but if we really want to bring forth a hundred fold, then we have to go through tribulation after tribulation and ruthlessly cast out the chaff again and again until only the seeds remain. If we will just trust this process, the Lord can make out of us not just a single plant or even a whole field of plants, but crop after crop after crop.
