Not By Bread Alone. . .

The word tribulation comes from the old Latin word for a threshing sled, which is tribulum. Many of us who have never witnessed a grain threshing, little realize what a violent process threshing is. Even, today with all our technical advances, farmers are injured or killed by getting caught in a threshing machine. Because this turbulent beating and thrashing process separates the grain from the straw and chaff, the word tribulum evolved into our English word tribulation and came to be known as “a severe trial or catastrophic event.”

The thing that has interested me in this word is that while threshing involved beating and violence, it also yielded a necessary product—grain. There was something good that came out of that threshing process-something the word tribulation fails to recognize. Grain is a basic staff of life! Without grain there would be no bread and without bread, I’d hate to think where I’d be. I love bread—any kind.

The etymology of the word tribulation also makes me remember God’s words to Adam: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen 3:19). To me that means while in a mortal world it will be necessary to “sweat,” but if I endure the sweating wonderful things will come my way like hot bread right out of the oven.