Threshing Floors

18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up, as the LORD had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
 21 Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
“To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped.”
 22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 Your Majesty, Araunah[d] gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the LORD your God accept you.”
24 But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels[e] of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the LORD answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.

Threshing is the process where grain that is in its raw form, covered with unusable chaff and impurities, is thrown down and violently beaten on, causing the separation of the usable wheat from the chaff. Interestingly, the threshing floor that the Lord told Gad to tell King David to build an alter is where the Temple Mount is today, the site of the First and Second Temples - where the Dome of the Rock mosque now sits. This is the center of the center of the world, the most hotly contested piece of real estate on Earth. A threshing floor, another signpost the Lord has placed before our eyes. Threshing is also a process that our Potter employs when there are things in our lives-varieties of idols and sins-that are stubbornly clinging to us, keeping us from being used. One of God's highest desires is for us to be available for His purposes, and He will spare no effort to get our attention!