Are We Being Sifted?

I’ve never owned a flour sifter, but I remember cooking with my mom and her letting me turn the crank that flipped the flour through wire filters. While historically sifters were used to remove impurities, today they are used more to aerate the flour, breaking up clumps and evenly blending in other dry ingredients like cocoa, salt, or baking soda.

The sifting of wheat isn’t a gentle process like sifting flour. If you’ve ever watched a combine or a wheat thresher, they tear apart the wheat stalks in a violent process to separate the grain from the chaff, or the valuable part from the worthless.

Are we being sifted?

Turn on the news, and there’s another act of violence. We can no longer sit back and be comfortable Christians while light and darkness get exposed. I see sermons regarding the end times, and although no one but God knows when we’re drawing close, the chaos feels like the devil’s doing a test run.

Charles Spurgeon, a predominant Victorian Preacher, said, “Consider how precious a soul must be when both God and the devil are after it.”

Jesus told his disciples a parable about a farmer who planted wheat in his fields. While everyone was sleeping, his adversary came and sowed weeds among the good seeds. His servants asked if they should go and pull up the weeds, but the farmer told them no, that they might uproot the good seed. He allowed the good seed and the weeds to grow together until a time of harvest, where the bad seed is thrown into the fire and the good seed is brought under the protection of the barn. (Matthew 13:24-30)

It's not hard to tell that we are living among evil, but as time progresses and we draw closer to the harvest, the weeds start to become more distinguishable from the wheat. God allowed the righteous and the wicked to grow together and endure evil because He didn’t want to lose any of us in the threshing. However, a time is coming when God will bring justice in His perfect timing. In the meantime, we are called to grow in faith and righteousness.

Even good Christians undergo sifting. Jesus said to Simon in Luke 22:31-32, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Peter was being tested. The rooster crowed three times, and Peter had done what he claimed he’d never do. He denied Jesus three times. However, Peter’s testing strengthened his faith for future works—building God’s church—or as Jesus said, “strengthen your brothers.”

There will be refining and sifting in our lives because God and the devil are after our souls, but Jesus intervenes with prayers on our behalf, as He did for Peter. And Jesus hasn’t left us defenseless. He gave us the Holy Spirit to guide us when the weeds try to choke us out, to encourage us to remain in the light, and to prepare us for the victory of the harvest.