God Always Sifts His Flour
Once in awhile my desire for dessert overpowers my desire to eat healthy
and take off a few pounds. Equal to my love for eating is my love of
cooking.
In an attempt to avoid television that doesn’t represent my values, I
watch a lot of cooking shows. My favorite is
Chopped,
in which contestants are given a basket of unrelated ingredients and
have 30 minutes to produce something edible.
I’ve watched so many re-runs that I now believe almost any combination
of foods can potentially be transformed into an appetizer, entrée, or
dessert. If a Chopped
contestant can combine kale, a goose egg, M & M candies, and sweet
pepper sauce, why can’t I? (Okay, minus the kale.)
Winning or losing a cooking game show often has
little to do with the ingredients. Technique is what matters. Ice cream
must be whipped until absolutely smooth before going into the blast
chiller. Diligently wash the greens; judges chop people whose food is
gritty. And never, ever skip sifting the flour. A dense cake never wins
the $10,000 prize.
Until now I thought sifting was an unnecessary step. It burns time off
the clock—whether in the Chopped
kitchen or my own. However, real chefs know the importance of sifting.
So does Satan.
In Luke 22:31-32 Jesus says to the apostle Peter, "Simon, Simon, Satan
has asked to sift 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."
Whether making a late-night cake to share with
Husband, or building a Christ-honoring life to share with others, I
usually want to skip the sifting step. I want to be spared the tedious
and often painful experience of having my lumps smoothed out and my
character made soft and light. For good reason-- being sifted always
leaves a scar.
Notice how Jesus explains this. He tells Peter that
Satan has asked to sift the disciple. Reminiscent of Job, the enemy
requested and was given permission to test Peter. Jesus doesn’t say the
request was denied. He says only that He prayed for Peter’s faith not to
fail. In other words, Jesus holds the disciple together, but He doesn’t
stop the testing.
That same imagery appears in the writing of Amos. God
declared, “I have commanded that Israel be persecuted by the other
nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not one true kernel will be
lost.” (Amos 9:9)
Like the nation Israel, it’s
only after the sifting and restoration that Peter can come out of hiding
and strengthen his brothers. That’s the technique that is necessary for
the ingredients in the basket to be transformed into a perfect dessert.
Peter gets sifted (through his denial of Jesus), but because his faith
was then stronger, not destroyed, he was able to restore others.
Sifting hurts. Israel was shaken nearly to the death
by the turbulence of captivity while God separated the good from the
bad. Amos prophesied that every pebble, every faithful one of the
righteous remnant of Israel would-- by God’s grace-- be kept from
falling to the ground and perishing.
We’d all prefer that God just snap His fingers and
make us the man or woman He desires us to be. We do everything possible
to avoid being sifted. But if He did, we would miss the blessing that
comes from our faith being strengthened, even if it is painful at the
time.
I think God uses our scars to strengthen the faith of
those He sends to us after the sifting stops.
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