“Think About It”

“Sift You Like Wheat.” What does that phrase mean? The phrase comes from the Gospel of Luke 22:31, as noted below:

³¹ “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, ³² but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” ³³ Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” ³⁴ Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

Peter, like many of us, believed he could withstand the sifting. In fact, he even boasted that he would never deny Christ and would even die with him. Sadly, as many already know, Peter found out what he was really made of. His strength wasn’t there. What he thought he would never do, he did. Like many of us, we’ve done things we never thought we were capable of. 

No one wants to be sifted, but in some ways it’s a good thing. It’s good because we all need to know what we’re really made of and what we’re capable of. Things we said we’d never do or say are sometimes proven false. Much like any test, it shows us what we don’t know. Many of us have found that we’ve made choices we thought we’d never make, compromises we thought we were incapable of. Yet we’ve done them anyway. Some walk away from these events having learned and taken steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Some didn’t learn anything. 

Note in the passage quoted above that Jesus told Peter to strengthen his brothers when he turned back. In other words, after you pick yourself up from what you thought you’d never do, use that experience to help others who may have gone through the same thing or are now going through their own sifting. Perhaps you’re going through or have gone through your own sifting and need to take that experience to help someone else. Think about it.