The Sifting

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In Sunday’s sermon, Pastor Anne Marie Martin of Greater Malabar Christian Centre, COGIC in Trinidad, said these words to the congregation, “Satan’s desire is to sift us.” She spoke about the act of sifting and described how the sieve is shaken back and forth. Picture yourself as flour inside that sieve, being shaken by Life’s challenging circumstances. That’s how it feels sometimes, doesn’t it?

Her words brought Genesis 50:20 to mind, where Joseph tells his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Don’t be afraid of being sifted. The sifting can work in your favor. God can use it to save you, and through your experience you can save others. Think of it this way. Your Life is a Loaf of Bread that will feed others in some way, and very experience you have is an ingredient or process in the the making of that Loaf.

I found a definition of sifting that described it as the separation and retention of the coarse parts of flour. Isn’t that what happens when Life shakes us? The coarse parts get separated. The fine parts fall through into the bowl, and that’s what we want. I noticed in my own experience that my pizza dough has a lighter texture when I sift it and is denser and heavier when I don’t. It’s an extra step, but it’s worth it.

Sometimes when Life’s sifting reveals our coarse parts we forget all about the “flour”. We forget about the baking that’s supposed to happen after the sifting. Who sets out to bake bread, sifts the flour and then becomes fixated on the coarse chunks the sifting revealed? Nobody. We chuck that in the trash and keep it moving - because the point of sifting is to separate those chunks so they can be thrown away. When Life sifts you, throw away the coarse chunks and keep what is useful. Instead of keeping the bad attitudes, the unproductive habits, the limiting beliefs, and whatever else the sieve reveals, trash them. Challenging situations can bring out the worst in us if we aren’t careful. If we recognize those characteristics as unwanted coarse chunks, we can remove them from our Lives with God’s help. If your Life is that Loaf God set out to bake, you miss the usefulness of the sifting process when you allow yourself to focus on ingredients you don’t need in the recipe for your Life.

This is why we need to be secure in God. He can center us during the sifting so we focus on what we are to become, not the shaking. I used to take dance lessons and one of the first things we were taught was how to focus on a particular spot during turns, in order to prevent dizziness. The sifting process is a dizzying experience, and it’s easy to lose focus. When your focus is on God, you can endure the sifting. The Bible encourages us to be patient in trials. Stay with me on the baking analogy - even if the devil is holding the sieve, God is with you in the flour. The sifting doesn’t stop the loaf from being made. In fact, it’s just the beginning…