Sifting

I started making pies recently. My mom is an incredible cook; Betty Crocker meets dietitian. Yummy and good for you. I kid you not – my mother may be an angel. That’s how good she is at cooking (and other things.) Anyway. While most of her stuff was healthy… My mom makes a mean apple pie. It’s not too saucy and just sweet enough. The crust is flaky and slightly salty. It’s ridiculous, this pie. I decided two Thanksgivings ago I wanted to follow in her footsteps, and that holiday set about making a pie: crust and all.

For those of you who have never made a pie crust, first of all, good for you. You are smart for avoiding it. It is tedious and frustrating. Truly. You start by sifting mountains of flour, combining miniscule amounts of baking ingredients in precise fashion. Then, you mush it all into a ball and then roll it out. If you touch the crust too much it falls apart. If you use too much flour it falls apart. If you use too much water it gets sticky, coagulates… and… falls apart. If you look at it wrong… you get the picture.

One crazy step (or at least for the pie-crust-challenged) is sifting the flour. The first time I did it I did it with a wire colander and spoon. To which you should say to me, “idiot.” Because I was. It took like 9 hours or something to sift the flour.

My girlfriend, hearing of my idiotic strife bought me a sifter as a present to help me in my plight, er, pie… but it was still difficult. I sat for a while crunching the handle on my sifter until all the flour was through.

In the end – it worked well. I had light, fluffy, pie-making flour.

But wow. What a process. The outcome is awesome… but seriously.

WHAT a process.

Sifting, with or without the proper tools is a long process. It’s tedious. And half way through you have to remind yourself that the end-goal is worth it. That pie’s gonna be a ‘beaut.

The end will be worth it. And you hammer through.

I read this today: “Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.”

I’m sorry, what? Satan asked to sift me?

“But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” – Luke 22: 31-32

I would bet if you are reading this right now, you are experiencing a type of friction in your life. A trial of some kind that has been long and difficult. A bummer of a job. A frustrating financial scenario. A tumultuous relationship. A co-worker at your job that hassles and harasses you. Endless job interviews with painful rejection letters. A distant teenager. A mother-in-law who is uncaring. A dream that ended. A dream that never birthed at all.

I would say, based on the verse we just read and based on experience, that you are not just experiencing an ambiguous hard time. You are experiencing a sifting.

Only the goal isn’t fluffy flour.

The goal is a tender, beautiful, surrendered heart.

In the middle of these times, it feels ambiguous and endless… and my goodness discouraging. You clench your teeth as you go to greet the co-worker, you say a quick prayer before talking to the teen, you take a deep breath before opening the email from the potential job. You read verses to keep positive, set your eyes on things above, remind yourself of God’s promises. But sometimes, your heart is just getting a beat down. Or so it seems.

Maybe it’s not being beaten. Maybe it’s being sifted.

Here, in the middle of the book of Luke, Jesus is comforting us, and giving us a secret to be held close. Hard times aren’t really hard times at all, but preparation. While Satan has come to “sift” us, perhaps with poor intent, Jesus has promised us the end game: a sifted heart, a comforted heart, and a ministry to match.

The discouragement we feel is met by prayers from our sweet Jesus. The ambiguity is met by His purposes. The frustration is met by a promise: I see it. I allowed it. I’m praying for you…

And you’ll come out stronger for it.

Our hearts, while probably mostly we just feel pain, are undergoing deep surgery. God is refining, realigning and bringing renewal. The goal of sifting is to create a different, softer, more intricate and useful thing in the end. Beautiful, soft and light and built with a purpose. That’s how our hearts turn out in the end.

May you trust in the Lord who is aware of your circumstance right now. May you trust in Him who allowed it. May you trust Him to refine you. To make you new. To make you different. And may you later return to your brothers and sisters to strengthen them with your new, brilliant heart.