Sifting Season

Driving through Central Illinois, my kids were amazed by everything they saw—cornfields, cows, tractors, farming. I'm from the city, so they would point at a tractor and ask me what it was doing, and I'd confidently tell them, “They're harvesting.” I think. I don't know much about agriculture, but fortunately for me, the Bible uses it a lot.

In Luke 22, Jesus uses an agricultural picture to describe a season every one of us will experience at some point in our lives. He tells Peter, “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.”

In biblical times, separating the valuable part of wheat from what was worthless wasn't necessarily a gentle process. There was striking, shaking, and separating involved. That's the picture Jesus gives Peter: Satan wants to sift you. He wants to beat the faith out of you.

If I'm Peter, I have one question: You told him no, right? But Jesus essentially responds, “I prayed for you.” That's not exactly the answer Peter was looking for.

Jesus understood something Peter didn't yet understand. There are seasons God allows us to walk through where what the enemy intends for destruction, God uses for development. There are moments when God uses the enemy's sifting to refine and strengthen us. There is purpose behind the pain.

We All Go Through Sifting Seasons

You are either in a sifting season, have been through one, or eventually will walk through one. There will be trials and circumstances that test your faith. There may even be moments when you wonder whether you can keep following Jesus at all. We don't get to avoid every difficult season.

James 1:2–4 tells us to “consider it pure joy” when we face trials because the testing of our faith produces perseverance. Then James says something incredibly important: “Let perseverance finish its work.” In other words, let it grow.

That's where I think we sometimes miss it. God allows resistance into our lives to develop something in us, and instead of allowing it to grow us, we spend all our energy trying to escape it. We avoid. We run from situations God may actually be leading us through.

Anyone who has ever worked out understands resistance. When you train a muscle, you're creating tiny tears in the muscle fibers, and there's soreness and discomfort involved. But it's in the rebuilding that strength develops. Sometimes we're avoiding the endurance, and by doing so, we're avoiding the strength training.

There's an old story I used to tell so often as a youth pastor of a man walking through a mountain pass when he discovers an enormous boulder blocking his path. He asks God, “Would You remove this boulder?” God tells him, “Push the boulder.” So he pushes with everything he has, but nothing happens.

He asks again, and God gives him the same answer: “Push the boulder.” Days become weeks, and weeks become months. Every day he pushes against the rock, but the thing doesn't move an inch. Then one day, lightning strikes the boulder and splits it in two.

The man walks through and asks God why He didn't simply do that months earlier. God tells him to look at his arms and legs and see the strength he has developed. The boulder wasn't simply an obstacle; it was the training ground for what was waiting on the other side. Sometimes we're asking God to remove something He's using to prepare us.

Sifting Develops Us

Jesus tells Peter that Satan wants to sift all the disciples, but then He says something specific: “I have prayed for you, Simon.” Why Peter? Because Peter was going to lead. Throughout Scripture, when God wants to accomplish something, He raises up a leader.

When the walls of Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt, God raised up Nehemiah. When His people needed deliverance, He raised up Esther. When the gospel needed to spread to the Gentiles, He raised up Paul.

But being called doesn't mean you're already prepared.

Sometimes the sifting is part of the preparation. Peter thought he was ready and confidently declared that he would never leave Jesus. Then the pressure came, Peter denied Jesus three times, and the sifting revealed something Peter needed to see about himself.

That's what resistance does. It's easy to say we're strong until strength is required. It's easy to say we're faithful until faithfulness costs us something. It's easy to say we'll obey God until He asks us to do something uncomfortable.

Sifting reveals what's actually there, but it also gives God an opportunity to develop what's missing. Peter went from being the man who denied knowing Jesus to the man who stood publicly on the Day of Pentecost and preached the gospel. He had been humbled, refined, and strengthened. God used the season to prepare Peter for what was on the other side of it.

Your Faith Can Falter Without Failing

There's another part of Jesus' words to Peter that I love: “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back…” Notice Jesus doesn't say if. He says when.

Jesus already knew Peter was going to stumble. He knew about the denial, He knew Peter would run, and He knew Peter would eventually go back to fishing. Yet Jesus still said, “When you come back.” Your faith can falter without ultimately failing.

You can stumble. You can have questions and go through a season where your faith feels weaker than it has ever felt before. But falling doesn't have to be the end of your story. Proverbs 24:16 says, “Though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again.”

The distinguishing characteristic isn't that righteous people never fall; it's that they get back up. And we don't do that by simply trying harder. We draw closer to Jesus.

Hebrews tells us that we don't have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. Jesus understands testing, temptation, and suffering, so when we're struggling, we're invited to approach God's throne of grace confidently. We can receive mercy and find grace when we need it most because we serve a God who understands what we're walking through.

Your Sifting Can Strengthen Someone Else

Jesus doesn't stop by telling Peter he'll make it through. He tells him what to do afterward: “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Your sifting isn't only about you. There are things God will bring you through that will eventually allow you to sit beside someone walking through the same thing and say, I understand.

2 Corinthians 1 says that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we've received from Him. I've watched this happen firsthand. A young couple in our church experienced something unimaginable when their newborn daughter passed away.

I sat with them in the hospital, we cried together, and our church surrounded them. Instead of running away from God, they pressed closer to Him. It didn't make their loss hurt less or replace what they had lost, but God sustained them through an incredibly painful season.

Later, another couple experienced the loss of a newborn. We prayed, loved them, and did everything we knew to do as a church, but I also called that first couple and said, “I need you to reach out to them.” They could offer something I couldn't.

I could pastor them, pray with them, and sit beside them, but I had never lost a child. This couple could look at them and say, We've walked this road. Suddenly, their season of sifting became someone else's roadmap toward healing.

Eventually, if you stay around church long enough, you're going to meet an old version of yourself. You're going to meet someone struggling with something you've walked through—someone with your old questions, your old pain, your old mistakes, or your old fears. And you may suddenly realize, This is why God brought me through it.

What once made you cry may become the very thing God uses to bring life to somebody else. What you went through wasn't for nothing. God can redeem even the most painful parts of our stories and use them to strengthen someone else.

When You Get Back Up

I love the story of David and Goliath. David walks toward Goliath with a sling and some stones, but he makes this bold declaration that he's going to cut Goliath's head off. There's only one problem: David doesn't have a sword. But Goliath does.

David knocks Goliath down, runs toward him, grabs Goliath's own sword, and uses the enemy's weapon against him. I think there's a picture in there for us. There may come a moment when your sifting season ends and God puts someone in your path who is walking through the very thing you survived.

In that moment, God can put in your hands the very thing the enemy thought would destroy you and use it to bring freedom to somebody else. You thought my marriage struggle was going to destroy me? God can use it to strengthen another marriage. You thought my past was going to disqualify me? God can use it to give somebody else hope.

You thought the sifting would knock the faith out of me? God used it to make my faith stronger. You thought you were burying me? You forgot I'm a seed. You were only planting me.

That's Peter's story. Peter failed, denied Jesus three times, and went back to fishing—the life he knew before Jesus called him. But Jesus didn't leave him there. John 21 tells us that Jesus meets Peter on the shore, and I love this detail: Jesus cooks him breakfast.

Peter failed Jesus, and Jesus invites him to a meal. Then Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love Me?” Three times Peter denied Jesus, and three times Jesus asks him that question. Each time, Jesus gives Peter another assignment: feed My lambs, take care of My sheep, feed My sheep.

Jesus wasn't finished with Peter. Failure didn't erase his calling, and the sifting didn't disqualify him. Jesus restored him and sent him back to do what he had been called to do.

Maybe that's the question at the end of a sifting season.

Not, Did I do everything perfectly? Did I ever stumble? Did I have doubts? Did I fall? The question is, Do I still love Jesus?

Do I love Him enough to listen? Do I love Him enough to obey? Do I love Him enough to get back up and become who He's called me to be?

Sifting seasons will come, and they may shake, expose, and hurt us. But they don't have to destroy us.

Let God strengthen you through them, and when you get back up, turn around. Somebody else is going to need the strength God developed in you.