21.07 | Sifted
Luke 22:1-38
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat”
Luke 22:31
A number of years ago I spoke at a conference in Denmark. I’d been a couple of times before, and had left in both instances with new friends and stories of growth and transformation.
And yet, this time, I arrived more vulnerable. The previous year had been spiritually difficult, with a significant grief giving way to a year of hard questions and spiritual struggle. My preparation had been interrupted and stilted, struggling to find a flow of thought. When I arrived, I realised that the group I was working with were in vastly different places in their faith—some needing input of fire and depth, while others needed spiritual accompaniment in journeys already deep into deconstruction.
It was challenging. I was underprepared. It didn’t go well. And I came home, feeling one big thing:
Failure.
It was brutal. It was public. It felt humiliating. I’d gone so hoping to do well and be impressive, and yet left feeling the heavy feelings of inadequacy.1
Jesus today is preparing His disciples for what is to come. He’s less than 24 hours away from the Cross, and the disciples are imminently going to abandon Him in the Garden of Gethsemane—switching swiftly from arguing about their greatness to fleeing like cowards into the dark.
There’s a phrase that Jesus uses to describe what’s about to happen.
Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat.
The word ‘you’ here is plural. Jesus goes on to instruct Peter more specifically in the coming verse, but this line is a description of what is going to happen to all of the disciples in the hours to come.
They will be sifted like wheat.
To be sifted was to be shaken violently—the enemy running their souls through his sieve to expose and bring out all those things that are fearful and fragile and proud. This sifting will be revealing—exposing what was still unrenewed in the hearts of these young men. They’re about to find out there’s far more chaff in their souls than they’d ever imagined.
Brutal. Humiliating. Failure.
And yet, this moment must have been extraordinary for those disciples. Church history tells us that every single one of them (except for John, who wound up in exile on Patmos) was later martyred for their faith. Every single one of them who ran away on this Thursday night became men of the most extraordinary courage. Every single one recovered from this moment of failure, to live lives of spectacular impact and deep faithfulness.
That conference in Denmark sifted me too. In those feelings of failure, things came to the surface. Parts of my heart that viewed ministry as performance or competence. Parts of my heart that were too focused on career and platform. Parts of my heart that were unresolved and unclear—vacillating between the uncertainties born out of grief and a rebuilt confidence in the person of my Lord. These things were sifted out of my soul. It was bruising, for sure, but it also exposed those things in such a way that the Lord could then begin to work on them.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Master Yoda put it this way: “The greatest teacher failure is.” He was onto something.
Are you living under the weight of a recent or historic failure? Take heart, friends; many have walked this way before us. There is a way out. There is a way on. Those things that were exposed in your soul in that moment are not beyond the ability of our God to heal, restore, and redeem.
Bring the chaff back to Him. Seek His strength. Let Him work on what has been exposed. For such humility—the honest recognition of ourselves in all our imperfection and stumbles—is the exact atmosphere upon which His healing presence may come to regenerate us into the courage of tomorrow.
Reflect:
Failure. What event comes to mind? What did it expose in you?
This is chaff. It is not who you are. Bring it to the Lord. Invite His healing, and invite His renewal.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
I’ve been there—
Running into the darkness,
Strong emotions and suffocating fear
Overwhelming my every desire for
The life of creativity, courage, and purity.
I know that shame;
I know that humiliation;
I know all those stories I’ve told myself in the wake of it all,
And the toxic whisperings of the enemy.
But Lord,
You restored those disciples;
You took their shame;
You blew away their chaff;
And you placed them again upon the paths of life.
And so,
I come back today.
I bring you my failure:
Restore me;
Lift my shame;
Blow away my chaff—
That my failure of yesterday
May give way to increasing fullness today.
In Your Name,
Jesus my Lord,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Jeremiah 7:1-8:17 | Psalm 89:9-18
Incidentally, I suspect those there wouldn’t have described it as disastrously as I have done. But most of us know that our own assessment of our performance can often be more punishing than others.