Sifted Like Wheat

Using this smartphone limits my ability to post properly or exhaustively for the time being, yet I find the topics of spiritual purging, testing and chastisement so compelling and intriguing that it would be a waste to not offer and invite comments periodically, while editing when getting access to the PC.

For the last three years I have undergone significant testing and reforming while all the time maintaining enough detachment and intrigue to analyse the process and find complementary and relative lessons in Scripture to help me understand and get through.

I hate the misery of chastisement while honestly appreciating this means of strengthening and growth.

At any rate, a unique phenomenon I've experienced first hand is the subtle way that doubtful suggestions will arise at the most opportune moments, when things appear most desperate or hopeless.

I hope to fill this topic with all appropriate scriptural citations and observations and invite the same - such an interesting and vital subject.

Will certainly get back.

 

I underwent an entire year of that in 1996/97, a few short years after I came to Christ. I fully submitted in February 1996, and all hell (literally) pretty much broke loose shortly after that. Fast forward to a year later, and my life was totally changed, as was I. It was a systematic breakdown of all my crutches and dependencies. Anything and everything got shaken, as God dismantled me to the core.

At the beginning of that process, I was in Delaware, married, with my ex-husband and daughter, my church family and a modest but stable life (that I knew of ... obviously God knew different).

A year later, I was in Florida, in a homeless shelter for pregnant women with a few personal belongings and nothing else to my name except Jesus and a few kind souls who had managed to not turn their backs.

Moral of the story: You can't honestly say that Jesus is all you need until He is actually all you have.

That was easily the most painful year of my life. It also was easily the most glorious year of my life, because God was so very near during every single moment of it.

That was the year I got rooted and grounded in God Himself. He has been busy rebuilding me since that time.

The faith I obtained that year has been carrying me ever since. Can't say I enjoyed that time, but I'm thankful for it because it was necessary. I wouldn't trade it for anything as it's made me who and what I am today and was the foundation for everything God has been doing since then. I learned the true value and power of repentance and of the ways of the human ego and of God's persistence upon His own ways which are always greater than ours, and redemptive and good and true and based on His priorities, not ours.

I understand despair and hopelessness. I also understand God's priorities a bit better, I think. I've been very busy seeking to understand anything I can and get as much insight as I can, because at one point in the thick of it all, I told God He wasn't making any sense, to which He replied "It's not that I don't make sense; it's that you lack understanding." God always makes perfect sense. It's us who lack understanding, every time.

John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is supreme--so get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding.

Anyway just my 2 cents. Looking forward to y'all's insight also.

 

Tremendous Dani!

Thanks.

 

I think we're all "works in progress." Nobody is better or worse than other believers. To think otherwise is spiritual arrogance and pride...

 

Highly apropos, Aaron and Cloudwalker.

Guess it only figures that I am fighting traffic today but will be here, Lord willing 8)

 

Starting to enjoy this tablet.

"To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 1Cor 5:5

Certainly sin and rebellion are not the only reasons for purging or even chastising, but the Apostle seems to refer to a principle well understood by the Corinthians: Satan, the restless antagonist, is often the agent God uses.

More On this as able.

 

And, before moving on, another principle becomes evident: no man's faith is completely sustainable, outside of Christ's intercession, when Satan is unleashed toward him.

"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Lk.22:31,32

 

I think the initial stages of my purging began with the certain loss of everything I have held dear, and which had been the identity of my life for over three decades.

This precipitated a lengthy stretch of time where It seems the entirety of my life
was slowly played back to me as I was compelled to re-live every regrettable action, every state of mind and every circumstance since a toddler.

The barrage of sternly critical, accusational revues was relentless and inescapable for what seemed like an eternity, while spiritual comfort and peace of mind were all but elusive.

And my future became uncertain, foreboding.

The persistent, powerful and dark suggestion was that judgment had come early and that I was as good as cast-off.

Acute, frightening and depressing notions swarmed both my waking and sleeping hours.

But, while admitting to my culpability at every sorry turn of this long life and sincerely regretting what I had been, even as an adult, my awareness of the grip of God on my life was not weakened, but was, in fact reinforced.

"Every banch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Jn 15:2

 

And, God, being an adept multi-tasker, no-doubt, it doesn't seem likely that He would perform a remodeling for the sake of only one purpose.

With that in mind, I was pleased to discover that certain habitual things which had crept into my life, and which I had been struggling with, are now gone and actually forgotten - what a relief! The total distraction of this spiritual wrestling had effectively delivered me while I wasn't looking.

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Phil 1:6

 

So, while suffering a bit of a thyroid imbalance, which increases tension etc, it would seem plausible to attribute my experiences to a health malady, which might be partly true, but the fact is that these things play only a tiny role in this trial.

"My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off." Ps 38:11

While not trying to be overly analytical, I can safely say that the battle has raged in three distinct areas: outward circumstances, personal relationships and the emotional or mental realm.

Longtime and reputably Christian friends abrubtly turning cold for no apparent reason, combined with the complete dissolving of a life built upon for years, effectively shuts the doors to any and all earthly solice.

Peace can only come when the Lord gives it, so one is compelled to wait, watch and pray.

"I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope." Ps 130:5

 

I agree, but I believe Satan is an ignorant agent. In other words, he's not willingly or knowingly serving God's purpose. Satan just does what Satan does because that's who he has allowed himself to become. Any good that comes out of Satan's attacks on people are NOT his intention. He has nothing but ill intentions towards humans. It's not like Satan causes us problems while secretly rooting for us and hoping we become all the better for it...

 

Of that, there is no doubt

 

It appears so much modern, "Post-Truth" Christian rhetoric is based upon what folks want to hear, it is not surprising that the essential art of spiritual warfare is often grossly misunderstood while in many circles it is taken so far out of biblical context that it resembles something more akin to New Agey transcendence than true spiritual transformation.

(To observe the never-ending stream of Christian - based sloganism and platitudinous memes submitted by my family on FB is to shake one's head in wonder).

"Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom." Ps 51:6

"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Heb 12:6

"For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." Pro 3:12

 

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" Ps 22:1

In, no doubt, one of the most significant phrases of history, David the Psalmist intimately foretells the agony of the cross, while expressing his own confusion and heartache at the apex of a titanic struggle. Called to be king of Israel, his life is nevertheless on the line under heavy-handed persecution from Saul.

David typifies not only the glory of the coming King of Peace, but the essential sufferings of Messiah as well.

And in the extreme throes of suffering, David is led to question the truth of God's promise - a promise that was fulfilled in all glorious aspects.

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" 1Pt 1:7

So, contrary to much popular rhetoric, the Christian life was never all about sweet blessings in this short, temporal realm, though we are not all called to be Davids or Jobs.

"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:" 1 Pt 4:12

"Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." 1Pt 4:19

 

This is so critically true.

On this topic in particular, some of my greatest church memories involve the learning of these powerful and essential guidelines and principles.