The Valley of Sifting
Sifting is always associated with a cleansing loss. It is a process ensuring that the end product is purer than the original one.
When life drops into the winding and dark valleys, when loss sears the soul and pain tears the heart or body - as with Jacob, Lot and Job, a soul is being sifted.
The Christian life is both walked and waged upon earth. But, the battles are set in the heavenlies.
For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)
And the Lord said:
It is in the valleys that unrighteousness confronts the righteous, but to cast the eyes rearwards crumbles any future. (see Genesis 19)
Life's valleys for the righteous are satan's choice places of sifting, they are a spiritual no man’s land – the territory of vulnerability and therefore openness to assault, because their righteous intentions are noted in the heavenlies, clear to all who would see.
But sifting is, in My intentions, the movement across lands, the taking of new territory, the marching from your territory to Mine. You will be shot at.
Sifting is the painful loss of what you have built, now own. Resist satan and he will flee. Erect substantial prayer to withstand the assault.
Establish a prayer base for protection of your past, a covering of today and a securing for tomorrow.
Satan seeks to steal your tomorrow by sifting you today. The attacks will ebb and flow as a tide. There will be times of great intensity and desperate ones of pain. But, these will be for a finite time.
The times of darkness are always replaced with a Sonrise.
When you see ‘loss’, when your heart cries ‘woe is me’, when you kneel in the darkness of the soul – recall these words, they are My glue for your tomorrow. For I Am still with you.
This is the refining of your faith; it is so much more precious than the largest vault of the finest gold.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; your rod and your staff, the comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)
Today's Soul Snippet:
'Never invite trouble - it always accepts'. ~ anon