When all I have left . . . is exactly what He wants

Everyone has dry times, desert seasons, dark hours, pit dwellings. Days, weeks, even months or years when everywhere we turn it seems the enemy somehow gets the upper hand. And I'm reminded that Jesus didn't say He'd spare Peter from the sifting, rather that He'd ask the Father to keep Peter's faith intact. And for those who've been sifted, what knowledge of deep and painful beating. Peter's hole lasted a few days that time, though he'd face several more during the course of his ministry and faith adventures on earth.

Sifting wheat consists of threshing (beating it to loosen the grain from the chaff), and winnowing (tossing it up and catching it up in a grate in order to break off the chaff) so as to refine the grain. Over and over. Broken and broken apart again. Tossed about in seeming confusion. Until all that is left - is only what is wanted.

And no doubt, I've been sifted before. Tried, refined, tested, and changed by difficulty and persecution. Recently I've been deeper, darker, emptier than I can remember, though. And like Peter I haven't been spared. Perhaps I should have seen it as privilege to share in his suffering, and in His. But I didn't.

I threw tantrums like a two-year-old, sat as Job and threw ashes over my head and scraped the oozing sores of my heart with broken pots. Withdrew and pouted and cried and hid alone, whenever I could get alone. I held even close friends at arm's length and trembled at what they might see to look at the pitiful mess I'd made of myself in the middle of Satan's attack. I did not stand firm under the beatings of sifting. I was broken.

I've been confused and fearful, angry and bitter. I needed help, and had to stop pretending I could claw out of the pit on my own, or somehow crawl out of the desert without a rescue team. I needed light, and He came. Sent some friends I could trust, some soldiers to fight when I couldn't any more. And I'm still healing from the battle. It just hurts. And then it hurts some more.

When I look at what is left of me in the ash heap I ask, What is there? . . . Lord, what do You see? A question He reflects back to me. Isn't it like our Teacher to answer with a question?

Two things remain: gratitude for His saving Grace to be enough strength when I did not have it in me to take the beatings another day, and refreshed surrender to humility. It's not much to look at, not the confident beauty I once saw. Quite meager when we get down to it. I shrugged my shoulders and asked if He still wanted what was left. What was left of me after Satan had finished taking his hatred out on my heart (if he ever does really finish . . .) .

And this is how He answered in the quiet breaking of the dawn the other day:

"Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High . . . The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 50:14, 51:17 (ESV)

So, I see that in the pile of faith-filled Peter-wheat, ready as pure and pleasing first-fruit - my thankfulness and brokenness were exactly what He had been longing for all along. All I had left once the dark desert was passed . . . it was counted as precious to the only One who ever mattered, who ever really knew what all that beating and tossing would produce:

It's me, only more so.

And if you're there now too - may I offer to pray for you? If you're facing a pit too deep to see light, a desert too parched to find relief, a beating too painful to endure, would you leave me your name? I'd love the privilege Christ took and gave - prayer to the Father that your faith will endure. He is closer than you can feel, and knows that when you have only gratitude and brokenness to offer, they are the most precious offerings He could desire.