Luke 22:31-32 And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
Peter was one of the strongest men ever recorded in the Bible. He was a tough, weather tested fisherman who made his living by toiling over the sea. When he met Jesus he was used to gaining in this world by pushing against it by brute force. When Jesus told the disciples that He must go up to Jerusalem and there He would suffer and die, Peter told Him, “not so Lord”.
Jesus really loved Peter. He could see the man that Peter was going to be, that is why the Lord changed his name from Simon, son of Jonah, to Peter.
Simon means “Sinking Sand”. Peter means “A Little Rock”. Jesus was going to transform Simon, the sinking sand, into Peter the rock. How would the Lord accomplish this? By allowing Peter to be sifted by like wheat.
Before wheat can be eaten, it has a hard nut-like shell that must either be softened or broken. Inside is the useful part, outside is the difficult and hard to use shell. Peter was like a grain of wheat. He was hard, difficult to deal with, and not very useful to the Lord. In order for Peter to be the man that Jesus knew that he could be, he had to be softened and broken.
The Lord allowed satan to have limited access to Peter’s life. After Peter’s confession that he was ready to die for Jesus, the Lord told Peter that satan had asked for him.
I think that if Jesus told me that satan had asked for me, I would have quickly told Him; “Don’t let him have me Lord”. Jesus knew that the only way that Simon was ever going to go from “Sinking Sand” to Peter “the rock”, was by coming into close contact with the reality of who he really was.
When they arrested Jesus late at night in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter backed away from the Lord and stayed at a distance from Him. When he was questioned as to whether he had been with Jesus by a servant girl, Peter collapsed under the pressure and denied that he even knew Jesus, three times. As the morning dawned and the sound of a rooster could be heard, Peter remembered that Jesus had told him that he was not going to be strong enough to die for Jesus, in fact he was going to deny that he even knew Jesus at all.
Coming face to face with the reality of just how weak and fallible Peter really was, sifted him like wheat. The hard outer shell was broken away and the useful and good inner spiritual man was released. If Peter had never gone through this heart wrenching episode with Jesus, he never would have been a useful vessel for the Lord.
On one of several trans Pacific flights that I have taken from Los Angeles to Manila in the Philippines, the flight departs LA at about 9 p.m. for a 15-hour flight that places me in the islands two days later. I enjoy taking the flight that utilizes the Boeing 747 aircraft. When you first see this behemoth of an airliner, it seems as if it would never get off the ground. The massive wide body of this aircraft with its four massive jet engines lumbers down the runway on take off seeming as if it is attempting the impossible.
As the massive plane rolls down the tarmac, the pressure on the front of the plane and the wings increases as the speed increases. It is pressing against the difficulty that eventually lifts the plane up and propells it into the athmosphere. If it were not for the pressure and the difficulty, the plane would never be able to lift itself up and fly 8,000 miles across the Pacific.
As you make your walk with Jesus today, think about the pressures and trials of your life that seem as if they are going to overcome you. Difficulties make us feel as if we are never going to achieve the dreams and goals that our heart has treasured for years. As we press against the difficulties and continue on in our efforts by prayer and persistence, we are lifted up and begin to soar.
Whatever we push against, lifts us up.
If we continue to trust in and follow Jesus as we press on through our trials, the only thing that will be lost is the hard outer shell that is useless to the Lord. What emerges from our trials is a more humble, teachable, patient and persistent person than existed before the trial began.
Rob Robinson
