Sifting the Lumps

You may not remember such a thing as a flour sifter. I do. In fact, I still have one or two. A few years ago, flour from the store did not come all smooth and ready to mix with a cake or pie or biscuits. It contained lumps. I don’t know why, but it did. A sieve was important for straining out what did not belong. In fact, if I was baking a cake, sometimes I sifted the flour more than once.

Believe it or not, I don’t really want to talk about flour, I want to talk about fear. That’s a leap, isn’t it, from flour to fear? So, stay with me here.

When you were a child, did you ever hide your head under the covers if you heard a scary noise? I can remember doing that. Now, hiding my head did not make whatever  frightened me go away; it just made me oblivious of it for the moment.

That brings me around to this thing we hear constantly on the news: terror. Well, okay, terror is extreme fear. How do we deal with terror? We can hide our heads under the cover, refuse to hear anything bad or choose to disbelieve;  but, sad to say, that is not going to make the actual frightful thing go away; we can become shivering, quaking objects and wait to be struck down or we can adher to, “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”  None of these choices sounds appealing to me.

I suggest the flour sifter of truth. What is truth? The only bedrock, unchangeable, shining truth I know is God’s Word. I suggest we read and choose to believe and obey. It is amazing that Scripture brings such peace of mind.

Sift what we hear through what Scripture says. Get rid of those lumps of disobedience, slanted news coverage, propoganda, and feeling afraid or helpless. See what is left after you’ve sifted.

God says we should not be afraid because He is with us. We cannot expect Him to be with us if we willfully turn away from his Truth, hide our heads under the cover, or accept the lumps in the flour. An old hymn that not many churches sing any more is “Trust and Obey.” If we do, somehow, fear goes out the window!