“For surely I will command, And will sift the house of Israel among all nations, As grain is sifted in a sieve; Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground” (Amos 9:9)  

Everything that happens is either caused or allowed by God. Satan had to ask God’s permission before he could do anything to Job. For saints, in some sense, our siftings are directly the work of heaven, for the text says, “I will sift the house of Israel”. Satan would prefer to sift in a way that would destroy God’s people; but the overruling hand of the Master makes sure the refining of the grain doesn’t destroy it. Oh saints, take comfort in the fact that because your Lord directs the sifting, “not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground”. 

 By faith, we know, Christ “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:27-29). 

 God always uses the most efficient way of dividing the precious from the vile. “They are not all Israel who are of Israel” (Romans 9:1).“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11). There’s chaff mixed in with the wheat, so there must be a separation. Saints aren’t carried away when winds of doctrine threaten the Church (Ephesians 4:14), but husks and chaff with no substance float away in the slightest breeze.

 Christ promised, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:27-28). A shepherd might lose a sheep, a jeweler a diamond, a mother a child, but because Christ is God, He has the power to not lose one of His saints. However little you may be in the eyes of the world, you are precious in His sight.