Occasionally, I find myself brimming with the vigor of self-confidence, steeped in pride, and charged with my own self-import. I may even come to believing that I am strong enough to survive as life challenges the security of my faith. I am prone to trust, quite simply — me. With the arrogance of Peter I proclaim that even if all else deserts Christ — I will not. “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

And I am ready, really. I am committed, totally. I want to be wholly true even in the face of adversity and yet, my days are like grass. I flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over me and I am gone, and this place remembers me no more. “My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass.” I am frail. And not as strong as I think I am. Christ’s words to Peter echo in my ears and haunt me.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.”

As wheat I am fragile. As wheat I have both that which is good and bad, profitable and in injurious. Should I be shaken, much I More >