Amos 9:9

I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth.

Every trial comes by divine command and permission. Satan had to ask permission before he could lay a finger on Job. In some sense our trials are directly the work of heaven, for the text says, I will move the house of Israel about. Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the corn; but the overruling hand of the Master is accomplishing the cleaning of the grain by the very process which the enemy intended to be destructive. Precious, but much sifted corn of the Lord's floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord directs both flail and sieve to his own glory, and to your eternal profit.

The Lord Jesus will surely use the fan which is in his hand, and will divide the precious from the vile. All are not Israel that are of Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not clean provender, and hence the winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve, true weight alone has power. Husks and chaff being devoid of substance must fly before the wind, and only solid grain will remain.

Observe the complete safety of the Lord's wheat; even the least grain has a promise of preservation. God himself sifts, and therefore it is stern and terrible work; he sifts them in all places, "among all nations"; he sifts them in the most effectual manner, "like grain is sifted in a sieve"; and yet for all this, not the smallest, lightest, or most shriveled kernel of grain, is permitted to fall to the ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord, a shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweler one diamond, nor a mother one child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of his redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.