Separating wheat from chaff    For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and  marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.                                                      – Hebrews 4:12-13

The Veil of the Self-life. A.W. Tozer, a well-known 20th century American preacher and author, wrote about all the “self-sins” (self-concern, self-centredness, self-pity, etc.) that form a veil when we think more of ourselves than of the Lord and others. In this Advent season may we open ourselves to the Lord and allow our lives to pass through the winnowing fork that is in his hands to separate the wheat from the chaff. And though we can easily say we are sinful, how often we are embarrassed into quiet denial by our sin, and struggle to be honest with the Lord and our brothers (and even ourselves!). Indeed self-knowledge is a blessed, but painful thing. May the Lord give us grace to see ourselves as the people we really are, that we might become the people he intends us to truly be. And as Mufasa in Lion King says, "As the veil of the self-life grows thinner, may we recognize that we are greater than we have yet become." 

Dave Quintana is an elder of The Servants of the Word, a missionary brotherhood of men living single for the Lord. He is also a regional coordinator for the Sword of the Spirit in Europe and the Middle East. He lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.