Some deaths feel less like an ending and more like a shaking; sometimes even an upright revival.
The news spreads, and suddenly hearts are laid bare. Some weep. Some rage. Some even laugh. And in the echoes of their voices, something eternal is revealed.
Jesus once spoke of a winnowing fork – a tool that tosses grain into the air, letting the wind separate the heavy kernels of wheat from the weightless chaff.
The wheat falls, gathered for keeping. The chaff drifts, blown away to be burned.
“His winnowing fork is in His hand…” ~Matthew 3:12
Perhaps tragedy itself becomes a kind of winnowing fork.
Compassion falls like wheat, landing where it belongs. Cruelty scatters like husks in the wind, showing what was always hollow.
The Word warns us:
“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased.” ~Proverbs 24:17–18
It is no small thing to celebrate the fall of another. Even those who mourn without knowing Christ carry, in their sorrow, the faint imprint of God’s image upon their hearts.
But for those who belong to Him, compassion becomes something deeper still – a reflection of the Savior who wept over Jerusalem, and with His dying breath whispered, “Father, forgive them.”
These are not just headlines. And they are most definitely not ‘entertainment’.
They are tests, siftings, unveilings. They show us who we are when the world is watching – and more importantly, when the world is not.
Far too many people these days carry on as if God is not always watching. He is.
One day the final winnowing will come.
The barns will be filled. The fire will be lit. And the separation will not be temporary, but eternal.
Until then, may we be found as wheat – weighty with grace, rooted in love, falling always at the feet of Christ.
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☩ One Cup. One Christ. One Calling. ☩
— Sunday Morning Coffee and Christ. —
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