Not so the wicked!  They are like chaff that the wind blows away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, or sinners in the assembly of the righteous. (Psalm 1:4-5)

Sometimes I forget.

Sometimes I look at the nonbelievers around me, and I envy their “freedom.”

Sometimes I’m a little short-sighted.

I forget their destiny.  I forget that, without Christ, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.  Ever wonder why chaff blows away, while the wheat (that would be you) remains?  It’s because chaff has no substance, no weight.  There is nothing solid to it, nothing to keep it from drifting away on the breeze.

So it does.

What I sometimes confuse for freedom is the aimless drifting of an empty soul.

One day they, like we, will stand before the Father.  They will not be clothed in the righteousness of Christ—they will be naked in their sin.  They will not stand firm in the armor of God—they will be crushed under the weight of their own earned guilt.  They will not rejoice in the fellowship of the saints—they will be ever, forever alone.

Sometimes I forget.  But when I remember, I praise God for his grace, and I remember never to envy the lost, but ever to pity them, to pray for them, to reason and wrestle and reach for them.

I’m telling you—I’d rather be a tree.