Blackmail

There are few mother’s cries more heart rending than when they learn that a child has died before them.

It rips a wound deep into the heart. Tears coat the face with almost eternal sorrow. The weeping may endure for a night. But it would seem after such a death…even the day time feels like continuous darkness.

As she came upon the scene her screams tore through the sky. His blood still on the ground, she cried in disbelief. The first murder was committed and it happened within a family. The disconnect between husband and wife that led to the first sin had filtered down to another disconnect between brother and brother. Cain killed his brother and became the first murderer. What a sad title to have. What horrible circumstances to bear as a parent. To have to bury your child.

A young girl died after being hit by a car in an accident in Manchester. A teen’s life is snuffed out after being kidnapped waiting on a bus. Innumerable scenarios rippling across the world. Countless children suffer and die for various reasons. We ask why, we grieve, we mourn and we try to move on. The pain is no less if the deceased has lived for many decades. It rips into the inner sanctum of who we are as we question what we think we could endure. The consolation though being, for the dead it is but a wink and then the next time the eyes open, God has returned to take the righteous home. For the living, it is a more arduous journey. But death carries with it a posse of reminders.

Our time is finite and we all have an expiration date. Secondly, we have a responsibility as believers to share this word with as many as possible. Lastly, we should never, ever allow the devil to hold us hostage with the threat of dying. What in the world does the author mean? I’m sure you have read a few books or seen one or two movies where the antagonist holds a hostage ransom and threatens killing the prisoner if certain demands are not met. Through the fear of death, many of us, even Christians have become so focused on this present life that a high percentage of our decisions we make are driven by temporal consequences and not eternal outcomes. The fear of the fragility of life has created more earthly mental prisons than all of the jails ever built and known to man. How is the devil blackmailing you with death today? What decisions did you make in the past week, month or year that you may need to revisit? May we never be defined by the fears of our finite end but may we be driven by the brilliant thoughts of the Second Coming and The New Beginning.

— YorkAli Walters

Feb 4, 2025

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. - Hebrews 2:14-15