Yesterday I viewed a video that I considered posting here about a man who was deep into all the "conspiracy theories" and who ended up killing himself in April 2014. It was a lengthy video, over an hour long, and the fact that I didn't believe many could sit through the entire thing, I thought it better to talk about this topic without the video instead.
There are many people that are without hope, moreso than ever these days it seems, and for some it gets unbearable. The man in the video was said to have been bipolar and that is a whole other issue that involves medical issues that I cannot get into. However the fact that this hopelessness is now so common and the matter of suicide is on the increase, I feel it important to weigh in.
The stats of percentages of suicides per capita per year and the growing number being diagnosed as bipolar and/or suffering from depression (yes, I know not all that are bipolar suffer from deep depression, and those suffering from depression are not necessarily bipolar) is increasing, and those stats are available for you to search online. But I wanted to look at depression and suicide from a Biblical perspective.
The Psalms of David, beautiful as they are, display a range of emotions including depression, despair, and hopelessness. The anguish that David felt at the loss of his first son with Bathsheba was so profound that his closest friends feared for him. It was his faith in the justice of God that pulled him through. When we read Psalm 22, words which Jesus repeated on the cross, we enter into such depths of despair in those words that we think it is too deep for even God to enter such depths....but what we think and feel is often not the truth. Job went through worse trouble than many of us will ever see, yet he told his friends; "Though He (God) slay me yet will I trust Him" (Job 13;15) because one day we will all die, yet we have the promise that this is not all there is, and there is our hope, not that we will escape all our troubles in this life, but that we have a better hope of life with Him after this one.
Regarding hope Paul put it this way: "For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Romans 8:24,25
Ever since prayer was taken away for children in school the sense of hopelessness and despair has become more and more intolerable, look up the statistics if you don't believe me. Prior to prayer being removed from schools how many school shootings were there? What were the crime statistics? Sure there were murders and rapes, just as there were atheists and perverts then...the crime of murder began shortly after the fall of man right from the beginning.
However when we look to Christ, we still have hope. I won't go so far as to say those who commit suicide are hellbound. That I don't know, God knows. But if our faith and trust remains in Christ, through His ability to sustain us and strengthen us, we retain a hope that endures even if the enemies of God slay us, because in Christ we have crucified our flesh and our dying body that we inhabit is not where we place our hope.
Jesus is our only true hope.
Dear Susan, Thank you for addressing this sensitive yet vitally important topic. You are so right that removing God from schools has led to crime and hopelessness. Praise God that in Christ our hope is found. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Once truly saved, not even suicide could keep the born-again Christian from Heaven, although there would be loss of rewards. God bless,
ReplyDeleteLaurie
Amen Laurie
DeleteI have wanted to kill myself several times over the years, and I would do it this very second if I did not know any better. Oh, but I do. For my life has never been my own, and I do not have the right to with what is not mine as I please. More importantly, my Creator will not require my to stay in this prison of a world any longer than is absolutely necessary to accomplish His purposes in and through me. So, here I remain.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have been dealing with some Christian Universalists lately. According to their way of thinking, we are free to so with our lives as we wish without any fear of being cast into the Lake of Fire, come Judgment Day.
Amen Jerry, stand strong in the strength of the Lord by the power of His perfect might. This life is temporary and will end soon enough. Let’s make the most of the little time given to us. 😉
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