Someone asked me this question a few weeks ago. I think I remember who it was, but I'm not entirely sure.
There are some people who in the Bible who die of suicide. I don't think it says anything of much significance about them. The events are recorded; actions and a few words. That's it.
Here's what I understand from the Bible about suicide:
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
This choice might be more difficult than you know. And if it slips from your fingers . . .
7"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you" (Psalm 139:7-12).
Jesus instructs:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:3-4).
Have you known someone more impoverished in spirit than the one who has so lost sight of his or her belovedness that death seems preferable to life? And if you know his or her survivors, you surely know that we mourn.
Paul insists:
"I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).
And, in the end and in the beginning, when there is a new heaven and a new earth:
"God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Revelation 21:4).
That's what I think the Bible says about suicide.
I am saving this. But I hope I will never need it.
ReplyDeleteMe, too. But I've had a lot of time to think about what and how I might have to offer someone else from a scriptural standpoint.
DeleteWow, I've never look at these quite in that light before. Thank you for pointing them out.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that this sequence might apply to just about any sort of trauma.
DeleteThanks! Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll expand it at some point. It might make a good little pamphlet, you think?
DeleteRobin, this is inspired. Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation!
ReplyDeleteMatthew 5:3-4 is a particularly poignant verse.
www.rsrue.blogspot.com
Those are really beautiful verses and are of great comfort to me (and I hope to you). Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThere came a point several years ago when it was less painful for me to say God didn't exist than to keep ruminating about God and suffering. But that passage from Romans was still resonant, and Wayne illuminated a copy of it which I still have on the wall.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know that feeling.
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