Last Sunday morning Stirling and I stood in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Rome, Italy. We were waiting for the shuttle to take us to the airport where we would board a plane that would bring to an end an outlandishly luxurious vacation spent cruising around the Greek Islands and Italy. Waiting with us was our dear friend and gracious host Lynda, whose incredible generosity made the trip possible.

At one point Lynda said to me, “After all of this pampering you’ve just experienced, do you think you can make the adjustment to the real world?” I told Lynda that after any vacation it seems “the real world” pretty much takes care of itself. I said, “In fact, my guess is that ‘the real world’ is going to come crashing in on me with the very first phone call I answer tomorrow morning.”

...And so it did. After a 17-hour flight, I woke up weary and jet lagged on Monday morning. The first call I answered was from a member of Gary’s family. I was told that Gary had committed suicide and his family wanted me to lead his memorial service. Just like that, I was very much back in “the real world.”

I met Gary for the first time just 10 short weeks earlier. He came to our worship service, filled out a welcome card and requested a meeting with me. I took him out to lunch and as he told me his story, I realized he was hurting and reaching out for help. As we continued to talk over the next few weeks, he gave me every indication that he was finding the help he needed and that his life was moving in a positive direction.

He recommitted his life to Jesus. He was in worship nearly every Sunday. He was reading his Bible every day. Every time he saw me he thanked me for the help that I was giving him. Still, last Thursday he went into his garage and hanged himself. Four days ago I stood in front of his heartbroken family and friends and attempted to say something that would help them through this awful tragedy.

Surely with the number of individual readers of Challenger, many of your lives have been impacted by suicide and other lives will be impacted by suicide at some point in the future. Suicide is a very difficult subject to address. My desire is to offer some clarity on the subject and to redeem some measure of good from the awful tragedy that Gary’s family is dealing with today.

It is important to address this issue from two perspectives.

What would God want to say to those attempting to go on with their lives in the aftermath of a loved one’s suicide?

Sadly, this is an issue the church has not always handled well. I believe the church has tried, with good intentions, to discourage people from considering suicide by saying that suicide is not supported by the Scripture. The church has also stated that suicide nullifies one’s salvation and that anyone who commits suicide, even if they were saved, is condemned to hell. This means suicide is an unforgivable sin.

The sad consequence of that false teaching has been that untold numbers of people who have lost loved ones to suicide have had their grief greatly compounded. Now they not only have to live with the knowledge their loved one’s final days were so tortured that he/she chose to bring them to a premature end, but they also have to live with the thought that their loved one...because of that final tortured decision...has been eternally banned from the presence of God. Friends, let me tell you that this scenario describes a God that I don’t know.

The God I know would say to you that while suicide is a powerfully destructive act, it is not so powerful that it can destroy the saving grace of God. The clear and consistent teaching of Scripture is that salvation is not achieved by our own effort and salvation is not sustained by our own effort. Salvation is 100%...from top to bottom...inside and out...from beginning to end...the result of God’s grace. To say anything else is to say that Jesus’ sacrifice was somehow deficient. Jesus’ sacrifice was not just sufficient to cover most of our sins. Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to cover all of our sins.

Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” It doesn’t say, “You will be saved unless you do something really, really bad.” It doesn’t say, “You will be saved so long as you hold on to your salvation.” What it says is that our part is to confess and believe. God’s part is to secure our salvation.

Gary was not saved because he had lived a perfect life. Gary was saved because he accepted the forgiveness offered him by Jesus and he trusted his eternal destiny to the grace of God. Gary’s place in heaven was not secured by his own effort and was not relinquished because of his final tragic choice. A tragic decision made in the pit of despair in the final moments of one’s life does not annul the saving grace of God.

When someone we love takes their life it is only natural for us to ask questions like:

– Why didn’t I see this coming?

– Why didn’t I pay closer attention?

– Why didn’t I do something to stop this?

The guilt produced by those kinds of questions can quickly become overwhelming.

The truth is the final responsibility for everyone’s life is their own. Galatians 6:5 says, “Each one should carry his own load.” In The Message, that same verse reads like this, “Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.”

Now obviously, we need to be alert to clues that a loved one may be suicidal. And clearly we should do whatever we reasonably can to point them to the help they need. But if you’re shouldering a load of guilt today because someone you love chose to end their life, you need to drop that burden once and for all.

Suicide is a willful decision to take a predetermined physical action that will end one’s life. It’s a tragic choice. But we must not take responsibility for someone else’s tragic choice. That is a burden of guilt that God does not want us to bear.

I think that God would say to those left behind after a loved one’s suicide that we should always remember that our loved one’s life was much bigger than their final, sad decision. The tragedy of suicide is only compounded if we allow that final, desperate decision to erase the memory of a lifetime of shared experiences that we enjoyed with our loved one.

It’s appropriate for us to grieve the tragic and unnecessary loss of a loved one’s life ended in suicide. It’s also appropriate for us to thank God for the many ways our life was blessed by the experiences we shared with our loved one.

These are just a few of the very important things God would want to say to those attempting to go on with their lives in the aftermath of a loved one’s suicide. Now, let’s move on to our second question.

What would God say to those who are contemplating suicide?

Let’s begin by reading the stark account of the suicide of one of Jesus’ own disciples. In Matthew 27 we read:

“In the first light of dawn, all the high priests and religious leaders met and put the finishing touches on their plot to kill Jesus. Then they tied him up and paraded him to Pilate, the governor.

Judas, the one who betrayed him, realized that Jesus was doomed. Overcome with remorse, he gave back the thirty silver coins to the high priests, saying, ‘I’ve sinned. I’ve betrayed an innocent man.’

They said, ‘What do we care? That’s your problem!’

Judas threw the silver coins into the Temple and left. Then he went out and hung himself.”

Overcome with despair; filled with remorse over a dreadful decision; awash in self-loathing and self-hatred; and, most importantly, convinced there was no hope for relief and no hope for restoration, Judas made the fateful decision to take his own life. Countless numbers of others, struggling under the burden of the same kinds of thoughts and feelings, wrestle with suicidal thoughts every day. What do you suppose God would say to those whose lives have unraveled so much that they are on the verge of convincing themselves that suicide is their best option?

I’m absolutely confident that what God would say is, “Don’t. Don’t give up on Me and My purposes. Don’t end prematurely the precious gift of life that I’ve given you.” Why? Because the fact that you currently see no meaning or purpose in your life does not mean that there is no meaning or purpose in your life.

Friends, the truth is that even on the best of days, our understanding of “the big picture of life” is extremely limited. Paul put it like this, “We see through a glass, darkly.” And that darkness only increases when we are struggling with feelings of depression, despair and hopelessness.

–How tragic it would be to make an irreversible decision at a time when our own understanding is so very limited.

–How tragic it would be to make a decision with the potential to traumatize so many lives at a time when our own vision is so very clouded.

–How tragic it would be to destroy the precious gift of life given to us by a God who knew us and was already making plans for us while we were still in our mother’s womb.

–How tragic it would be...especially for a believer...to turn our back in the final moments of our life on the most fundamental reality of the Christian experience, namely, that we walk by faith, not by sight!

Friends, it is precisely at those moments when we are at our weakest that we must cling tenaciously to this central truth of our life with Jesus: We walk by faith, not by sight. And that’s why we pray...

“Father, I’m in a very dark place and I don’t see your plan right now. But, I don’t walk by sight. I walk by faith. And in faith, I trust that You have a plan for my life. So, I choose to wait on You in confidence and hope.

“Father, I’m in a very dark place and I don’t feel Your love right now. But, I don’t walk by feelings. I walk by faith. And in faith, I trust that You love me. So, I choose to wait on You in confidence and hope.”

Judas lost hope. And in a moment of despair he chose to take his life into his own hopeless hands.

But we don’t have to make the same tragic mistake. Our hope is not in ourselves, but in God.

Friends, no matter how sick, how tired, how depressed, how embarrassed or how confused you may be, remember: as long as God is, there really is hope.

(Rev.Tom Marcum, pastor of Petaluma Valley Baptist Church, Petaluma, CA.)