Know You Are not Alone: Support for Moments of Despair

Which question?

Why did they do it? This question is often the first people ask when someone takes their own life. Maybe we hope that by finding an answer we can understand that person’s decision. But more likely, we hope to find a reason that will ease the sadness, shock, and pain of loss.

Who struggles with suicidal ideation? Seniors aging into disability may feel that their life is over. Dementia in various forms often plays a role. Also, people who are born with or develop disabling conditions might become deeply discouraged. Many are unable to engage in community life. For singles with disabilities, old age can become a season of loneliness and isolation.

Because these individuals often lack or lose purpose in life, Scripture offers a fail-safe solution; seek God’s purpose for living.

So, why not live? The shift in perspective from why take your own life to why not live God’s way may be just what some people need, not only to press on but also to thrive. This study aims to support soul care workers who admonish God’s people not to ideate suicide. It also could speak directly to those ideating their life’s end.

Let’s consider three reasons to live that focus on God’s purposeful intentions for our lives, reasons why God wants us to finish our course strong, reasons why we would miss out on God’s perfect plan if we took our own life.

God’s plan is the outworking of his story for your life.

1.) God created you to reflect him. Remember how your life began. Before your first breath God created you to connect with him in relationship. Once connected, God intended for you to reflect him before others as you grow spiritually. This is God’s image (Gen. 1:26-28). It’s your primary mission in life. All creation is God’s stage for his glory. We live out God’s intentional script for our stories as part of his grand narrative in real time. Lights, camera, action.

Yes, connecting with him and reflecting him before others are the basis for God’s plan for your life. Whatever else you do with the life God gave you, he made you to connect with him and reflect him to others. That’s because you belong to him. He owns you. Because you’re his, he has sent you to complete your assigned mission. What has God done to equip you to live out your life’s purpose in a story?

2.) God commissioned, called, and gifted you to succeed. Why? People need you. God made them dependent on him to meet their needs through you. It’s a beautiful system of our growth and his glory. That’s why God made you as he did. Family, church, and community have struggles that only you can solve through God’s care. His gift of salvation is just the beginning. But appropriating these three resources requires that we take the long view of life.

It helps to think about your life from the perspective of finishing in God’s timing. What do you hope you’ll think and feel when your life on earth is over, and you cross the threshold into your heavenly “eternal home” (Eccles. 12:5)? Countless people ask, Was it worth it? Yes, the Christian life is well worth it because it is full of purpose. And purpose is satisfying.

But as God’s image bearer, God commissions (Matt. 28:18-20), calls (John 15:16), and gifts (1 Pet. 4:10) you to connect with him and reflect him to others. Only Godly wisdom can open heaven’s vault and give you access to these priceless resources. It helps to meditate on several biblical passages to clarify our purpose.

• The psalmist prays, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). Numbering your days means making them count by living heart-wise lives consumed with purpose and resulting in joy. It’s a pleasure to have purpose.

• The Apostle Paul warns, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” (Eph. 5:15-16). It’s far too easy to waste your life. Left unabated, day after day passes with little to show for it except a few fading memories. We just passively experience the next pleasure or disappointment that comes our way. We lack purpose despite God’s intention for us to thrive in our lives.

But wise living—God-intended active living—makes every moment count even if you are resting. Sabbath resting after serving God underscores our purpose. God completed his creation mission by resting (Gen. 2:1-3). He wasn’t tired. He was savoring the good purposes He designed for his work. Adam and Eve worked with purpose before the fall. This was God’s intention at creation.

By contrast, King Saul and Judas Iscariot lost their way and their lives because they lost their purpose. They painted themselves into a dark corner where the light of God’s presence and purpose was painfully missing. Saul scandalized Israel’s kingship by attacking the crown prince David, his own son-in-law, in battle. Jealousy, the purpose-killer choked the life out of him to the point that he took his life with his own sword (1 Sam. 31:1-6). Later, an Amalekite falsely claimed to have killed Saul to win favor with David (2 Sam. 1:9-10).

Even sadder, Judas Iscariot appeared to follow Jesus in discipleship and service. Then he betrayed Jesus for the price of a slave. Judas was a slave to misguided purpose. It crushed him.

What if you are suffering, in sorrow, or physical pain? God will sustain you through all forms of suffering. Suffering is a process with a beginning, middle, and end. At the beginning, God invites you to seek wisdom especially to endure suffering (James 1:4).

In the end, suffering need not defeat you. Why not?

3.) God created you to live forever. Let’s just say it; you cannot die spiritually. The soul has no end. True, we all must die a physical death (with rare exceptions). In the garden God told the man and the woman they must surely die if they ate of the forbidden fruit. They ate; we all die. But through the resurrection, every person, soul and body, lives eternally. There’s no stopping us. God made us to last. So, where does that leave us?

The Christian life makes all the difference. Someone has said, even if we did not experience the salvation of our souls, the Christian life would still be worth living. It’s true! A life of purpose keeps us focused and moving ahead through life’s ups and downs. So, fixate on Jesus who awaits those who serve him by putting aside distractions (Heb. 12:2).

We need the promise of hope for the future to finish the race. Life on earth can be difficult. We will face losses, failures, hardships. These may lead to disappointments, and deep sadness. All are part of the human experience after the fall. But we who follow Christ are heading in the right direction, not just stumbling aimlessly onto any path. Purpose sets us straight on our God-intended course. Purpose sustains us when suffering and loss come our way.

God created you to live a life full of purpose every day until God calls you home to live with him forever. He has given you all the resources you need by commissioning, calling, and gifting you with a life worth living. Don’t you want to see how he can use you for as long as he placed you on this earth? Why not live?

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Written By—Dave Deuel, PhD

Dave Deuel is married with four adult children, one daughter has Down syndrome. He also has a sister-in-law who has an intellectual disability. He is Academic Dean Emeritus for the Master’s Academy International, Senior Research Fellow Emeritus and Strategic Alliance SME for the Joni Eareckson Tada Disability Research Center, and Catalyst for the Disability Concerns Issue Network, the Lausanne Movement.

He served as Old Testament professor and department chairman at the Master’s Seminary for 10 years and in pastoral roles of local churches, five of which were church plants. He is currently elder for pulpit and interim pastor for area local churches in upstate New York.