I found this artical about Internet assisted suicide on CNN and couldn't help but to think of the sadness God must feel about suicide. This particular case is itself alarming because so many young people feel the need to engage in suicide talk, suicide planning and suicide exits.
I confess. I've thought of committing suicide before. I've thought about ending my life. It lasted for a few months, though I don't think I was ever totally serious. I couldn't stop thinking about the people in my life who would miss me, who wouldn't understand. Ultimately, it came down to a struggle I couldn't bear to bring upon others. It felt selfish. I didn't know God at the time. He was nothing more than a church building with pews and an alter, but certainly not personal and definitely not loving.
For many, there is an inner battle I'm sure I will never comprehend, a pressure I will never feel and perhaps a lifelong misunderstanding I will never know. There is a spiritual darkness driving the belief that death is greater than life. At some point the depths of the soul give in to a powerful and bold demon who loves nothing more than to separate something, anything from God.
How does God feel...?
Some, perhaps even Suzanne Gonzales, might have wondered aloud how God can "feel" anything at all. Sometimes I wonder too. He is up there and we are down here. He is something of a figment of the imagination, a made up deity to make us feel better about ourselves and our problems. He is... well, who is He...? Sometimes I wonder the same. I'm quite sure all the people on the A.S.H. newsgroup feel something similar. I would guess they have explored the realms of darkness, of Satanic rule. I have. But, there is an answer. You can find it in anything but what is real.
Something crazy hit me the other day. It was inspired by Tozer's Pursuit of God (you can find the whole thing online here) God is not imaginary. Jesus is not fake. There is a reality in this life and it starts and ends with Jesus. As for reality, I will let Tozer explain:
What do I mean by reality? I mean that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it, and which would exist if there were no mind anywhere to entertain a thought of it. That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity.
I am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term `absolutist.' The Christian is not put out of countenance by this show of contempt. He can smile right back at them, for he knows that there is only One who is Absolute, that is God. But he knows also that the Absolute One has made this world for man's uses, and, while there is nothing fixed or real in the last meaning of the words (the meaning as applied to God) for every purpose of human life we are permitted to act as if there were. And every man does act thus except the mentally sick. These unfortunates also have trouble with reality, but they are consistent; they insist upon living in accordance with their ideas of things. They are honest, and it is their very honesty that constitutes them a social problem.
The idealists and relativists are not mentally sick. They prove their soundness by living their lives according to the very notions of reality which they in theory repudiate and by counting upon the very fixed points which they prove are not there. They could earn a lot more respect for their notions if they were willing to live by them; but this they are careful not to do. Their ideas are brain-deep, not life- deep. Wherever life touches them they repudiate their theories and live like other men.
Until we engage in this reality, the reality of life itself, we will forever suffer in the hands of imagination. And imagination is inherantly human. Humans will fail us over and over. Humans are our dada, moms, family, friends, bosses and kids. Humans can never, ever provide a way out of suicide. The REAL can.
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