Why does somebody kill themself when they're seemingly on top of the world?
“For in much wisdom is
much vexation,
and he
who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” King Solomon
The American dream is
to be successful, a self-made individual who doesn’t need to rely on anyone or
anything. The dream is to take your
passion and turn it into an empire. Then
why did Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain kill themselves? Their names are known around the globe. They had taken their passion and crafted it
into something extraordinary. They had
achieved success that most jealously watch from afar.
I do not pretend to know WHY they felt
compelled to take their own lives when from my perspective they had so much to
live for...including family. Is this a
lesson that money and fame cannot buy happiness? Others have managed great wealth and empires
without destroying themselves or those closest to them. WHAT could have been so troubling that life
needed to end, here and now? The list of
famous individuals that have taken their lives grows long. Suicide seems almost lionized by Netflix as they glorify 13 Reasons Why. In the mid 70’s Blue Oyster Cult encouraged suicide
with their hit “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and later Jack Kevorkian became the
poster child for euthanasia.
The fact that two celebrities hanged
themselves in a week has generated a huge outpouring in social media. Most pontificate on these tragedies with
either great judgement or offer up hope in forgiveness. Some put words in God’s mouth and tell Him
what He should do. Clearly, the
underlying and almost unspoken issue is that fact that without hope, we fall
into despair. Without hope, there is
nothing to live for. Clearly a surplus
of money or a lifestyle that indulges every whim doesn’t provide hope, at least
not lasting hope. The truth is simple, without
hope we die.
“Whatever
my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for
my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in
doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was
nothing to be gained under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
William Cowper had been committed to an insane asylum for
suicidal depression. His melancholy was
disturbing. He writes, “Loaded as my
life is with despair, I have no such comfort as would result from a supposed
probability of better things to come, were it once ended…You will tell me that
this cold gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavor to
encourage me to hope for a spiritual change resembling it—but it will be lost
labour. Nature revives again; but a soul
once slain lives no more.”
You may not recognize the name William Cowper (pronounced Cooper). But his poems and hymns have stood the test
of time. His pastor was John Newton, saved
slave trader and writer of the legendary hymn Amazing Grace. By God’s
wonderful design, his doctor at St. Albans Insane Asylum was a Christ follower
and a lover of the Word. In December
1763, he left a Bible lying on a bench in the garden in hopes that Cowper would
pick it up. Cowper opened up the Bible
and happened upon John 11, the story of Lazarus being raised from the
dead. I “saw so much benevolence, mercy,
goodness, and sympathy with miserable men, in our Saviour’s conduct, that I almost
shed tears upon the revelation; little thinking that it was an exact type of the
mercy which Jesus was on the point of extending towards myself.”
Cowper believes himself to be beyond hope. He wrote “Oh, that I had not rejected so good
a Redeemer, that I had not forfeited all his favours.” At this point in time he again felt led to
turn to the Bible. The first verse he
saw was Romans 3:25, “Whom God put forward as a propitiation (i.e. expiation, atonement) by his blood,
to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his
divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."
This is the point in his life that he marks as his conversion. Though he was not instantly healed of his
depression, there he found HOPE. HOPE
that was not fading, but eternal. Though
Cowper struggled with deep depression for decades until his dying day in 1800,
he always wrote of hope, God’s sovereignty and forgiveness. Cowper left us with great poems and hymns
that still impact many today. His most
famous hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood” which sings of the glory
of forgiveness through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. “Thy
precious blood shall never lose its power; Till all the ransomed church of God,
Be saved to sin no more.”
“E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”
If you are considering your life not worth living, consider
the One who loves you so much that He sent His only Son for YOU. His Son, Jesus, gave His life freely and shed
His blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
You only need to believe for Hope Everlasting. John 3:16
[Excerpts about William Cowper from The Hidden Smile of God by John Piper.]
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