THE SILENT STRUGGLE OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Transcript

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Hello everyone.

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This is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope The silent struggle of suicidal thoughts. First Kings chapter nineteen But Elijah himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree, and he asked that he might die, saying, It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father's verse four. There is a particular grief that does not announce itself in church. It is a dark thought, sometimes a flash, sometimes a long pull that the world might be better off without me. Some Christians fight this on a Tuesday morning. Some have fought it for years. Some have lost loved ones, loved ones to it. The shame around the topic is so heavy that often the church is the last place we admit it. If that has been your fight, hear me this morning. God is not ashamed of you. The Bible is honest about this. Elijah, after his greatest spiritual victory, sat under a broom tree and asked God, asked God to take his life. Jonah, after the great revival in Nineveh, asked God to let him die. And Job said, Why didn't why did I not die at birth? If you are going through that valley today, I want you to know you're walking on a path the saints have walked before. And I want to say one urgent thing before going any further. If you are really in a crisis right now, please reach out to somebody. Reach out to a trusted friend. The God who is with you in this vacually has also put people in your life on purpose. Just use these people to help you out of this vague valley. First Kings chapter 19 is one of the most pastoral chapters in the old testament. Elijah has just won the showdown on Mount Carmel. He has called fire down from heaven. He has ended a three-year drought, and the next chapter finds him under a broom tree in the wilderness, praying to die. What does God do? Notice carefully, he does not rebuke Elijah. He does not lecture him on his lack of faith. He sends an angel who feeds him. The angel said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. Bread, sleep. Repeat. Then with food in his stomach and rest in his bones, Elijah is ready to walk to Horeb, where God meets him in a still small voice. What this passage teaches is very important. God's first response to a suicidal saint was not theology, it was a meal. He understood that Elijah's mind would not be reset until his body, his body had been cared for. He understood that the journey was in fact too great for the brand for the man as he was.

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The Hebrew phrase in 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 4 it is enough. The cup is overfull.

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Anyone who has stood at that edge knows the feeling. God's answer in that moment is not a mountain summit, it is bread, water and sleep. Charles Spurgeon, who openly admitted in sermons that he had at times longed for death, wrote The mind's incessant gloom often comes from the body's weariness, and the body's weariness from sorrows we should have shared. John Bunyan in grace abounding, testifies of seasons in which the temptation to despair was so heavy he doubted his salvation and how slowly the gospel reached him again. And the contemporary writer Catherine Green Macrite, an epic she has written candidly in darkness is my only companion about her years with severe mental illness. She insists that a suicidal Christian has not been abandoned by God, however dark the night may feel. Brothers and sisters, if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please hear this. First, you are not a moral failure, you are a wounded soul. Treat the wound you would the way you would treat a deep physical wound with urgency, with skilled help, with patience. Second, tell someone the thought that says you must not tell anyone is the lie. Pick one safe person, maybe a pastor, a counsellor, a doctor or a friend who can hold a confidence with wisdom. Speaking speaking the thought out loud often takes some of its strength away. Third, accept the meal under the broom tree like Elijah did. Eat, sleep, hydrate. Get to a doctor, get to a counsellor, get on the medication if it is wisely prescribed. The journey is too great for you alone. God has not asked you to walk it alone. Fourth, get rid of dangerous means in your home until the seasons the season has passed. This is wisdom, not weakness. Many lives have been saved by simple practical changes through the worst weeks. Fifth, hear the gospel. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Your worst day is not your story's last word. He has walked into the darkness ahead of you, and is bringing you slowly to this still small voice that calls you back to life.

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O God, you met Elijah at his lowest point, not with a sermon, not with theology, but with bread.

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Meet us there also, O God. Send us the friends that we need. Steady our bodies, hold our minds, cover the dark thoughts with the blood of Christ, and lead us by your tenderness back to a life we can live again.

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Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.