My brother and I headed out to Northwest Alabama Sunday morning. It was not a trip either of us wanted to make, but then again, the news that brought this trip about was not news we wanted to hear, either. My cousin, Stephen had committed suicide. He was forty years old, the father of four and he was a good man. Stephen loved Jesus; I know this to be a fact.  We didn’t see each other much, but when we did, we would talk about three things we both loved; Jesus, being a father and books. Aside from the natural kinship of blood and land that tied us together, we loved to talk about God’s glory as it is mediated to us both in the land of our fathers and in words. Our conversations would range easily from southern writers to biblical writers, from our grandfather’s land we roamed as children to the Promised Land, and from stories we loved to the gospel story.  There was never a disconnect between the spiritual things and physical things. There was no divided heart—physical things showed each of us God’s glory and goodness. Our conversations would always heal my heart.

Suicide is a tragedy; there are lots of unanswered questions and always a sense that somehow if we could have fixed something, or if we could have said something, we could have changed things. There are questions about where God is, and how could this happen to a believer. I know—I have asked them myself. As I grieved with my poor broken family for two days in Northwest Alabama, I got a new sense of how fragile life is. I am a father; I have a bunch of children, and now grandchildren, and I must confess that there have been times that I would panic when I heard the phone ring, wondering what bad news might be coming my way from or about one of my children.

I have been teaching a class on identity to a group of men on Thursday mornings at the YMCA, and one of the things that has hit me again is that we have to understand purpose if we are to actually know what we are made for. In other words, any tool, computer, or machine you acquire comes with a manual that tells you how to make it work. Typically, you ignore instruction manuals (especially if you are a man), and when your new toy doesn’t perform, you conclude it is no good. All the while, if you would have read the manual written by the person who created it, who understands its design, and is telling you how to use that design—you would have saved yourself much grief and ranting and raving about how sorry this machine is. I have done this over and over, and when my wife has calmly told me to read the instructions, or when necessity has forced me to obeisance before the instructions, my conclusions typically move from despair and thinking my new time saving tool or toy is really no good to one of marveling at the genius of the designer.

This is also true of the human personality. If we don’t know what we are made for, we will fall apart and self-destruct.  Why? We are not living in the way we were designed to live by our creator. God made us and gave us his Word (written and incarnate) to tell us our design and what it means to be human, to live, to thrive. And yet, we can understand that we are loved by God, redeemed by God, and seek to love and serve God and still have the wheels of life crush us. I know they did that to my cousin, to the point where life just seemed too much to bear. Many in the Christian community are harsh judges of those who have committed suicide. In fact, some people even believe no saved person would do this. Or they harbor question they are afraid to ask. I was out the other day talking to someone and I told her the story of my cousin. Tentatively she asked me, “Well, can a Christian committee suicide?”

I paused a moment to ponder the question and before I answered, it hit me just how thankful I am for the gospel. It really is the answer to our deepest questions and I told her this: “You know, this is why I am so hopeful, and it has nothing to do with me—thank God for that. Salvation and redemption have to do with Jesus and what he did for us. If we are saved by grace, plus nothing, that means plus nothing. Even if our final act is one of despair, we are saved by grace alone. God died for all our sins. Neither our righteousness nor our sin can separate us from God’s love.” I continued, “Think out the implications of the gospel. God is not waiting to see if I end on a high note or a low note; his love for me is set because Jesus went to the cross for me and there took all my sins upon himself.  That is where I get my value, not by anything I have done or not done.” She looked at me for a few moments and tears started rolling down her cheeks and in one of those serendipitous moments—the lines of the gospel connected and she said, “Of course, that is right! I see it.” Then she was silent and just kept cutting my hair, weeping tears of joy for the truth of the gospel.