Ye Olde Bend in the River

Suicide. A permanent "fix" for what it usually a transient problem. Transient meaning--it will go away after a while. But the permanency of such a "fix" cannot be undone. I would posit that many a Christian has thought of hastening their transit into eternity via this tragedy.

To have the thought flit through your mind is nothing to be ashamed of--many great men of God longed for their life to end, Elijah and Jonah among them. Just please, please, PLEASE, do not follow through on such thoughts; instead, take a cue from those Biblical men of God. The stories of their human frailty are included in Scripture for a reason--to show us how to deal with such temptations.

You see, they realized that life belongs to the Giver of life--to God--and He and He alone has the right to end it. So they held back from putting themselves out their misery by their own hand. Instead, they prayed. They pleaded with God to hasten their demise. And God listened, and He answered. His answer did NOT include taking their lives; instead, to both He gave a solution, a realization of the transience of what ailed them. They did not take their life into their own hands, they put it in God's. And He, faithful God that He is, addressed their pain, encouraged them, and gave them the strength to keep on living. You can read those stories in 1 Kings 19 and Jonah 4. (Please note--God's way is NOT to commit suicide!)

The fact is, as God showed His men of old, problems have a tendency to resolve themselves down the road (and sometimes that resolution includes a heart change in us!). Any who opt to go down the suicide road will never be around to reap those benefits. What is always left is a host of surviving family and friends who must muddle through the emotional devastation incurred--harrowing pain that is not transient, but rather lasts a lifetime. I should know. I am such a one.

If only ... if only those tempted towards suicide would open their eyes to what God is saying, that taking one's life is not the answer, that life's pains and problems are by nature transient ...

When my first husband, Steve Muse, was praying for a wife, he set his sights on a young lady in his church who happened to play the piano. He was impressed--playing an instrument can be a very useful gift for a minister's wife. So he began to pray about this young woman, asking God if He was leading him to her to be united in life and ministry. He had not yet apprised her of his pie-in-the-sky dreams when God kind of let him know she was not The One. How? She waltzed in one night with a friend of his, another budding minister, proudly showing off the ring his friend had just given her. And just like that his dreams came crashing down.

The pain was real. The pain was devastating. Yet ... what would have happened if he had given in to the sucker punch to the gut he received that night and taken his life to escape the emotional pain that threatened to overcome him? He never would have met the woman (me!) that God had prepared for him to be his helpmeet in life as well as in the ministry. As painful as that disappointment was, I am so glad he hung on to the river of life for, just a little further on, God worked "God-incidence" after "God-incidence" to bring him to the helpmeet He had chosen for him.

As a dear friend, a missionary to the Chinese, once said to me, "Janine, life is hard." And in reference to the tears I could not control, tears for the pain my son was experiencing, he added, "Your son is going to be all right." And he was. As all-encompassing and devastating as my son's painful situation was, like the let-down Steve experienced, it was just a bend in the river of life.

Many moons ago, the wife of the missionary couple we worked with invited a nun to minister to the women heading different areas of their ministry. The nun gave us a little devotional, then played a kind of game with us. She had cut out pictures from magazines, put them in a plain paper sack, and asked us to take turns pulling out the pictures. She explained that she had asked God to give her a word for each person attending related to whatever picture they chose.

Strange to say, I have no recollection of my own picture and what the nun said to me, but I vividly recall the picture pulled by a colleague. It was the picture of a lazily winding river, a river with a bend. The river was lovely, but there was no inkling of what lay around the bend just out of sight.

That picture and its meaning seared themselves into my psyche, to be pulled out now and again to reexamine and, like David of old in 1 Samuel 30:6-8, encourage myself in the Lord.

What does that bend speak to me? It says: life flows, it does not remain stagnant, and if, in the course of its path, there are rapids , scary places, hurtful places, do not let yourself yield to panic. Rather, rest assured that just around the bend there will be a place of calm.

Forty years the children of Israel were condemned to wander in the wilderness for their lack of faith. And yet, though the harsh punishment had been brought on by their own rebelliousness, through it all, God, our gracious faithful God, time and again showed mercy on them. Life in the desert, the desert they merited, might have been hard--yet, though they might have deserved unrelenting hardship, He lovingly gave His children moments of respite. He gave them oases.

An oasis, as you know, is an unexpected fertile spot in a desert, a wondrous place where life-giving water can be found. A place where the weary traveler can find sustenance and safety. Through the stories faithfully recorded of the Israelites, we know what to expect when we are faced with a desert in life (Romans 15:4). No matter how hard our life might be, we can know that, just around the bend, an oasis, a time of rest and refreshing, is coming.

What trial are you facing? Are you being pressed on all sides like the olive when it is crushed to give its oil? No matter what painful desert you are going through, hang on. Don't give up. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). God's covenants may have changed--but never, ever His character. If He was gracious to His rascally children of old, you can be sure He will do the same for those who are His children today, those who are washed in the precious blood of His Son.

"I would have fainted, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord!" (Psalm 27:13-14).