The Gaping Chasm of Suicide

By Jeremy Myers

Till He Comes Living Life on Mission

"No Christian has really lived until they have stared into the glowing eyes of atheism, staggered along the gaping chasm of suicide, and camped near the smoking gates of hell. But that’s where I’ve been for about six months.

And I’m not on a sightseeing tour. I’m not taking pictures. I’m not buying trinkets to take home and put on my bookshelf and show off to my Christian friends. No, I’m here for life.

Even if I do find my way back out of this pit, and get back home with some souvenirs, I don’t have many Christian friends left to show them to. When I began this descent into depression, despair, and doubt, those that didn’t shoot at me while I fell, simply abandoned me. No calls. No e-mails. No letters. Even when I cried out for help, the most frequent response (if I got any response at all) was, 'I’ll be praying for you.'”

~ ~ ~

"But as I looked at these churches, I began to get quite alarmed. Despite all their talk about missions and evangelism, not a single one of the churches I was looking at were doing much to reach, love, and serve those in their own communities that needed Jesus most. Oh sure, they courted the businessmen, the lawyers, and the doctors, and mail checks to the missionaries in Nigeria, and send a team to build a medical clinic in Bolivia. They had groups that served down at the local soup kitchen, and a few radical souls who hand out tracts on the street corners downtown. But as I looked around these churches, there were no poor, no homeless, no prostitutes, no atheists, no drug addicts. There definitely weren’t any democrats. Apparently, such people could be prayed for, but were not allowed to actually attend church."

~ ~ ~

"So I began to change how I prayed. And that was the biggest mistake of my life.

I prayed that God would help me love people that most churches loved to hate. Democrats, pornographers, and abortion doctors. I prayed that God would help me reach people that most Christians saw as unreachable. Homosexuals, prostitutes, strippers, and atheists. I prayed that God would help me understand what people are going through when they turn to drugs, alcohol, suicide, and crime as a way to solve or forget their problems.

In hindsight, I wish these were prayers God had said “No” to."

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