With increased frequency and callousness, men and women are choosing death as an easy way out of hardships. For an ever-growing number of people, sustained and meaningful purpose for one’s life is unattainable. Suicide is nothing new but the merciless desire to snuff out the lives of others is becoming more common.
Just this week a young man shot and killed his mother and friend as they slept. After the murders he wrote on Facebook, “What I look forward to is the nothingness after death. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about murder, wondering what it feels like. But I’ve barely felt anything.” He was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot within a day or so of the murders.
Last month a female couple, whose lifestyle demonstrated utter confusion of godly principles, drove off a cliff with their 6 adopted children. While the motives aren’t known, the circumstances point to the car being intentionally driven off the cliff.
To try and understand why people choose these actions is to try and understand the mind of Satan. We are warned to distance ourselves from him by drawing closer to God, “But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men’” (Mark 8:33). Throughout human existence, mankind has proven to have a complete lack of foresight without godly direction. Relying on our own direction leaves us unprepared and susceptible to the deceiver. Satan is single-minded in his intentions towards man and we are warned to “[b]e sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Without God, man can do little to stop reflecting the attitudes of Satan. Exposure to these views long enough will lead to deception and, ultimately, death. Christ was clear on the end result of a godless life manipulated by the Devil. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
The path laid before us is difficult only because we have such a proclivity to stumble onto that broad road leading towards destruction. Like each of us, King David had that same tendency, but he understood how to find light in the darkness: “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). God’s Word is THE choice and the only means to attain understanding, purpose and most importantly, the path to eternal life.
