in the darkness does not know

Whether or not suicide is a sin is not an easy answer, although there are obviously a variety of positions. One position I heard stated long ago was that suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness. Those who take their own lives don't think of the pain caused to others, don't think of the families they leave behind, don't think of the help that could be given them. The focus of those who take their own lives is the intense despair they face.

As I mulled over this thought today, it occurred to me that despair is often at the heart of conversions to Christ. Those that accept Christ recognize the emptiness that awaits them outside of Christ. They recognize their inability to solve the chasm of sin that separates them eternally from God. They recognize that they will never be good enough to earn the riches of heaven. They recognize that at the end of all things, they are utterly lost without the cross of Christ. They despair, and then they grasp that cross and they grasp that Savior and they accept the free gift of God.

Seen in this way, suicide is grasping at an escape from that despair. Only they listened to the wrong voices and grasped the nothingness offered to them. They grasped the wrong thing.