The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently came out with a report with staggering information.  Suicide is on the rise.  The report mentions that suicide rates are up more than 30 percent in half of the United States since 1999.

The report also shares that more than half of the people who died by suicide did not have a known mental health condition. In 2016 alone, about 45,000 lives were lost to suicide.  Suicide is now one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States.  Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams, and Kate Spade were all victims of suicide.

What leads a person to a place of contemplating of taking their own life?  In many cases, it’s boiled down to the feeling of being hopeless.

When we edge God out of our society, government and lives, we will place our hope, strength and comfort in the wrong things.

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 paints a grim picture of what life looks like without God.

“I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.
And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.”

Solomon (the writer of this passage) examined the oppressed. He noted that there is none to comfort them in their oppression. If there is no comforter, the oppressed suffer, and that’s just the way things are.

After seeing a life of hurt, pain and brokenness without a comforter, the final conclusion was that it would be better never to exist in a world without God due to the amount of evil and suffering under the sun.  (Verse 3)

As unrighteousness continues to be on the increase in our culture, the Church needs to be ready to minister, because unrighteousness only leads to brokenness. 

Abortion leads to brokenness

Illinois Right To Life quotes some eye-opening statistics, “Women with a history of abortion have higher rates of anxiety (34 percent higher), depression (37 percent), alcohol use/misuse (110 percent), marijuana use (230 percent), and suicidal behavior (155 percent) compared to those who have not had abortions.”

Homosexuality leads to brokenness

The Central Disease Center has quoted on their website, “In 2014, gay and bisexual men made up an estimated 2 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 70 percent of new HIV infections. Approximately 492,000 sexually active gay and bisexual men are at high risk for HIV.”

Divorce leads to brokenness

Divorce makes a negative impact on the family, not to mention the lasting effects on children.

Pornography leads to brokenness

Porn ruins a person’s ability to relate with others sexually and ruins marriages.  A 2016 Science Magazine study revealed divorce rates double when people start watching porn.

Premarital Sex leads to brokenness

In addition to the risk of contracting STDs and other diseases or becoming pregnant, premarital sex leads to emotional distress, distrust, regret and emptiness.

As unrighteousness continues to be on the increase in our culture, the Church must be ready to minister, because unrighteousness only leads to brokenness.

And sadly the brokenness will continue if we allow evil to prevail in our culture, government and families.  As the Church, we’d better get ready to respond. We have the message of hope.

Jesus said, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” ~John 4:35

What can you do? 

PRAY: That pastors and churches will be faithful in sharing the full Gospel, which can bring hope and cultural transformation.

PRAY: That you can be a willing vessel in sharing God’s wonderful message of grace.

PRAY: That you can support ministries that are promoting a biblical worldview and/or ministering to those who are broken.

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I’ve got to admit, I was surprised—and touched—by the number of positive emails and comments I received from BreakPoint listeners in response to my commentary on the death of Robin Williams and the scourge of depression.

In that commentary, I focused on the fact that clinical depression is a serious medical condition—and if you or a loved one suffers from it, you need to get help.

Today, I want to talk about another aspect of depression: the role that our beliefs can play in our moods. As someone who’s suffered from depression, I can tell you, it’s complicated. In addition to infelicitous brain chemistry, it can also be a product of our personal circumstances and the beliefs through which we interpret those circumstances.

Let me be clear from the start: People can believe all the right things and it still might not be enough, as the tragic story of Matthew Warren illustrates. Why this is the case is something that we will not understand this side of eternity.

But this is not the same thing as saying that our beliefs are immaterial when it comes to depression and suicide. Therapists treating people for anxiety and depression often use what’s known as “cognitive behavioral therapy,” which starts from the assumption that the illnesses are due, in part, to “maladaptive thinking.”

Anyone who has struggled with depression knows what “maladaptive thinking” feels like: a “tape” of sorts running in your head filled with largely untrue messages of helplessness and hopelessness. Since people believe that what they think is true, the thoughts influence our actions and our moods. Overcoming depression requires turning the tape off, which is easier said than done.

If untrue thoughts play a role in depression, doesn’t it stand to reason that we should be concerned about the cultural messages and trends that can shape the content of those thoughts?

Obviously, brain chemistry and our personal history are more influential, but it would be unwise to ignore the impact of culture.

Case in point: at the recent Emmy Awards, comedian Sarah Silverman half jokingly told the audience “we’re all just made of molecules and we’re all hurling through space right now.”

It’s hard to imagine a more succinct summary of the nihilism and materialism that dominates cultural discourse. Hardly a week goes by without a story telling us that “science” has found that qualities that make us human—love, altruism, the appreciation of beauty—are just molecules doing their thing in our heads.

This kind of thinking reduces human existence to, as Shakespeare famously put it, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” It makes “not to be,” to reference Shakespeare again, a reasonable response to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the sea of troubles.

What it doesn’t do is give us a reason to choose life even in the midst of pain.

For that you need hope. A good friend of mine who also suffers from depression has taken to praying certain Psalms when he feels what Churchill called “the black dog on my shoulder.” For instance, such as Psalms 42 and 43 with their refrain “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? ” and the Psalm which our Lord prayed on the cross, Psalm 22, which opens with the great cry of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

He prays them because, while they do not deny the pain, they don’t let pain have the last word. We are told to “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,” and also “I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you.”

This is what hope looks like. It’s the tape we all need running in our heads.

There is no one-size-fits-all cure for depression. But there is help for those who need it. The links below are to a few of the many resources and organizations available.

The Asphyxiation of Hope: Robin Williams, Suicide, and Depression
Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | August 20, 2014

A series of articles on depression by Dr. Bruce Hennigan and others is introduced at this link
Focus on the Family

What is Depression?
National Institutes of Health

Depression Support Center
WebMD

Depression Resource Center

This article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.org webstie.