Where Is God When Someone Kills Themselves?
January 29th, 2025
Torben Bergland, MD
As philosophers have struggled with what to think about suicide, so has the Christian church. A traditional view has been that suicide is a mortal sin, and such thinking has led to excessive pain for those left behind. My conviction is that whenever someone despairs and gives up on life because of unbearable suffering, God's heart breaks. Every time. The apostle Paul says, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:28–29, ESV).
I trust in God’s love and saving grace. He is the compassionate judge and savior who knows all our struggles – also the struggles of those who contemplate suicide and those who take their own lives. Whether someone chooses to live or to die, they may still be in God’s love. I believe that whenever someone walks in the shadow of death, God is right there with them, ready to guide, to comfort, and lead them to greener pastures and calmer waters (Ps 23). His desire for us is life, but with sin, death entered our world. In the end, whether in life or in death, our hope is only in Him.
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