A Merciful Opportunity
(Isaiah 55:8, 9) “For the thoughts of YOU people are not my thoughts, nor are my ways YOUR ways,” is the utterance of Jehovah. [SUP]9[/SUP] “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than YOUR ways, and my thoughts than YOUR thoughts.
Stunned friends of a suicide victim may thus take comfort in knowing that “God has shown mercy to those fearing him. For he himself well knows the formation of us, remembering that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:10-14) Only God can fully understand the role of mental sickness, extreme stress, even genetic defects, in a “suicidal crisis,” which, the National Observer noted, “is not a lifetime characteristic [but] often a matter only of minutes or of hours.”—See Ecclesiastes 7:7.
Granted, one who takes his own life deprives himself of the opportunity to repent of his self-murder. But who can say whether one driven to suicide might have had a change of heart had his fatal attempt failed? Some notorious murderers have, in fact, changed and earned God’s forgiveness during their lifetime.—2 Kings 21:16; 2 Chronicles 33:12, 13.
