At the age of 13 a friend of mine found her father dead.

She walked into their garage after school to find him and saw him sitting in his car. The car was still running. She screamed and opened the car door, tried to wake him, then reached across the arms that used to hold her, past the mouth that used to tell her he loved her and to the ignition to turn off the car. He’d been dead for hours.

She was never the same again.

The resulting trauma and debts to their family tore them apart as they had to sell all they owned and move to another state. Her mother was alone after being married for 20 years with no job experience.

What, we wonder drove him to do that? Was he so selfish that he did not for a minute consider the effect it would have on those he loved? On those who counted on him? What sort of financial burden or mistake would his family consider not worth forgiving him for? What sort of personal emotional burden was so unmanageable that it was worth scarring his children so traumatically? Or was there something chemically wrong in his body that made him depressed, so depressed that he thought that there was no way out. But the real question is what did he think he was on this earth for? What was his purpose in life?

 “If death is our final destiny then I know one thing is clear. Without the love of Jesus Christ, we will never get out of here.[1]”

Let’s first look at what death is. Perhaps if we understand death, we can understand life.

First of all, we must realize that we do not have a soul. Let me say that again. We do not have a soul. We are a soul. We have a body. A body that is limited in time and space and will get old and die. But we will never die as God will give us a new resurrected multidimensional body.

Second, scientists have now proven that there are at least 6 other dimensions besides our 4 known dimensions of height, length, width and time. Why is this relevant? The first important reason is because it proves that man may well be a multi-dimensional being as the Bible says. And thus what we see here and now is not all there is. There are other dimensions (curious? see footnote[2]).  If the four dimensions of Time and Space are the natural, the other dimension are supernatural.  That means that science is now coming to the conclusion that what religion has been saying about the soul and supernatural events is quite possibly true.

Now this changes what death is. Death becomes a transition from the natural and temporal to the supernatural and permanent. The Bible says we spend a short time in these dimensions but we spend eternity in those other dimensions. Science goes on to prove that there had to be a first cause of the universe that finely tuned the universe, made the dimensions, interacts with the universe and designed it so that you could personally discover Him.

So if God exists, why would He have spent so much time designing this earth and then you, unless He had a purpose for your life? And if you have been designed for a purpose, you will never find satisfaction until you are doing just that with your life. And then will you have joy. Not necessarily happiness, but joy. The Bible says that the chief purpose of Man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. You see you will enjoy God when you do what he has designed you to do. He has designed you to glorify Him.

If you were to kill yourself for any selfish reason then you would miss glorifying God. How do you glorify him? What’s the only thing that will satisfy you? What did Christ say his followers should do? “Love God and Love your Neighbor.” The love God part we start to do by accepting Christ’s sacrifice for paying for our evil deeds. The loving our neighbor is done by spreading the Good News of Christ’s salvation, and working for the benefit of others. That is your purpose. It’s the only thing that will make you happy.

Ask yourself, do you think Mother Teresa ever had bad days? Of course she did! We can see that in her writings. But do you think Mother Teresa had joy? Yes she did. I knew her personally[3]. She had joy because she loved God and dedicated her life to others. If you feel your life has no value then you need purpose in your life, you need to do what Mother Teresa did. Stop focusing on yourself. Love God and love others, help others to ensure their life on earth is better, and take the Gospel to others to ensure that their life in the now scientifically proven supernatural is also better.

But, will committing suicide send you to Hell? Not at all. Now that Christ has died for our sins, there in only one thing that could send you to hell and that is rejecting His free gift so that you have to pay for your evil deeds yourself. Still, committing suicide is the same as telling God: “I don’t care what you designed me for; I’m getting out of here.” What audacity can we have, to say that to the Creator of the entire universe, who carefully crafted us? How much selfishness can we have, to say to our brothers and sisters, our children and our parents, that they weren’t worth suffering a few years on earth for?

Yet, let me add this. It is possible that you have a physical ailment that results in depression. God has fine-tuned our bodies and when sin entered the world, our bodies started to decay. With each succeeding generation, more genetic defects were passed down. Yet God has given us science and technology and medical help (mostly started centuries ago by Christian monks and Christian scientists), till today we can isolate certain types of depression as due to the deficiency in production of certain hormones or chemicals[4]. My wonderful mother in law is such an example. For over 20 years, she was depressed, nothing worked for her, counseling, praying, working hard to ignore it and remembering her blessings, nothing worked. Till one day she was asked to undergo a hormonal analysis. It turned out that she was deficient in certain chemicals in her brain. She was embarrassed because it sounded like “a mental illness”, until she was reminded that had she been born with the genetic defect of diabetes, a similar hormonal deficiency, she would not be embarrassed. So if you are depressed and feel there is no way out. You should first talk to a clinical psychologist who can do some chemical and hormonal tests on you and then you need to try various drugs and combinations of them till you find the right mix (it took my mother in law many tries – some made her too high, some too low). Today she is the greatest mother in law a man could have[5]. She is always ready to speak out about her experience with depression so that others need not suffer the same way.

So now go give your life meaning and have joy, you don’t belong to you. You belong to God and your family and friends. We need you. Tarry with us for now and in a short time God will take us to the other side, the other dimensions where there will be no sorrow, no tears and no death.