Max Lucado, Pastor and Author: Reject Suicide, Embrace God

Max Lucado, a San Antonio pastor and best-selling author, urged readers of a column appearing on Fox News.com to reject suicide and embrace God after the deaths last week of fashion designer Kate Spade and CNN celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

Lucado, noting that statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the suicide rate in the United States had jumped 39 percent from 1999 to 2016, urged readers that "joy comes because God comes."

"You'll be tempted to give up," Lucado, the best-selling author of "Unshakable Hope: Building Our Lives on the Promise of God," said Fox News.com. "Please don't. Open your Bible. Meditate on Scripture. Sing hymns.”

"Talk to someone about your hurt. Seek help. Place yourself in a position to be found by hope. Weeping comes. But so does joy. Darkness comes, but so does the morning. Sadness comes, but so does hope. Sorrow may have the night, but it cannot have our life."

Lucado said suicide victims often face mental illness or physical illnesses and feel "the peril of mental fatigue."

"Their clouds had no silver linings," Lucado said. "Their storms had no rainbows. If that describes the way you feel, can I urge you to consider one of the great promises of the Bible? The promise begins with this phrase: 'Weeping may last through the night, (Ps. 30:5). Of course, you knew that much.”

"You didn't need to read the verse to know its truth. Weeping can last through the night. Weeping may last through the night, and the next night and the next. This is not news to you.

But this may be: 'Joy comes with the morning' (Ps. 30:5). Despair will not rule the day. Sorrow will not last forever. The clouds may eclipse the sun, but they cannot eliminate it. Night might prolong the dawn, but it cannot defeat it. Morning comes."

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline director John Draper told the Wall Street Journal that calls there jumped 25 percent in the two days after Spade's death compared to the same period last week. The lifeline phone number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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