Tonight at the large group meeting for Student Impact we had a wonderful time of extended praise and prayer. It was really encouraging and a really great time to praise God and cry out to Him with my fellow brothers and sisters here in Japan. But one thing that really struck me was this number that they flashed on the power point screen. 32,845. At first I had no idea what this number represented. Then they went on to explain. 32,845 represents the number of suicides in Japan this past year. THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE people took there own life in one year in one country. That is one person every fifteen minutes. I was speechless. I knew that the suicide rate was pretty high in Japan, but when you are given an actual number it really makes you think. It really puts things into perspective. 32,845 Japanese people were so hopeless that no life was more appealing that life. And I’m pretty sure that out of those 32,845 Japanese people…none of them knew Jesus.
“1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
Ecclesiastes 1:1-14
For the past couple of days I have been reading through the book of Ecclesiastes and again and again King David writes that a life lived “under the sun” is “meaningless.” A life that is lived “under the sun” describes a life lived apart from God and with no belief in the afterlife. King David had it all! Riches, fame, wisdom, pleasure, power, yet it is all meaningless. A temporary happiness may result from some of these things, but it never satisfies or leaves you fulfilled, often it leaves you wanting more. These things in itself aren’t bad. That’s not what the writer is saying. But when your self fulfillment, your happiness and joy, your life’s purpose depends on or is maintained by these things, that’s when we’re caught in a lie.
Japan is a rich nation and a major economic power. But by the show in the number of suicides just like it says in Ecclesiasties, riches, power, wisdom isn’t cutting it. I strongly believe that that the percentage of Christians and the suicide rate is highly correlated. A life without Christ is a life without hope, without a lasting love, joy, or peace.
32,845. Every time I think of that number it leaves me feeling SO unsettled and breaks my heart. Please please be in prayer for those in Japan who are without hope. For those who are chasing after things that are meaningless. Please please pray that truth and light may come to those who are seeking to find satisfaction and fulfillment. That they would come to know Jesus, the ONLY ONE that can satisfy them, redeem them, give them life, and save them from a life that is meaningless.
