Just got some news from a friend requesting prayer, her Uncle died this weekend, possibly from suicide. That hasn’t been determined for sure yet.
This brought back a memory that I’d shoved to the back of my mind not wanting to think about the tragedy. I’m going to get out of my timeline a bit in sharing this, but I want to get this written down while I’m thinking of it.
My Uncle committed suicide when I was about 9. He’d never known God, and the only “christians” he knew were my parents. A few weeks before he died, he came to their house asking them to tell him about God. He wanted to know how to be saved! But, instead of telling him about Jesus, they simply told him that he had to go to church. He replied that he couldn’t go on Sunday nights because the races were on Sundays and he was on the pit crew, he had a commitment to be there throughout the season. They replied that if races were more important to him than church, he couldn’t be saved.
He hung himself in my Aunt’s garage a week or two later.
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I’m sorry to read this.
I have noticed that UPC members have this obsession with “giving things up for The Lord”. While there is some truth to this, they take it too far. They also tend to push for individuals to give up things that they personally hate.
For instance, my UPC mothet hated that I practiced the piano four hours a day. She liked that I could play well, but she wanted me to spend four hours with her, just listening to her babble about random things. When she couldn’t get me to do that, she accused me of worshipping the piano as an idol and that I needed to “give up the piano for The Lord”.
While people need to give up sinful practice, they do not have to give up normal hobbies or jobs as long as they are not sinful. Nevertheless, the idea of giving things up never goes away. I’ve seen UPC bloggers post about quitting normal jobs to “give things up”. It’s sad that your uncle paid the price for this silly belief.