Over the despair
There was a man in his 50s that wanted to change his name to God. Ex Vietnamese War veteran by the name of Charles wanted to change his last name to God, but the court had denied it.
In the end, the man had changed to “I am who I am” instead and was allowed to change that way. So the name Charles was “I am” and “Who I Am” and said the veteran named Charles was now gone. “Who I am” had recently placed a grave of “Charles” in his backyard. Many people thought he was mental.
Last October there was disturbing news of the Beltway sniper attacks by a serial killer. When the sniper called the police, he had taunted them by saying, “call me God.” There was a taunting message left by a 13 year old said, “Hello cops, I’m God!” after discovering the body of a police near a middle school in Maryland. Later, the perpetrator John Allen Muhammad was caught, and was found that the man was twisted with despair. There was another disturbing story of an elementary school student that had suicide. In a diary that was discovered, the victim had wrote that he / she wanted to be “free like the fish.” There were many writings of despair on the diary after coming back from school and extracurricular studies. Even the victim’s chatting room ID was “Despair”. How hard was the school so difficult that the victim had hung himself / herself? Several days ago, in a newspaper in Korea, there were several all-female high school students who had taken a picture of them praying in front of a pig’s head. They were doing it in the classroom as a “do well on test”. It was such a poor sight watching the students praying to a pig’s head for luck in passing exams.
There is the man who had made himself a God out of delusional megalomania, then there’s the man who had killed and called himself God, because of his own despair from the society, the poor suicide victim of the elementary when studying and success was their God, and finally the female students’ who had prayed to the Pig’s head… regrets of the past, the limits of the current and passing over the unknown future, shows the limit and the futility of what humans are like.
November 11th, 1855 was when Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had passed away at the age of 42. We call him the “Anxious Philosopher”. The philosophy of Kierkegaard’s fundamental is in despair. He had made a famous definition of “Despair is the disease to death”. His anxiety in philosophy was that “it was the despair of dealing with Sin.” Through our sins, faith, and reconciling with God, cans someone finally find an inner peace.
Lately, there had been increasing problem of suicide in Korean community around Los Angeles.
Out of loneliness and failing to achieve the “American Dream’, many people commit suicide. Even if the United States looks like a haven, there is much insecurity within the country. Problems with the youths doing drugs, sex problems, gambling and fraudulence, etc, in the swamps of these despairs, many could not get out and would drown and die from it. They do not take their life dear, and would waste it instead, in life and death instead, becoming more and more urgent in the immediate problems.
In this Fall, in thinking and thanking, let’s show in our ministry that fame, success, worldly pleasure and wealth are not our God. Even if yourself becomes a God, let it be shown that nothing else is God instead. It is because the others are idols that decieves us, leading us into despiar and anxiety, finally to death. If anything becomes above the rank of god, it is guarenteed that the person will fall into despair, and end in the path of death. In Exodus 20, chapter 3, God said to “not worship other Gods besides me.” This first commendament is the fundamental requirement in order for humans to be happy and satisfied. When Israelites had abandoned God and started to worship idols, it shows what kind of severe dispair they would fall into. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said, ““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. The only “true way of life and joy” is by believing in Jesus Christ (As shown in book of John 14:6)
During this autumn, I hope that we would brightly evangelise Jesus into the peope of despair. Our greatest commision is to follow Jesus who wanted to find his lost sheep?”
(November 25th 2002)
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To Fly Over 
Over the despair