Psalms 23

Anthony Bourdain’s suicide made me think. Here was someone who in my mind had the life he wanted to live, the way I would want it for myself. A job he loved.  He traveled the world.  Explored new sights, culture, cuisine & introduced interesting lives from around the world.  He had an amazing life!  Had more money than one would need! Had style! He was always surrounded by beautiful and famous people. People wanted to be around him!  His life seemed free of the day to day pressures that was drowning me.  Yet there was that darkest hour, where everything seemed meaningless that he took his own life!

The news of Mr. Bourdain’s suicide reached me at a time when my own mind was asking God why some had everything in life, while I was struggling under the pressures of work and everyday life. Anthony came every Sunday in to my life through his CNN show. I looked forward to his unique story telling style of bringing every day lives of common and uncommon people from around a globe, that I will never get to travel. In his travels, he seemed to fit in with ease in to his surroundings, connect with people of all walks of life.  And people seemed to take to him, as I did, for his unassuming mannerisms. Yet there were those dark rooms in the deep of his mind that not even those closest to him knew of, that led him to give up on a life that seemed to have it all. Yes, he had spoken openly of missteps in life, but which one of us haven’t had them. He had moved on, seemingly, gaining wisdom and strength from those missteps and made an amazingly successful career as a world famous chef, writer and TV show personality. I wondered what went wrong. Why did you do it Anthony, my mind questioned, as if he was standing in front of me.

As I sat there, my thoughts wandered to David, the boy, the army commander, the king who faced seemingly insurmountable challenges that would lead any man to madness or if sane, take one’s life just to get away from the demons that chased him day and night. Constantly his life was under threat from Saul. He was paid with accusations, threats and continuous attempts on his life for his unwavering loyalty to his king and family. Yet he writes only of the goodness of God in Psalms 23. The Bible says God has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. David, the hunted dog, had one thing going for him - FAITH in a God who anointed him the king of Israel at a time when his own family and others discounted him as a naive, inexperienced young man. So in his old age, towards the end of his life, when he looked back upon his life's journey, he saw God’s righteous right hand that upheld him in the darkest hours of his life and he said, “The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall not want...”

I pray that God will give us faith in our darkest hours and know that he's got us covered.

Lauren Daigle - You say