October 17, 2023
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Robin Williams, many thought was one of the funniest men in America, successful in movies, TV, even Broadway. But a suicide? That was the shocking news that left the entertainment world - and the entertained world - reeling. It just seems that the joy and laughter he gave so many just somehow wasn't enough for him. Not to keep on living.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Pain Behind the Laughs."
You know, his death makes me think of Jimmy, who always made me laugh. He made a lot of people laugh. He was never famous, but he was the funniest guy we knew at the time. I tried not to show how shocked I was the night I got a call from Jimmy to say goodbye. In fact, he had broken into my office. He said, "I just was going to call you - because you're the only person I want to say goodbye to." He was on his way to kill himself.
Well, thank God, he stayed there until I could get there. We talked all night. And Jimmy poured out all the pain that his humor had concealed. I never knew. And seemingly, so full of life, he was thinking about dying.That's part of what has made Robin Williams' death so hard to grasp. There is this huge gap between the bright light we saw on the outside and the darkness that must have been stalking him on the inside. And there's certainly many other examples of this as well. Sadly, that haunting contradiction, it's all too familiar to a lot of folks who may never have their name in the headlines. See, we've got it all together on the outside, but we're falling apart on the inside. You see my smile - inside, I'm battling my secret pain.
And it's that word secret that makes our inner darkness so dangerous. When I hide my monsters in the shadows, they stalk me constantly. Rather than facing our monsters, we opt for pain relievers. Which, rather than solving our problems, become another problem in themselves.
Stuffing our pain? That's not a cure. "Outing" our pain, that's where a cure begins. When I drag those monsters into the light, they begin to lose their power over me. There is no shame in letting people into your battle. There is great danger in trying to fight it alone.
I'm forever grateful that young Jimmy called me that night that he was going to die. Strangely, he found a reason to live that night; actually, the reason to live. He opened up all his pain to the One who said, "The Lord has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted." He talked about a darkness that comes to us when He spoke of it in our word for today from the Word of God, John 10:10. He said, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."
That's Jesus, of course. The Bible actually says we were "created by Him and for Him." Which means we've got this God-sized hole in our heart that no relationship, no accomplishment can fill. So, we're ever searching; we're never finding, because God has planted what the Bible calls "eternity in our hearts."
I'm so thankful that I found that "forever" thing when I embraced that relationship with the God I was made by and made for. A relationship that was free for me, but it cost Jesus everything. It meant sacrificing His life, dying on a cross, to open the way for a sinful me to belong to a perfect God and to live forever.
Now, with the vista of my life opened up beyond my years here to this amazing forever, I can live life here to the fullest, doing life with the One who said, "Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life."
On this very day, this Jesus stands ready to come in and turn the darkness to light inside of you. Please tell Him today, "Jesus, you died for me. I'm yours." Go to our website and there I'll show you how to be sure you belong to Him. It's ANewStory.com.
See, because of Jesus, we know the darkness doesn't have to win, because light has come.