428 days of Duolingo.
A 5-minute plank.
Day 9 of the 30-day press-up challenge.
I just love setting myself challenges, picking away at them day by day, step by step, minute by minute.
My latest personal challenge is 40 days of praying around one issue, inspired by Mark Batterson’s book Draw the Circle. Before starting, Batterson encourages readers to pray about what to pray for, and then to commit to praying for that one thing “with the same kind of consistency with which the earth circles the sun.”
On Day One, I asked God two questions:
- If Jesus were truly my personal USP, what would my life look like?
- If Jesus were truly the USP of RunningSpace, what would RunningSpace look like?
And so, day after day, I prayed those questions.
Until Day 13, when something shifted.
I realised that the thing I really needed to pray for was that the suicide rate would go down. I needed to pray that people would stop killing themselves, stop trying to kill themselves, and for the line on that wretched graph above to start to bend downwards instead of upwards.
Oh God please do this! It’s an impossible dream, but if it’s an impossible dream, surely God will do miracles.
A Brief History We’ve Forgotten
Did you know that suicide has not always been all that much of a thing? I’ve been studying the history, and it’s astonishing to note that up until 1680, “there were dramatic but isolated explosions, but they did not mark the start of the great wave of voluntary deaths*.”
We live in a world where suicide feels tragically normal, as though it’s just part of the human condition in a broken world. But it’s not.
The Bible seems to agree. Across sixty-six books, written over about 2,500 years, there are just seven recorded suicides. Yet in the UK alone, it takes less than ten hours for seven people to die by suicide, leaving behind an estimated 938 grieving loved ones, children without parents, widows without a husband, communities fractured, and hearts broken.
The Bible does however record many people who felt like they wanted to die: Elijah in 1 Kings 19, Job in Job 3, and the many psalmists crying out in lament. Feeling overwhelmed by sorrow is normal. But suicide is not.
The “English Malady”
Back to 1680. From that point on, scholars and writers began referring to suicide as “the English malady,” and speculating on its causes.
An English Malady? I can’t help wondering if that’s why RunningSpace exists today, to pray into something spiritual and deep-rooted in this time and in this place.
Maybe, just maybe, God is inviting us to circle this issue in prayer – here, in England, in 2025 – so that something might break open, not just locally but globally.
It’s bold, I know, and it will take a leap of faith to pray, and endurance to stay the course.
Signs of Hope
There are signs of hope. Since RunningSpace began, the global recorded suicide rate has dropped from around 800,000 deaths per year to 700,000, a decline of about 13% (according to World Health Organization estimates).
To quote Mark Batterson again:
“Perhaps it’s time to stop talking to our God about [suicide], and start talking to [suicide] about our God…The battlefield is the prayer closet, and secret prayer is our secret weapon. When we hit our knees, we pick a fight with the enemy. We are immediately transported to the frontlines of the kingdom, where we wage war with the principalities and powers. That is where the battle is won or lost – on our knees! And when we hit our knees, God fights our battles for us.”
— Mark Batterson, Draw the Circle
So that’s where I’ll be, knees on the floor, heart set on the impossible.
Much love
Jacky
A Gentle Note
If you’ve lost someone to suicide, or have ever struggled with suicidal thoughts yourself, please know you’re not alone, and help is available.
In the UK, you can contact Samaritans on 116 123 (free, 24/7), or visit www.samaritans.org.
*Barbagli, Marzio. Farewell to the World: A History of Suicide. Polity Press.
**Abimelech Judges 9:54, Saul 1 Samuel 31:4-5, Ahithophel 2 Samuel 17:23, Zimri 1 Kings 16:18, Judas Iscariot Matthew 27:5, Samson Judges 16:30, Saul’s armour-bearer 1 Samuel 31:4-5
