I have been alone many times in my life. My vision problem meant I spent a lot of time alone indoors instead of outside playing with other children. We moved a few times, and being naturally reticent, I was slow to make new friends. Being a preacher’s wife, and then a law enforcement officer’s wife meant I often found myself on the outside looking in—people were often uncomfortable around me. Finally, living out in the country for the past thirty years, where “next door neighbors” can be as far as half a mile away, has also kept me isolated from others. However, I learned a long time ago how to be comfortable with myself. To me, being alone seldom means being lonely.
Far too many people who live in cities, bumping elbows with hundreds of others every day, while never really being alone, are still lonely. Loneliness in the middle of a crowd must be the most debilitating kind there is. When you think no one understands and no one cares, you might as well be on a one man raft in the middle of the ocean.
No Christian should ever feel the burden of loneliness. Apart from the always pleasant surprise of bumping into a brother or sister in the middle of the week “out there in the world,” or being warmly welcomed into an assembly far from home, there is that “great cloud of witnesses” who are cheering us on, an Older Brother who has experienced every pain we have, and a Father who will listen any time of day. He is never too busy or too tired for any one of his children.
So if you find yourself feeling lonely, ask yourself why. There is an obligation to reach out for help that the person in the middle of his self-pity wants to deny. “No one loves me” excuses any sort of behavior, we think. But you will never experience the type of loneliness that the Son experienced on your behalf when, solely because of all the sins ever committed—including yours—he was separated from the Father, for God cannot countenance sin; and that Older Brother of ours took them all on his shoulders as he hung on a cross—completely alone for the first time in all eternity.
So think again about loneliness and remember that no loneliness you ever experience can match that, and any loneliness you do experience is your own fault—you have placed yourself in solitary confinement. That Brother and that Father are always there, even if the brethren down here sometimes let you down. Reach out and take hold of the comfort and fellowship that is there for the taking.
Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear… Him who knew no sin he made sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him…And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Isa 59:1,2; 2 Cor 5:21; Matt 27:46.
God forsook him, and left him hanging there alone because of your sin and because of mine, and so we will never have to be lonely again.
Dene Ward
Far too many people who live in cities, bumping elbows with hundreds of others every day, while never really being alone, are still lonely. Loneliness in the middle of a crowd must be the most debilitating kind there is. When you think no one understands and no one cares, you might as well be on a one man raft in the middle of the ocean.
No Christian should ever feel the burden of loneliness. Apart from the always pleasant surprise of bumping into a brother or sister in the middle of the week “out there in the world,” or being warmly welcomed into an assembly far from home, there is that “great cloud of witnesses” who are cheering us on, an Older Brother who has experienced every pain we have, and a Father who will listen any time of day. He is never too busy or too tired for any one of his children.
So if you find yourself feeling lonely, ask yourself why. There is an obligation to reach out for help that the person in the middle of his self-pity wants to deny. “No one loves me” excuses any sort of behavior, we think. But you will never experience the type of loneliness that the Son experienced on your behalf when, solely because of all the sins ever committed—including yours—he was separated from the Father, for God cannot countenance sin; and that Older Brother of ours took them all on his shoulders as he hung on a cross—completely alone for the first time in all eternity.
So think again about loneliness and remember that no loneliness you ever experience can match that, and any loneliness you do experience is your own fault—you have placed yourself in solitary confinement. That Brother and that Father are always there, even if the brethren down here sometimes let you down. Reach out and take hold of the comfort and fellowship that is there for the taking.
Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear… Him who knew no sin he made sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him…And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Isa 59:1,2; 2 Cor 5:21; Matt 27:46.
God forsook him, and left him hanging there alone because of your sin and because of mine, and so we will never have to be lonely again.
Dene Ward
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