Loneliness

Look To God in Loneliness

Grace Pike

Last night I bid farewell to friends and made sure to check the lock as I closed the door behind them. In a matter of seconds, my apartment transformed from a cozy respite warm with laughter and piano music back into a plain living room with empty tea cups scattered about. I unceremoniously put the dishes in the sink and turned off the lights.

Alone again.

Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. But in a world ridden with change and uncertainty, I suddenly found the weight of my solitude crushing. Even though this week prompted abundant meditation on the of grace of God in my life, my empty home reminded me yet again that being a follower of Christ does not make me exempt from loneliness.

One of my church members noted, “Many of us, by choice or circumstances or some odd blend of both, are facing a particularly poignant season of solitude.” Do you feel it?

As believers and unbelievers around the world prepare for the upcoming holiday season, there seems to be a unique heaviness resting on us all. For some, the reality that familiar faces will be missing from across the table this year has already brought tears. Others will work tirelessly away from their families to help patients on the brink of death. The more pensive among us feel the familiar, isolating melancholy that settles in every time Christmas lights start glistening.

The Lord sees and cares about the various trials we endure. More than that, he ordains them so the testing of our faith may produce steadfastness. Though we may not understand the purpose of these trials, we are promised by our good God that when steadfastness has its full effect, we will be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4). This promise does not mean our struggles will be easy.

Are you enduring the trial of loneliness?

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer expresses why “the physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer”:

The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.  Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy.  They receive each other’s benedictions as the benediction of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you lack this kind of companionship, I implore you not to put on a smile and manufacture cheap happiness. Instead, dwell with the church as you are able and do not give up on connection with the Church if you are not able. Seek to bring the comfort of the gospel to the widow, the orphan, the sick, the refugee. Look to God’s Word to find language of lament. Search the Scriptures and read the praises of people who trusted the promises of God even through confusion and isolation.

I assure you, we can weep over the brokenness of loneliness without cheapening the sweetness of the presence of the Holy Spirit or the work of Christ to reconcile us to the Father.

God in His kindness made a way for us to have relationship with Himself, but He also designed us for relationship with each other. May we pray for and cherish this gift, giving it to others as God allows. And, regardless of our circumstances or feelings, may we cherish the truth that we will soon enough enjoy a glorious eternity of ceaseless communion with the King of Creation alongside brothers and sisters also singing His praise.

Grace Pike

Grace Pike serves as a Communications Specialist at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary—where she is pursuing a Master of Divinity. She holds a BA in Religion from Samford University in Birmingham, AL. Grace is a member of Cross Fellowship Church and is passionate about the gospel going forth to all nations.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/look-to-god-in-loneliness/

The Vicious Cycle of Idolatry in our Loneliness

Lydia Brownback

Our conscience is the first tip-off. Do we have freedom in our conscience to indulge in whatever we’re doing? Do we have regret after indulging in it? Most people can sense when they’ve crossed a line. Sometimes we blur those lines due to repetitive use of something as an escape—we can grow callous to what we’re doing. And what started as a coping mechanism becomes so much a part of life that it works itself into our identity. Then we don’t even see anymore that it is an escape, and we’re trapped.

God is so kind, however—He doesn’t leave us trapped. He’ll send the Holy Spirit to nudge our conscience. He’ll let consequences come as a result of illicit escapes. Everybody has those, whether other people know about them or not. Everybody’s got some way of coping with their bad feelings—television, internet, food, drugs, drinking, sex—and then we try to manage and minimize these coping mechanisms so they don’t take over our lives. We use them to ease us through a difficult hour or two, but it doesn’t work for very long, and it definitely doesn’t solve anything. It may make us feel better for a little while, but it’s no solution.

We will only find a solution if we (1) acknowledge that we’re escaping, and (2) are willing to look away from those means of escape to examine ourselves and ask, “What is it I’m running from and what am I afraid of?” Then you take it to the Lord (and perhaps to another person) and listen to His response.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-vicious-cycle-of-idolatry-and-loneliness/

Loneliness: An Invitation to Grow Closer to God

Jason Gaboury

Loneliness is a primal disorientation. Quiet anxiety gives way to restlessness. We look for distractions to numb ourselves and take the edge off. Anger and resentment simmer in successive waves.

Loneliness is no joke. Isolation is so powerfully disorienting that solitary confinement is classified as a form of torture.

As I sat in that chair across from Friar Ugo, I could feel the primordial weight of loneliness pressing in on me. I knew the story of Genesis 2. Not good that the man should be alone. So I thought, God, fix it! I wanted Friar Ugo to tell me how God was going to take the isolation away. Instead, he started talking about something else.

AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION

“Have you ever considered,” he asked, “that the loneliness you’re experiencing is an invitation to grow your friendship with God?”

I hadn’t.

Friar Ugo went on, “Loneliness is part of the human condition. It is the experience of many around the corner who are living on the street. It is the experience of many around the world, separated from home, family, and land because of war or disease. And,” he paused, “it was often the experience of our Lord himself. You can look to me . . . or to something else . . . even to religion to try to make you feel better. Or,” he said, clearing his throat, “you could see this as the beginning of God’s work of transformation in you.”

And then we sat there in silence.

I pressed my lips together again, but something in his invitation had already stirred inside me. What if loneliness was a doorway to a deeper life with God? What would that mean? How might this idea reshape the experience?

“What if loneliness was a doorway to a deeper life with God?

After a short prayer, our conversation ended. Friar Ugo didn’t share stories of his isolation in ministry. He didn’t talk, for example, about being forced to leave a country and a context he loved and not being allowed to return despite years of continued effort. He didn’t describe his experience of returning to New York after forty years on the mission field.

He simply prayed, and then I stepped out into the cold New York City morning with lots of questions. What would it look like to respond to God’s invitation in the midst of loneliness? Was this a biblical idea? If so, what might Scripture have to teach about loneliness as a place of transformation?

LONELINESS IN SCRIPTURE

To my surprise, the Old and New Testaments are full of examples of women and men who met God in the midst of loneliness or isolation.

  • Abraham experienced loneliness in his desire for family: “Oh that Ishmael might live in your sight!” (Gen. 17:18).

  • Moses experienced loneliness when he fled Egypt.

  • Jacob experienced loneliness in the face of his ambition.

  • Elijah faced loneliness in fatigue after his great victory.

  • Nehemiah faced loneliness in leadership as he dealt with opposition from outside and sabotage within.

  • Job experienced loneliness in suffering while his friends offered little comfort.

  • Esther experienced loneliness in the palace: “But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days” (Esther 4:11 ESV).

  • Mary chose loneliness in her embrace of God’s call: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38 ESV).

  • Paul experienced loneliness in mission.

  • Ultimately Jesus experienced the deepest loneliness of all as he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

These stories reveal God’s transforming presence and power in the lives of individuals and communities. They meet God in the midst of loneliness and are changed. Some walk away with a limp. Some walk away with deepened courage. The thought struck me, What might I walk away with if I immersed myself in their stories?

“Entering these stories reframes our understanding of loneliness by demonstrating God’s presence and purpose.

Turns out, we can learn a lot by sitting in the ashes with Job or in the wilderness with Hagar. God invites us into these stories, saying, “Wait with me.” Entering these stories reframes our understanding of loneliness by demonstrating God’s presence and purpose. It enlarges our heart to connect with the isolation of our spiritual forebears and perhaps to connect more deeply with others who face similar loneliness and isolation. Through these stories we are taught to hope in God’s future.

ENTERING SCRIPTURE

To be transformed by these stories, however, meant being willing to enter them imaginatively and emotionally. This took a different approach to Scripture than I’d practiced before. Friar Ugo recommended a way of reading Scripture with the imagination and the intellect.

Rather than simply observe, interpret, and apply insights (the inductive method of Scripture study that I continue to teach and use), imaginative reading goes further. It invites us to use observations about language, context, repetition, and conflict, and to place ourselves in the midst of the unfolding drama. We then imagine the story as a participant within rather than as an outside observer.

Reading with the heart and imagination deepens learning and transforms the habits of heart and mind in ways that reading for information, understanding, and even moral exhortation does not.

THE INVITATION OF LONELINESS

It is not good for us to be alone. Yet in the hands of God loneliness can transform.

If we learn to hear the invitation of God in loneliness, we can discover aspects of God’s character, and ours, that are available no other way. If we meet God in loneliness, we can grow the desire and capacity to love others.

Adapted from Wait With Me by Jason Gaboury. Copyright (c) 2020 by Jason Gaboury. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com.

Jason Gaboury is a regional ministry director with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He's also an Anglican friar (Anglican Order of Preachers). He has contributed to a number of books, including Drama Team Handbook. He and his wife, Sophia, live in New York City with their two children. Learn more at his website, JasonGaboury.com.

Posted at: https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/loneliness-an-invitation-to-grow-closer-to-god

Loneliness Has Been My Faithful Friend

by Steve DeWitt

While most will remember this year for a virus, many also will remember the emotional pandemic of isolation and social distancing. The effect in the human heart is an emotion we call loneliness. In one recent survey, 44 percent of respondents said they are now lonelier than they’ve ever been. With all the closures, cancellations, and stay-home orders, it’s no wonder why.

Nine years ago, I was in my early forties, and still single. As a senior pastor in a large church, my life was a swirl of people. And yet I went home to a quiet house every night. I was not only lonely in a crowd, but lonely while pastoring a crowd. At the time, I wrote an article about what years of unwanted loneliness were teaching me about God. I heard from many readers who resonated with my experience. One reader was a single woman in Kansas City. We had mutual friends who had sent her the article. A year later, we married.

This past decade has allowed me to consider loneliness more through my long-term singleness, but now also through my years of marriage and parenting. Am I still lonely? Yes, and I’m glad that I am.

Glad to Be Lonely

You’re glad you still feel lonely? Yes. What a relief to find I am made for much more than a wife and children. This may seem like inverted thinking, but then again Jesus often does that when he teaches, inverting our normal human perspective. Growing in our faith is largely the art of renewing and re-forming life, values, and experiences as God intended them.

This brings us to the pandemic of human loneliness. Clearly, loneliness is a result of sin. Adam and Eve were made for perfect harmony with God and each other. Sin brought alienation from both. When God asked Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), what Adam sensed inside was a painful chasm and response: “God, where are you?” Like him, we often don’t know just how much we have till it’s gone. Adam felt a painful surge of vertical emotional emptiness; harmony with God was gone. The Adam and Eve marital blame game quickly revealed horizontal harmony had also vanished (Genesis 3:12–13).

Sin created loneliness, but we must realize loneliness itself isn’t a sin. In fact, loneliness can be a divine grace. Rightly understood, it can be both our friend and our guide.

Valley of Loneliness

Wisdom requires us to view loneliness inversely and respond to it rightly. For the couple of decades I lived alone, my loneliness seemed not like a friend, but like an enemy. It served to remind me of my past failures in relationships — relationships I had assumed would take this painful feeling away. Therein lies the lurking danger of loneliness: if it’s not your friend, it is likely a destructive adversary in your life. We all know people whose self-isolation is their coping mechanism for either the absence of relationships or the agony of relationships (Proverbs 18:1). For them, loneliness becomes a kind of canyon to live in instead of a valley to walk through.

While loneliness is easy to see in society’s recluses, most of us live in a general relational malaise hoping someone comes to take our loneliness away. To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, most people live lives of quiet desperation. With this pandemic, the quiet desperation in most homes is an even more lonely desperation.

How to Receive Loneliness

Loneliness is part of the inner architecture of our image-bearing. It acts like sensors in our car to tell us when something is missing — oil in the engine or air in the tires. We were made for God and for community with each other.

In this fallen creation, no human relationship will satisfy that longing fully. Our ability to be satisfied in God fully is impossible as well. Because of indwelling sin, our salvation is incomplete as we await glorified bodies and the fullness of joy in God’s presence (Psalm 16:1121:1). Till then, no matter our marital status, our circle of friends, our closeness with children and grandchildren, we will always be somehow lonely. My appeal as someone who has lived a long time both single and married, without children and with them, with a healthy church community and dear friends, is to see loneliness in this life as a kind of gift from God.

As hunger urges us to eat and thirst drives us to drink, loneliness presses us to a deeper and more authentic relationship with God and others. It drives us out of the gravitational pull of self-living toward relational self-giving. Rather than resenting loneliness, it will bless us if we see it as a God-placed incentive for human flourishing (Acts 20:35).

If I could talk to my old single self enduring another holiday alone at home, I would say, “You are putting too much hope in what a wife and family can provide.” I’m happily married. I love being a dad. But when we think our longings will be met if we only had this person or that relationship, we will respond to loneliness with destructive isolation and disappointment.

Let Pain Motivate You

Loneliness hurts. God embedded prickly reminders of how wonderful harmony with God and others is. The pain is a measure of the loss. Not all pain is bad. When I work out, the pain tells me I’m doing something good for me. It’s good pain. Loneliness can be good pain if I construe it rightly. What does that look like?

Loneliness creates internal energy. I can use that energy to brood in or resent my loneliness. Or I can take that energy and intentionally reach out with it. This requires discipline and self-control as my flesh urges self-destructive responses. Christians are blessed, by union with Christ and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, to resist the flesh’s desire to weaponize loneliness (Romans 6:4Galatians 5:16–17).

We really can make loneliness a weapon for positive change in our lives.

Turn Loneliness into Expectation

Over many years of singleness, I would secretly assume that I felt this internal pain because I was alone. I eventually realized there is often a big difference between being alone and being lonely.

Alone is the mathematical reality of one with no plus. When you are alone and lonely, it is easy to believe that a spouse, or family, or church family will drive loneliness away. My experience, however, echoes Scripture’s teaching that 1 + 1 ≠ the absence of loneliness. The common graces of marriage, family, sex, and children are very helpful in the daily struggle. Yet even the best moments of marriage and parenting and friendship always lack something; the moment of harmony passes too quickly. The warm feelings of care slip away. Human relationships ebb and flow. Even at their best, we sense that something is missing.

For this, we should rejoice. We should be glad to realize that the best of this life leaves us wanting something more, longer, and better. As wonderful as these earthly gifts are, the fact that they don’t satisfy makes God’s promises to fully satisfy us forever even more astounding. It means our joy in him and each other will be better, deeper, and yes, happier (Philippians 1:23). Every loneliness on earth is an internal confirmation that our greatest relational joys lie ahead of us. Absence should make the heart look forward.

This doesn’t blunt the pain of loneliness, but it does assure us that this pain is part of the fleeting and temporary world that is passing away (1 Peter 1:24–25). Our future is completely free of loneliness and filled with relational fullness far beyond what we can imagine. The next time loneliness shows up, thank God that your loneliness powerfully reminds you of the glory of what lies ahead for you with him.

Steve DeWitt is senior pastor of Bethel Church in Northwest Indiana, a host of the media/radio ministry The Journey, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything. He and his wife, Jennifer, have two girls.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/loneliness-has-been-my-faithful-friend