God, I am lonely. I am not alone, because loneliness is always with me. I feel like I am facing everything by myself, with nothing around me but fears. The worst thing in the world isn’t being alone... its being surrounded by people that make you feel like you’re alone. What’s wrong with me? Sometimes I can’t even make myself get out of bed. I just don’t want to see anyone. I’d rather be alone. But at the same time, being alone is what makes me feel this way. I want somebody to show me that I am worth saving. I need some to show me that I am not going to be alone forever. These are but a few of the mental outcries of someone suffering from extreme loneliness.
Do you feel alone in the world? How do you feel about that? How does one cope with feelings of loneliness? There are many public and private ways to manage loneliness. You can submit to medical and therapeutic professionals... who will prescribe drugs for depression and anxiety or talk with you about various things that have happened in your life that may be contributing to your feelings of insolation. And there’s always the Internet, which promises endless kinds of “virtual communities” to replace or supplement the real.
While each of these avenues may have some value, these alternatives seem destined to leave certain basic human yearnings unaddressed. The Internet for example with its many virtual environments, cannot replace real live human interactions.
For many people, the strongest forms of community are still the traditional ones — the kind forged by shared genes, shared memories, shared geography. And neither Facebook nor a life coach nor a well-meaning medical and therapeutic bureaucracy is likely to compensate for these forms of the human experience.
The Bible, as our counselor and guide for living, says a lot about loneliness and how we can learn to manage that emotional emptiness. In a nutshell... we are never truly alone if we are living in a relationship with God.
God is always there for us no matter what. He stands by our side, even when we cannot feel Him. As people, we just want to feel loved, and when we don't feel loved we often make some very bad choices in pursuit of being accepted by others. Yet, if we look to God to know His love, we will always find it and know we are not alone. While this is absolutely true... it is not easy to live each day enveloped in loneliness, trusting that God is really there with us. After all, God is not flesh and blood, so it is hard to grasp that He can fill our needs for tangible human connections. We want something tangible, controllable, touchable to augment the =emotions of loneliness.
There is a difference between being “alone” and “being lonely.” To really understand your personal circumstances you need to know the difference. You can be surrounded by people 24/7 and still feel lonely, or you can be miles and miles away from any people, totally alone, but not at all lonely. Living in a cabin in the Denali national forest near the foot of Mt. McKinley in Alaska might be a long way from other people, but not necessarily make you feel lonely.
Alone means you are by yourself in a physical sense and being that way is usually a personal choice. There is no one around you, you may be far away, isolated from other people. Being “alone” can be a good thing when you want some peace and quiet or a bad thing when you're alone in a possibly threatening situation…but either way being “alone” is a physical condition typically marked by time, place and distance.
However, loneliness is a state of mind, an emotional void. It's a feeling of having no one to turn to, having no one who loves you and can easily grow into a state of despair. Loneliness can be experienced when we're alone or when we are completely immersed in people. Loneliness is an internal feeling, a negative emotion, not an external condition determined by choice.
In prophetic reference to Jesus and what he himself would experience while living as a human, Isaiah 53:3 says... "He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care." Everyone experiences loneliness from time to time, even the Son of God, Jesus, the Christ experienced both being alone, often by choice and the feelings of loneliness... isolation from those he cared about, and those He thought cared about Him.
While not something we want to hear, loneliness is a natural feeling. Yet, we often forget the proper response to feeling lonely, which is to turn to God.
God is always there. He understands our need for friendship and fellowship. Throughout the Bible we are reminded of our responsibilities to one another, so it is not surprising that we get lonely when we have a lack of connection to other people.
So when loneliness starts to creep in on us, we need to first turn to God. Trust Him, He gets it. He can be our comfort in those transition times. Above all reactions you can have when praying about your loneliness to God... TRUST Him no matter what response you think you are getting. You want immediate relief and satisfaction, but He may use the time to build our character. He may strengthen you in times when you feel completely alone. Remember, it is God that will build us up and walks beside us in your times of deep loneliness.
It's important during times of loneliness that we turn to God and away from ourselves. Psalm 62:8 says... "Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us." Loneliness is always compounded by thinking of ourselves first. Maybe getting out and helping others will help you. Open yourself up to new connections. When you smile and have a positive attitude, people are drawn to you. Set yourself up in social situations like being immersed in every activity the church offers... from youth group, outreach fellowship activities and weekly Bible study classes. To have friends, you must make yourself readily available to be someone's friend.
Think no one in the Bible experienced loneliness? Think again. David experienced profound moments of loneliness. He had times when he was being hunted by his own son and had to leave his family to avoid confrontation. Many Psalms address his deep loneliness, and he often plead to God for mercy in those times. Psalm 25:16-21 is an fine example of his deeply intimate revelation of his sense of loneliness... "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how numerous are my enemies and how fiercely they hate me! Guard my life and rescue me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, LORD, is in you."
As the Bible reveals, Jesus felt loneliness at times, more so when he was being persecuted and placed on the cross. Matthew 27:46 records the cry of loneliness express by Jesus in the moments before he expired... "About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lemasabachthani?' (which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?')."
Even though He knew what He was doing for humanity... He still felt God had abandoned him. This was a most painful and lonely time at the end of his life. His most faithful followers abandoned him in his hour of need. The people who followed him and loved him before he was crucified were no longer there for him. He knew exactly what it felt like to be alone, and therefore He knows exactly what we go through when we feel loneliness.
If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. Psalm 94: 17-19
NEXT TIME we will explore... What the Bible says about coping with Loneliness? Until then... Walk upright in the Lord.
