We continue this week on the topic of inner strength. We have more than we understand and definitely more than we use.  We had a challenge last week to use some quite time and find where in the Bible someone came to the end of themselves and had to rely on the inner strength of God.

What did you find?

Our world throws around strength, and power as much as the media blasts its opinion, but want matters the most, at least to me, is to know what to look for when I am weak. When I don’t know what to do; when my history shows I am more capable of making wrong, misinformed decisions.  This week we look at a troubled area I have experienced and is common to all.

LONELINESS

When we went around the table last week many mentioned times of quietness, peace, and others were bold enough to share about being alone, wanting people in their life and it just does not come easy.

Loneliness is one of the most excruciating feelings a person can ever have and one that nearly every person attempts to avoid at all costs. Even so, loneliness seems pervasive in our world today. Older people give frequent testimony to loneliness, especially after the death of a spouse. Divorced people feel lonely. Young people often think they are totally alone in their feelings, especially if they have indifferent, self-absorbed parents. Salespeople on the road are lonely. Mothers who stay at home all day with young children often speak of loneliness. College students and those who enter the military and are on their own for the first time are lonely. Those who have empty nests after years of raising children are lonely. Newly retired persons, accustomed to a wide circle of colleagues, are lonely. Loneliness abounds.

We need to turn to the Bible to see some insights about loneliness.

At the outset of the Bible, Genesis 1 through 3, we have a picture of the fellowship that God desires with human beings. He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). God displays an emotional capacity for companionship and a desire for it. Loneliness is not a desirable state, from God’s point of view. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God frequently. His voice in the cool of the evening was not strange to them (see Gen. 3:8–9).

Time and again throughout the Old Testament, we find the Lord reaching out to His people, revealing Himself to them, desiring to be with them and to communicate with them. In 1 Samuel 12:22 we find this promise of God: “For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people.”

How do you feel about the idea that God wants a relationship with you?

Jesus experienced Loneliness & Friendship

In the New Testament, we read how Jesus developed a very close relationship with a group of men we call apostles. He was so concerned that they continue in their relationship with one another even after His crucifixion that He spent much of His last night with them talking about their need to remain one with each other, and to be as one with the Father. We read in the Gospel of John,

¹“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. ² There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? ³ When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. – John 14:1-3 NLT

¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. – John 14:16-18 ESV

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. – John 15:9 ESV

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:12-13 ESV

How do these scriptures apply to where you are now? What hope and insights are revealed?

The close communion that the Lord desires and is willing to experience with us is something we can count on, even if everyone else abandons us. Jesus knew this to be true in His own life. On the night He was arrested and tried—the trial that ended in His crucifixion—He said to His disciples, “Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone.” Can you hear the pain in that statement? Jesus knew what it was to be lonely. But then Jesus went on to say, “And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (John 16:32). Jesus knew what it was to be comforted even in the face of abandonment.

How do you feel about the fact that Jesus, God himself, was lonely on occasion for human companionship?

God is so much bigger than our world or we can imagine. He gives us strength from His Word:

I am with you always, to the end of the age. – Mark 28:20 ESV

³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 3:28-29 ESV

This week reflect on the times when you felt lonely and God did change things. Focus on the goodness of when He came in and made a difference in your life when you were not paying attention or had give up hope. Spend some time jotting down some gratitude times that made it clear to you that the scriptures today are true and living.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

Stanley, C. F. (1998). Developing inner strength. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.