Loneliness Runs Deep
Psalm 142:4 (ESV)
4 Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul.
David felt invisible. He felt like he had no safe place. He felt like no one cared for his well being. David was lonely.
Loneliness is when a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. That was David. How about you? Have you been feeling lonely lately? If so, God cares for the lonely and God knows what loneliness feels like.
God created Adam. Adam lived in a perfect Garden. However, one thing was missing! He had an aching deep inside that the Garden could not take away. Adam was lonely. The poet John Milton once wrote, “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named, not good”
In Genesis 2:18 God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone…
We were created for relationships. That’s why loneliness is so ugly and God calls it not good. God didn’t intend for people to be lonely or to live alone. God created us to be in relationship with Him and others. Mother Teresa once said, ‘The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
The Pain of loneliness runs deep, but God’s healing runs deeper. I want you to believe that today. I want you to hold on to that truth.
I have 2 questions I would like to raise and answer
1. Does God Care About the Lonely?
2. Does God understand what loneliness feels like?
In Mark 1, we have the story of a leper.
1. Does God Care About The Lonely?
In Christ’s day, when someone approached a leper, they had to cry aloud, “Unclean!” Their lives were a living hell. They were shunned and isolated. They couldn’t even enter the temple to pray. They couldn’t hug their children, or spend time with their family. They were cast outside with others who were unclean. THEY WERE LONELY.
Mark 1:40-42
40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”
People are not the source; God is the source. God did not create us to be lonely. We have an intrinsic need for relationships.
41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
Jesus could have healed without touching this man. However, he was lonely and needed a touch. When Jesus healed the leper, He did more than cure a disease. He took the leper from a life of loneliness and isolation, into a life of relationships and community.
2. Does God understand what loneliness feels like?
John 16:32(ESV)
32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me
Jesus knows what loneliness feels like. Peter said to Jesus he would never deny him and so did the rest of the disciples. Of course, we know the rest of the story. In the Garden, they couldn’t even stay awake with Christ. The disciples ended up scattering. On the cross Jesus experienced the Father pulling away, when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”
I remind you once more; the pain of loneliness runs deep, but God’s healing runs deeper. He cares for the lonely and He knows what loneliness feels like. My prayer is that you will find comfort in this truth.
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