Satan knows when we are weak. He loves to tempt us when we are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. Take hunger for example: Satan came to tempt Jesus after he fasted 40 days in the wilderness. But thankfully, Jesus resisted temptation and serves as our example of how to trust and depend on our heavenly Father. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? HALT and cry out to God for strength and salvation.
One reason Christians fast is to bring to remembrance how much we need God. Every time our stomach rumbles, we are reminded to pray and remember how creaturely and dependent on God we really are. God is our creator and we are creatures, totally dependent on him for life and breath. We need food, but even more so, we need God.
Similarly, our loneliness should drive us to acknowledge our neediness and dependence on God. We desire intimacy: to know and be known. Are you single and lonely? Married but miserable? Cry out to the Lord for salvation. We may be tempted to turn to idols to numb our loneliness. Some may turn to pornography. Others may turn to immoral relationships. But whenever we are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, we have an opportunity to depend on God to meet our needs.
Peter, did you just say that loneliness is an opportunity? Yes, I did. Loneliness is an opportunity for us to rely on God to meet our needs. God is most glorified in us when we are dependent on Him, as opposed to self-reliant. We need relationships, but even more so, we need God.
Before we can depend on God, we must realize that he is dependable. Do you believe that God can meet all your needs? (Romans 8:28-32.) Charles Spurgeon explains that for the Christian:
He knows too that God is always wise, and, knowing this, he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes; that nothing can occur which ought not to arise. He can say, “If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than have, if God so wills: the worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing that could befall to me if God ordains it.” “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” The Christian does not merely hold this as a theory, but he knows it as a matter of fact.
One of the hardest things about suffering is the “time” element. But God knows what we need, even before we do and his timing is perfect. Spurgeon goes on:
‘Say not my soul, From whence can God relieve my care?’ Remember that Omnipotence has servants everywhere. His method is sublime, his heart profoundly kind, God never is before his time, and never is behind.
So what can we do about loneliness? We should turn to God and be honest about our loneliness. He can sympathize with us in our loneliness. After all, Jesus was ostracized and forsaken on the cross in order that he could bring us into relationship with God (Hebrews 13:12-14, Hebrews 4:15, Matthew 27:45-46). In other words, Jesus was abandoned by God so that we would not be alone. As children of God, we are not alone… God is with us. We have the Holy Spirit, our comforter in our affliction (John 14:26, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7). And just as we will share in God’s glory, we share in his suffering now (Colossians 1:24, Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:17).
God does not intend for us to be lonely. He has provided us with Christian fellowship to meet our needs. But before we go to others to meet our needs, we must realize that our deepest desires and needs are for God and can only be met by Him. No mere human can give us the acceptance, value, love, and companionship our souls desire. But God knows each and every one of our thoughts but still loves us and accepts us because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross (Psalm 139). Married couples can attest that loneliness doesn’t just go away just because one is married. Relationships and intimacy still take work. But our union with Christ becomes the basis for the possibility of fellowship and unity with others.
The Lord is at hand and not far off. He is knowable because he has revealed himself to us (Acts 17:23-31). It is when we realize that God himself is our salvation that we realize that we are not alone. He is the ultimate companion. Friends, spouses, and pastors may let us down, but God will not. “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”-Proverbs 18:24. Jesus is our friend that sticks closer than a brother.
When we suffer, we should cry out to God to deliver us from our unbearable circumstances. Psalm 107, explains that God is in the business of setting captives free from their bondage, whatever it may be:
10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
prisoners in affliction and in irons,
11 for they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
they fell down, with none to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.
15 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
16 For he shatters the doors of bronze
and cuts in two the bars of iron.
Sometimes our loneliness comes from our own doing. We should not expect to feel close to God and others when we are living in sin. Sin naturally isolates us from God and one other. Other times our loneliness is not our own fault. Friends may abandon us even though we have done nothing wrong. (Consider Job’s friends or Jesus when he went to pray with his disciples!) In either case, God not only desires to send us salvation… better yet, He wants to be our salvation. “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” – Psalm 118:14. Jesus is not only the doctor, He is the cure.
Let us HALT and revel in the love of God the next time we face loneliness. His love will give us the power to live for Him. It is within this framework that we can enjoy Christian fellowship and community… We can reach out in love to the suffering, broken, lonely, and the underserving, knowing that the God who has become our own salvation will continue to meet all of our needs.
May God supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
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