Are You Lonely Too?

[turtletwo]

I found an interesting article called The Gift of Loneliness. I thought I would share a few highlights with you:

Loneliness can open us to a deeper knowledge of God’s love.

Just as physical solitude helps us to hear God’s voice, the inner solitude produced from loneliness can open us up to a deeper knowledge of God’s love when we get alone with Him

Loneliness can help me define or redefine my calling.

I also found a new calling through my isolation. It was the first time I became serious about putting pen to paper. I spent many hours journaling and the result was an idea for a book I am writing, which I’m confident wouldn’t have been produced if I’d been running from one social function to another. I learned that when God strips away our close connections with particular people for a season, it’s for a reason. It can be His way of moving us into His calling for our lives.
 

 

 

[LivingbyFaith]

Thanks everyone for your views on this topic.  You have certainly helped me to understand why God takes us through lonely times in our lives!  I do feel like God is doing something in my life although I cannot put a finger on it just yet, but just being on Worthy for the past couple of weeks or so, has been a comfort and an encouragement knowing that I am not the only one who feels the way I feel on certain subjects and it certainly helps me during my times of loneliness, although I know that God is with me always and He never leaves me, I know He is guiding me in the way I should go!

Thanks again and God bless!

 

[JTC]

Many of us here are lonely. I've had a lonely life. Only the 1st 5 yrs wasn't lonely because I lived in a 3 family apt. building with my close cousins. However, in the last 17 yrs most of them have died. I'm also lonely because we have too many lukewarm or false Christians.

I keep reminding myself that the promise of being Christian is for the next life not this one. Apparently things were different 100 yrs ago. When I read preachers who wrote prior to about 1970 I see God let us have a time of prosperity, but that's over.

So yes, many of us are lonely. If you're a true Christian and you're not lonely you're exceedingly blessed.

[Pencil24]

On 11/11/2018 at 1:21 AM, LivingbyFaith said:

The Loneliness of the Christian

by A. W. Tozer

 

The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone.

The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.

The man [or woman] who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens.

He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.

It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The above description of "the lonely saint" describes my life 100%.  I've felt alone most of my life, even when I've been around others, but in the past ten years, I have found that people are literally being removed from my life and I am having to walk this journey of life "Alone!".

As much as it can feel so lonely, I think it's a privilege - I feel like it's God's way of bringing us to a place of total "Dependency" upon God Himself, I don't know?

How about you?  Do you walk alone and if so, why do you believe God takes us through this loneliness?

God bless!

 

I have lost close friends role models I looked up to they not only died but died in very difficult circumstances and none were easy they got gravely I’ll. Gods choice to heal was taking the to heaven. Each one of the three wee Godly women who made even my darkest days better. I don’t really have a bad memory of any of them. It has been hard watching there kids my age lose there parents and struggle with the loss. Yes it does get lonely out there even when you are surrounded by Godly people 

 

[R. Hartono]

• Luke 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

• Look at the Lotus flower growing on the dirty mud.

Edited November 13, 2018 by R. Hartono

[LivingbyFaith]

3 hours ago, R. Hartono said:

• Luke 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

• Look at the Lotus flower growing on the dirty mud.

I'm sorry, but could you please explain what this verse has to do with this topic?

[R. Hartono]

1 hour ago, LivingbyFaith said:

I'm sorry, but could you please explain what this verse has to do with this topic?

Follow that faithful steward to make use of mammon n you wont be lonely anymore, stay pure like lotus on the mud. We still live in the world, we need  to use mammon.

Edited November 13, 2018 by R. Hartono

[JTC]

4 hours ago, R. Hartono said:

Follow that faithful steward to make use of mammon n you wont be lonely anymore, stay pure like lotus on the mud. We still live in the world, we need  to use mammon.

Unfortunately, that strategy doesn't always work. Maybe it was a better plan in the old days but it didn't work in my life. When I was working and had money I was generous with it, at least I wasn't cheap. But when the money was gone so went my supposed friends. 

[Figure of eighty]

yep. I'm lonely but I'm really happy I at the very least have my boyfriend. So I won't be lonely for too much longer-- that in itself is a gift.

[turtletwo]

On 11/12/2018 at 7:37 AM, maryjayne said:

I use the term 'self compassion' instead of 'self pity'. We know, from scripture, tht it is OK to weep, to mourn. There are times of Joy and times of mourning, sometimes in the same day!

Be kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself, as you are to others. Surround yourself in His love, and if that brings tears, well tears are healing, both mentally and as a physical release of stress and pain of all types. Weep on His shoulder, He understands.

@maryjayne Thank you so much for writing this! It is very comforting. I am grateful to God that someone is sharing this truth. It is refreshing to hear in a time when God is seldom presented in this way anymore.