“Why are you downcast, O my soul? … Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5).
“I am sixty‑five and I’m lonely and have never found peace.” So wrote the famed British author, H. G. Wells, on his sixty‑fifth birthday. Despite his fame and fortune, Mr. Wells, according to his own statement, was still a lonely man who had never found peace.
He’s not alone, either. Isadora Duncan, the great ballet dancer, admired by even the royalty of Europe, confided to a friend that in the midst of an adoring public, she was actually a very lonely woman. “I have never been alone but that my heart did ache,” she confessed, “my eyes fill with tears and my hands tremble for a peace and joy that I never found.”
Years have passed since Isadora expressed those feelings of loneliness. But how do people feel today? Isn’t the world literally bursting with people—over 6 billion of them? Surely there should be at least one friend for everybody on earth. Ideally, yes! Realistically, no. Because people still build walls instead of bridges.
Some of our largest cities—Los Angeles, Manila, Tokyo, Beijing, and New York—house some of the world’s loneliest people. Are you one of them? If you are, you have empathy for the 70‑year‑old woman who finally told a friendly storekeeper, “The reason I buy my groceries just one item at a time is, well, because yours is the only kind voice I hear week in and week out. And so, I come back often to relieve the awful feeling of utter loneliness … ”
This “all‑by‑myself” feeling isn’t confined to senior citizens. I know teenagers who are lonely, desperately lonely. They will ruin their minds, tattoo and pierce their bodies, do about anything to please the crowd, because they wouldn’t know how to live if they were not one of the “in‑group.”
The fact remains however, God made you to be an individual. He put in your heart a God‑shaped vacuum that only He can fill. And until this vacuum has been filled by God, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, you’re always going to be lonely. All the money in the world can’t fill that vacuum. Even a happy marriage and a house filled with laughter of healthy children won’t satisfy that emptiness. You were made by God and for God. Therefore, no one but God can really satisfy that deep longing to belong to connect.
A song sung by a Christian lady to her non‑Christian brother expresses the truth I want you to fully grasp. These are some of the lyrics: “You were meant to find God’s love—love has no other quest; until your soul has reached its goal, your heart can find no rest. O beloved, heed His voice, He waits so tenderly to be your own beloved Friend.” This accounts for your loneliness, and here are some guidelines to help you connect.
Guideline #1: Admit your need. Tell your Heavenly Father you are lonely and you feel cut off and estranged. Nothing ever happens between God and man until man is humble enough and willing to admit his need for God’s help and companionship.
Guideline #2: Put your total trust in Christ to help you. Don’t think of Him as A help. He is THE help that you really need. He is the answer to the problem. Therefore, He requires your total attention. “I am the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE,” says Jesus in John 14:6.
Guideline #3: Strive to keep in contact with Him—moment by moment, day by day: through prayer, through His word, through friends who are committed to what you’re committed to. Remember, a Christ‑filled heart is never a lonely one.
Resource reading: Psalm 42.
