LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Loneliness
"Loneliness is no respecter of persons: it enters the palace and the hut", a Christian author has said. It is true. Many people suffer and suffer from their loneliness - sometimes a chronic and depressive loneliness. In their loneliness, many have seen their lives collapse. Yet many also, in their loneliness, have sought God and found him.
It is solitude that separates man from the noise, from the incessant hustle and bustle, and allows him to listen to God. For noise often interferes between the heart and God. An ancient sage used to say: "Excuses as much as you can the noise of men, for it is indeed a great hindrance to deal with the things of the world". There is toil and weariness in the world around us.
For the children of God, solitude is also necessary. "Unless you come out of the world, where self-will and personal pleasure reign, you can never live the life in which the believer seeks only to be a pleasing sacrifice to the will of God", Andrew Murray has said. That solitude is like "going into the desert." There the petty motives of the soul are stripped away, and the will of God is known. The expression "the desert" is used on many occasions in the Scriptures, not as a physical place, but as a circumstance of life in which there is loneliness, sadness and pain. There there are no vanities to ensnare the heart. There one is alone with God and with oneself.
For example, in the book of Hosea, the Lord speaks to Israel as a husband to his wife. Although she had been unfaithful to him, he still wanted to speak tenderly to her: "I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart" (2:14). He hoped that in the wilderness he would be able to reconnect with the heart of his beloved.
In the Scriptures we find many servants of God who were led by God into the wilderness, because there he wanted to speak to their hearts. Moses was one of them; David was another; Paul was also there. In the silence, in the stillness, far from the worldly noise, God spoke to them, and they learned the most important lessons of their lives. "Only in silence can the heart wait and listen for God", says G. Campbell Morgan.
Many fear solitude, because they fear God and they fear his judgment. However, do we not have peace with God, do we not know God, who is our Father? In solitude we grow in depth, as when a tree takes root and then withstands the gale. After being there, in silence, for the right time; after growing in the knowledge of ourselves and in the knowledge of God, we will be able to return, a little wiser, a little more grown up, and with renewed strength, to continue advancing on the path of faith.
Therefore, loneliness -like sadness- is an occasion to grow in God, to hope in him, so that the sweet and precious character of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ may be formed in us. Thus, loneliness should not so much be "conquered" as "made use of" for the glory of God.