Loneliness (June Hunt Hope for the Heart) (4 page)

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” (Proverbs 14:1)

• A man typically ...
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  • Has less relational skills than his wife or live-in girlfriend
    
  • Expresses emotions, empathy, and compassion far less than his female counterpart
    
  • Develops few close friendships and feels no real need for them
    
  • Competes excessively with other men to easily form close emotional relationships with them
    
  • Experiences more isolation but less loneliness than his mate
    
  • Has an aversion to displaying emotions because of societal taboos
    
  • Lacks deep relationships due to his reluctance to express his feelings
    
  • Resists the idea of fellowshipping with other men just for the sake of enjoying one another’s company
    
  • Gets together with friends for fun and games, but not for in-depth sharing
    
  • Has no male role model to show him how to drop his “macho mask” and get in touch with his feelings
    
  • Strives for self-sufficiency and seeks to solve problems on his own without being a burden to others
    
  • Prioritizes professional success (from which he derives his identity) over relational success
    

“A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.” (Proverbs 11:17)

Q
UESTION: “Why are couples becoming increasingly lonely?”

A
NSWER:
Living with someone—married or not—does not insure emotional intimacy or security in the relationship. Many couples are not emotionally connected because they do not share their dreams or desires, their trials or temptations, their hurts or hopes. They fail to listen to one another and merely share the roof over their heads.

Therefore, many couples experience “together loneliness”—being physically together but emotionally estranged and isolated, not feeling understood or appreciated. Instead of feeling wanted inside the warm security of home life, they feel an
unwelcome coldness
or an
apathetic indifference
inside their sterile, stymied existence.

“I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” (Psalm 102:7)

There are several reasons loneliness is on the increase.
29

• People are becoming more urban
  and less rural.
  
  • The closer people live to one another, the more they tend to emotionally isolate from one another.
    
  • The further people live from one another, the more they tend to emotionally become closer.
    
  • Rural communities have a much greater sense of community than urban communities.
    
• People are much more transient
  than in years past.
  
  • Those who move on a regular basis are reluctant to “put down roots” anywhere.
    
  • People who move often “know” more people but don’t know how to “get to know” people in an intimate way.
    
  • Frequent movers isolate from others, feeling it is emotionally too painful to get close to people and then have to move away from them.
    
• People place a high value on mobility
  , privacy, and convenience.
  
  • Many people spend their spare time traveling rather than staying home and spending time with their neighbors and friends.
    
  • The desire for privacy drives many people to fence themselves in and others out.
    
  • Since establishing relationships takes time and energy—which is often inconvenient—many decide it is not worth the trouble.
    
• People are no longer maintaining
  intact families.
  
  • The increased divorce rate fragments families and damages or destroys primary relationships.
    
  • Separation of elderly family members from younger members leads to isolation and a crisis in relationship between generations.
    
  • Parents having different work schedules become estranged from one another and sometimes from their children.
    
• People are becoming less and less involved
  in neighborhood churches.
  
  • Many churchgoers see and interact with each other only for a limited amount of time when attending weekly church services.
    
  • Church “socials” in urban areas are often centered around eating and making light conversation rather than on meeting one another’s emotional needs.
    
  • Lack of Christian community leads many members to establish superficial relationships rather than deep, Christ-centered friendships.
    

“I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons.” (Psalm 69:8)

The suffering servant laments, longing for days past
“when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil”
(Job 29:6). Prosperity, prestige, peace, no longer flow into Job’s life.

But he misses something else: the major lesson being reinforced through his trials—the privilege of fellowship with the Lord God Almighty. Wrongly believing that God has abandoned him, Job reminisces about when
“God’s intimate friendship blessed my house”
(Job 29:4), and it turns out that the traumatic testing and the seeming absence of God has taken a toll.

Job indeed may be blameless, exhibiting a life characterized by obedience, but he certainly isn’t
sinless.

Pride and rebellion surface as Job’s vehemence in defending his integrity soon malign and misrepresent God, prompting a sharp rebuke from God Himself.

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him! ... Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?”
(Job 40:2, 8)

Job’s story ends with the man of God humbled, repentant, and doubly restored of all he had lost. Job never curses God, yet divine correction still needs to be dispensed. And with that comes a renewed understanding of the importance of submitting to the sovereignty of God, as well as a greater awareness that God’s faithful presence and fellowship are Job’s greatest blessings of all, even when he doesn’t understand or like what’s going on in his life.

Your longing to belong is natural because God has placed within each of us a basic need for relationship with Him and with others. Don’t seek to dull the pain of loneliness by finding substitutes to fill the void. Seeking comfort in food, shopping, alcohol, illegal drugs, or sexual encounters may offer fleeting pleasure, but these will cause you emotional or physical harm in the long run. Instead of focusing on your personal need, refocus on your relationship with Christ, leaning on His understanding and drawing from His strength.

“I have set the L
ORD
always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 16:8)

• W
  RONG
  B
  ELIEF:
  

  “I must have the love and acceptance of others to feel significant and to fulfill my need to belong.”
  

  “You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape.”
  (Psalm 88:8)
  

• R
  IGHT
  B
  ELIEF:
  

  “I want to have meaningful relationships with others, but I must first cultivate real intimacy with the Lord, who is always with me and will never leave me. Only out of a secure relationship with Him can I courageously move toward others in love regardless of their responses toward me.”
  

  “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
  (Psalm 139:7–10)
  

#1 God’s Purpose for You is
Salvation.

What was God’s motivation in sending Christ to earth?

To express His love for you by saving you! The Bible says ...

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
(John 3:16–17)

What was Jesus’ purpose in coming to earth?

To forgive your sins, to empower you to have victory over sin, and to enable you to live a fulfilled life! Jesus said ...

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
(John 10:10 NKJV)

#2 Your Problem is
Sin.

What exactly is sin?

Sin is living independently of God’s standard—knowing what is right, but choosing what is wrong. The Bible says ...

“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
(James 4:17)

What is the major consequence of sin?

Spiritual “death,” eternal separation from God. Scripture states ...

“Your iniquities [sins] have separated you from your God. ... The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Isaiah 59:2; Romans 6:23)

#3 God’s Provision for You is the
Savior.

Can anything remove the penalty for sin?

Yes! Jesus died on the cross to personally pay the penalty for your sins. The Bible says ...

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:8)

What is the solution to being separated from God?

Believe in (entrust your life to) Jesus Christ as the only way to God the Father.

Jesus says ...

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ... Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
(John 14:6; Acts 16:31)

#4 Your Part is
Surrender.

Give Christ control of your life, entrusting yourself to Him.

“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’”
(Matthew 16:24–26)

Place your faith in (rely on) Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and reject your “good works” as a means of earning God’s approval.

“It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8–9)

The moment you choose to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior—entrusting your life to Him—He comes to live inside you. Then He gives you His power to live the fulfilled life God has planned for you.

If you want to be fully forgiven by God and become the person God created you to be, you can tell Him in a simple, heartfelt prayer like this:

If you sincerely prayed this prayer, look what God says!

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

If you sincerely prayed this prayer, look what God says about you!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)

She is a widow who refuses to languish in loneliness. Ruth’s remedy isn’t hastily remarrying or surrounding herself with as many people as possible. It’s in reaching out and building a bridge—to her embittered and widowed mother-in-law—that Ruth finds purpose, fulfillment, companionship, and ultimately
reward
.

Naomi loses her husband and two sons while living in the land of Moab, escaping a lengthy famine in Judah. She urges her two daughters-in-law to return to their homes because, now that food is plentiful, Naomi has decided to go back to her homeland. Both Ruth and Orpah are reluctant to part from Naomi. Love and loss undeniably link the three women together, but the cord of compassion can’t—
won’t
—be cut by Ruth.