Open your Bible to the book of Exodus 33:13-20, and I would like for you to follow with me as I read from chapter 33 verses 13 to 15, “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here”.
Moses was a great leader. To lead a large number of people in the desert is not an easy task. If they wandered in the desert for 40 years, Moses did receive a training of 80 years before he was selected for this great job. God appeared to Moses in a dry bush as we read in Ex. 3:2, and told him to go to king Pharoah. Moses said, "I am not eloquent" (Ex. 4:10). As a prince in Egypt, Moses was proud of his wisdom and knowledge, but when he ran away from Egypt and was in the wilderness for forty years, he could see for himself how weak, empty and foolish he was.
Once there was a wealthy man who was fond of reading. He prepared a long list of books and bought them, thinking that if he read those books he would become a scholar. One by one he read them all very carefully. After many years of reading his friends asked him, "What have you learned by reading these books?" He said, "I have learned that I know nothing." After reading those books he discovered how foolish and empty he was. That is our condition. When we are empty and foolish, we make much noise. An empty tin makes much noise. Moses was proud in Pharaoh's palace, but now he is humble. With all his wisdom he thought he was able only to look after the sheep. Even though he was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt and was mighty in word and deed, still he was looking after sheep. He had become totally dry and empty. God had allowed that. When Moses became empty God appeared to him in a bush. God poured new life into Him and called him for a great ministry. According to Exodus 4:12, he became God's mouthpiece.
As Moses and the children of Israel are wandering in the wilderness, An interesting transaction takes place between Moses and the Lord in Exodus 33, that illustrates just how important the Presence of god was to Moses, and how much he hungered for it. Moses had a more intimate relationship with the LORD than any of us could ever really imagine. He met with Him face-to-face. He spent 40 days with Him on top of Mt. Sinai. The LORD called Moses "friend!" But Moses was not ready to settle for anything lesser than God himself and so there is one thing of which Moses is absolutely convinced. "If Your Presence does not go with us, we don't want to go."
Because the Lord was pleased with Moses He granted His request. And then Moses said, "Now show me your glory" (Exodus 33:18). This phrase, show me your glory, is an expression of a deep hunger and longing not only for the Presence of God but for a deeper revelation of God, one that God was happy to oblige to. So the Lord said that he would cause all of his goodness to pass by Moses, Exo 33:20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Obviously, when the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, His glory was veiled to an extent that Moses was permitted to live. Jesus made a wonderful promise in the Sermon on the Mount that should give us encouragement to create an appetite for God: Mat 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Each day we face different challenges. We face situations where we need to make choices in life, then and there. How often do you seek the presence of God? Do you settle for anything lesser than God’s presence? God’s presence in your life can do wonders. In fact that is the only thing that makes you different from others. It shows to others that God is pleased with you. God was ready to give the Israelites His protection, His provisions and also His promises, but He was not ready to offer His presence with them as a result of their rebellion. Do not settle for God’s protection, provision and promises without His presence. When you have God’s presence with you, you need nothing more, and you should not settle for anything lesser. C.S Lewis, in his book “Miracles” writes, “The presence of God is the most real thing we ever encounter.”
What is loneliness?
Most of us at some point in our lives have experienced loneliness. For some it's temporary, perhaps triggered by particular events or transitions, while for others, it seems to be a permanent fact of life. Despite the way it feels, loneliness often has nothing to do with being alone. For some people, feelings of isolation are sharpest during times that are in fact defined by togetherness — celebrations or the holidays, for instance. You can be surrounded by people “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week" and still feel lonely, but the scripture says a lot about loneliness and how we are never truly alone if we believe.
There is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. Alone means you are by yourself in a physical sense. There is no one there with you. It can be a good thing when you want some peace and quiet or a bad thing when you're alone in a dark, dangerous alley…but either way it's physical. However, loneliness is a state of mind. It's a feeling of having no one to turn to, having no one who loves you…and can easily become a state of despair. Loneliness can be experienced when we're alone or when we are completely surrounded by people. It is very internal.
Well, let me tell you what loneliness is not. Loneliness is not solitude. Thank God for solitude. Jesus, many times, would withdraw Himself from the crowds to be alone. Loneliness is not lonesomeness. You can be lonesome and not lonely. Loneliness is not isolation. You can be lonely in a crowd. In fact, sometimes a crowd may increase your loneliness. Loneliness is a painful sense of being unwanted, unneeded, uncared for, maybe even unnecessary. Every person has three basic emotional needs. Every one of us has a need for someone to love and someone to love us. We also all need somebody who understands us, who knows how we feel. And then we desire somebody who accepts us and needs us. We need to be needed and accepted.
Loneliness Is a Crippling Force
Loneliness Is a Crippling Force. It may cripple you emotionally. One survey showed that eighty percent of psychiatric patients sought help because of loneliness, and counselors will tell you that loneliness is a leading cause of suicide. It will hurt you physically. Fifty percent of the heart patients were lonely and depressed before they had a heart attack. Loneliness also shows up as fatigue, loss of appetite, or overeating. It can cripple you spiritually. The irony is when a person experiences loneliness, he drops out of fellowship — the very place he can go to get strength and encouragement. He drops out, sits at home, and drinks from the intoxicating cup of self-pity and has a hangover called loneliness.
Everyone experiences loneliness from time to time. It's a natural feeling. Yet, we often forget the proper response to feeling lonely, which is to turn to God. God is always there. He understands our need for friendship and fellowship. So when loneliness starts to creep in on us, we need to first turn to God. He gets it. He can be our comfort in those transition times. The closer you move to the Lord, the more of His presence you will have; it is a wonderful thing to be in the presence of the Lord. He may use the time to build your character. He may strengthen you in times when you feel completely alone. Yet, it is God that will build us up and be beside us in these times of deep loneliness. The presence of God with us is infinitely better, than, all outward comforts in the time of loneliness. God is with us to counsel us, in all doubtful and difficult times and to defend and secure us against our enemies and oppressors.
Wisdom to Walk alone with God
“The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Proverbs 10:9 NIV)
People with integrity live by wisdom, even when circumstance are against and puts them at a disadvantage or causes them significant loneliness. They’re not afraid to let God be their guide and strength. They’re able to handle tough situations, knowing God is at work in them. The man who walks with God exercises a living faith. The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 6 that the world in which Noah lived had become desperately wicked. So much so, in fact, that the scriptures tell us God was grieved with His creation. But Noah alone found grace in the eyes of the LORD. So God determined that he would destroy mankind from the face of the earth but that Noah and his family would be spared. Noah was commanded to build an ark, a large boat, according to specifications God had given him because God was going to send a flood upon the earth to destroy every living thing except those who were in the ark. And Noah followed God’s instructions even though it had never rained before and, apparently, no one else believed the message of destruction that Noah was preaching.
So Noah went through this rather long season of preparation for something which had never happened before in the history of the world. And during this season, Noah walked with God… alone. None of us have experienced a season of isolation on the scale of Noah’s, but most of us have probably been through a time when it seemed as though we were facing our circumstances alone. Sometimes it looks as though the season we’re in will never end. We can’t see the way out, the exit, the hope that one day it will all be over. As far as we can tell this is the way it will be from now on. In times like these we walk with God by faith because we know that every season will eventually come to an end. I don’t know what you may be facing today or what you may encounter in the future, but my personal experience is that God is always near regardless of the season. God is always there for us no matter what. He stands by our side, even when we cannot feel Him.
Abiding in God's Presence...
Why haven’t we fully experienced God's presence in our life? We haven’t fully experienced God’s presence in our life because we haven’t been actively seeking it. In other words, we only seek God’s presence when we find ourselves in tight spots, or when we want something. Why do we act this way? We act this way because we haven’t become completely convinced that God’s presence is the only thing that can strengthen, and help us overcome the obstacles that arise. Now the question we must ask is: How should we seek God’s presence in our life? Moses did not ask for signs and wonders or miracles; he asked God to show him His way and said “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here”.
We can do "all things" when the presence of God is with us; for in it, there is a fullness of joy! Do you have the presence of God with you? Why is it so important to constantly seek God’s presence in our life? Psalm 51:11 says, "Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." The presence of the Lord in our lives is a wonderful experience and essential to our everyday living. We must constantly seek God’s presence in our life because God’s presence in our life is the only thing that will produce a total change in us; a change that the world will not be able to ignore, because God’s presence will provide us with rest and will strengthen us to overcome all problems or adversities. In other words
Troubles will be no Troubles,
Distresses will be no Distresses,
Dangers will be no Dangers,
If God's presence is with US.
God's special presence will turn . . .
Storms into Calms,
Autmn into spring,
Winter nights into summer days,
Prisons into Palaces,
Weakness into Strength,
Poverty into Plenty,
Death into LIFE.
God's presence Makes . . .
Heavy afflictions--Light, and
Long afflictions--Short, and
Bitter afflictions--Sweet.
God's gracious presence makes every condition--to be a little heaven and a haven to the believing soul. There is nothing and there can be nothing, but heaven--where God is especially present. Scripture reminds us that, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble." (Psalm 46:1) "
The loneliest person who has ever lived in History
History reveals that the great men of the ages have always been, to some degree, lonely men. They produced their memorable works and thought their exceptional thoughts within the confines of lifestyles that few others understood. This characteristic was true of Lord Jesus Christ, whom Isaiah described in prophecy as a man, who “was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; . . . one from whom men hide their face . . .” (Isaiah 53:3). The loneliness of Jesus was never more evident than at the cross, where He was not only deserted by man but was also forsaken by God Himself. His piercing cry “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” came after six hours of agony on the cross. This is the only one of His seven statements on the cross that is recorded in both Matthew (27:46) and Mark (15:34). Jesus had faced His sufferings alone, and near the end of this living death He quoted the first verse of Psalm 22 to express the darkness and horror through which He was passing. This agonizing cry of Jesus indicates that more than physical suffering took place at the cross. Yes, there was suffering—more suffering than we could possibly understand, but the meaning of the cross went beyond suffering.
One of the most sobering things to consider about the Lord Jesus Christ is that He was the loneliest person who has ever lived. When the Lord Jesus came down to the earth and took on flesh, He really did become a man, and as a man He experienced loneliness like no one else’s. In Matthew 8:20 Jesus said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." The son of God, Jesus Christ, was envious of the birds in the air; he was envious of the foxes. The birds have nests and the foxes have holes, but this lonely son of man has nowhere to lay his head. You can imagine the loneliness of Jesus. However, Christ’s loneliness was not at all the sinful, self-pitying depression that some of us may go through.
Jesus understands your loneliness. He knows how you feel. Isaiah 53:3 says, "He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows...." And John 1:11 says, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." He lived a life of loneliness. When He died upon the cross, He was suspended between heaven and earth. Because He had taken the sin of the world upon Himself, even God His Father, in holy righteousness, could not look upon Him. Even His disciples forsook Him. Jesus died alone. You are precious to Him. Had there not been one more soul on Earth, He would have died for you alone. Through Jesus Christ you have significance. He knows the very hairs of your head. He wants you and needs you. He knows, He cares, and He understands. He's always there. You may be lonely, but you're never alone. He promised never to leave us (Hebrew 13:5). If no one else understands, He does. If everybody else fails you, He will not. And when you get to the bottom line, He alone will meet the needs that you have. Jesus alone is the answer to loneliness.
The Lord Jesus grew up with no one who really understood the real reason that He came. He taught truths with joy and zeal, while there was no single person to fully understand them, to rejoice in them as He did, nor even to sit down with Him to discuss them. He constantly ministered to countless multitudes with no one to minister to Him in the same way. All of His earthly life, His times in prayer with the Father were utterly precious to Him, being the only real fellowship He could have with anyone. However, this in turn led to the deepest and most bitter loneliness, for at the cross even the Father turned His back on Him. Considering this aspect of Jesus’ life on earth, we can be all the more assured that the Lord has experienced the same temptations as we have with regard to loneliness, yet in greater magnitudes and without sin. Therefore, we know that He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses and that we can seek His help in the time of need.
Most revealing of all is the sight of that One of whom Moses and all the prophets did write, treading His lonely way to the cross. His deep loneliness was unrelieved by the presence of the multitudes. He died alone in the darkness hidden from the sight of mortal man and no one saw Him when He arose triumphant and walked out of the tomb, though many saw Him afterward and bore witness to what they saw. There are some things too sacred for any eye but God's to look upon. The curiosity, the clamor, the well-meant but blundering effort to help can only hinder the waiting soul and make unlikely if not impossible the communication of the secret message of God to the worshiping heart. Christ said, `I will never leave you nor forsake you,' and `Lo, I am with you alway.' How can I be lonely when Jesus is with me?"
Circumstances in life may not always be the best, but you can make a quality decision to stay positive in spite of negative circumstances. By putting God’s Word first, trusting Him and refusing to quit when situations seem hopeless, you will obtain the promises of God as the Bible says in 2 Cor. 4;17 “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.” (Psalm 34:18, 19)
Enoch walked faithfully with God
Most of the world's great saints have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness. In the beginning of the world history when that strange darkness came soon after the dawn of man's creation, one standout as a pious soul, “Enoch” Bible says “Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” (Genesis 5:24)Enoch walked a path quite apart from his contemporaries.
Enoch was the father of the long lived Methuselah and the great grandfather of Noah. It is said of him that he walked with God after the birth of Methuselah, three hundred years. It was a long time for a man to support a holy life and communion with God without any relapse worthy of notice. There is something very expressive in the phrase, "walked with God." Enoch holds a rare distinction in the Bible: He did not die. Instead, God "took him away." Scripture does not reveal much about this remarkable man. We find his story in Genesis 5, only a short sentence, "Enoch walked faithfully with God," In that wicked period before the Flood, most men did not walk faithfully with God. They walked their own path, the crooked way of Sin. Enoch did not keep silent about the sin around him. Jude says Enoch prophesied about those evil people: Enoch walked in Faith, 365 years of his life, and that made all the difference. No matter what happened, he trusted God. He obeyed God. God loved Enoch so much he spared him the experience of death. Hebrews 11:5 says Enoch’s faith pleased God: “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: "He could not be found, because God had taken him away." For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God”
God and Enoch were good friends. Their relations were intimate and familiar. The figure of a walk is used in the Bible many times for the course of life. When men are said to have walked in the ways of the Lord—the meaning is that they lived righteously, keeping God's commandments. When it is said that Enoch walked with God, we are to understand that he obeyed God's commandments, so far as they were revealed to him, and that he lived in communion with God. It was a walk of faith. We must remember that he lived before the Flood, only a few generations from Adam. The race was in its infancy then, and only a few revelations from God had been made. There was no Bible. It was long before Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. But in whatever way and to whatever extent Enoch had been taught about God—he believed. God was as real to him—as if He had walked with Enoch in human form!
We need to learn anew to walk with God. We need to train ourselves to more personal communion with Christ, to be more alone with Him. There are many blessings which come to him who walks with God. One is companionship with God. Human companionship is very sweet and refreshing. It makes the way seem shorter and easier. How could we live without friends? We never can be thankful enough for the companionships of our lives. It would be hard to live without our human friends. We need them, and they bring us cheer, comfort, strength, encouragement all along the way. But human companionships, as heart-filling as they may be—are not enough. Then they drop away one by one—we know not what morning, the dearest and most needed friend shall be missed from our side when we come out to begin our day's walk.
The heroes of faith in the Bible times differed widely from each other, but one mark they bore in common was their enforced loneliness. They loved their people and gloried in the religion of the fathers, but their loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their zeal for the welfare of the nation of Israel drove them away from the crowd and into long periods of heaviness. "I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children," cried one and unwittingly spoke for all the rest.
The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of our nature. God made us for each other. The desire for human companionship is completely natural and right. 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 Godly people 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 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.
We all walk with God in a sense, for all our life. We never can get away from His presence for a moment. He is closer to us than our nearest friend. Wherever we go—He walks beside us. But the trouble with many of us is that we do not realize this presence. We never think of it. Faith is that exercise of the mind, which makes unseen things, real. God was real to Enoch. His walk with God—was as real as if he had seen God's face, and heard His voice and felt the touch of His hand!
Certain circumstance will try to cause you to become lonely and negative in your mind-set but you must be determined to set your will and mind to stay positive. Remember, perfect circumstances don’t exist. You will go through challenges; loneness, obstacles, difficulties, misunderstanding and persecution, but you can find peace through the Word that Jesus spoke in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in Me you have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” Whether you are at home, in the work place or among the friends, be a person who pursues God’s Word and exudes optimism, and you will find it reflected right back at you. Jesus conquered every adverse situation and negative circumstance. He set an example for us to follow.
Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has also created word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone. Loneliness adds beauty to life If God's presence is with US. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better. The strongest man in the world is he who walks alone with God. Psalms 42:5 says “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me, put your hope in God.” It is often difficult to find the time to be alone with God. But it is imperative to commune with God and meditate on His Word, and listen to the plans He has for us. God says ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. (Jer 29:11). Take time to walk alone with God every day. The child of God never needs to fear abandonment. Even if people turn on us, friends forsake us, or circumstances separate us from loved ones, we are never alone. God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). This is not just a nice tune or clever lyrics offering an empty sentiment. It is the promise of God Himself to those who are the objects of His love. He is there—and He isn’t going away. With Christ, you will never walk alone.
-------------------------------------
