The Lessons of Loneliness
By Rex S. Wignall, Chaplain, Valley Christian Home
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-25; Matthew 27:45-46;
Hebrews 12:1-3
Introduction to the Series:
A few years ago, a teacher of preaching named Ellsworth Kalas wrote a book with a catchy title: If Experience Is Such A Good Teacher, Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course? Dr. Kalas’ book is about the lessons all of us must learn from life, no matter how much or how little formal education we may have. There are common experiences that will teach us valuable lessons – if we will only learn from them.
Over the nine or ten weeks, we will look at a series of “teachers” in life’s “School of Experience.” Here is some of the Faculty who will be teaching us:
LONELINESS Is a Private Tutor (How Else Can You Get Such Personal Attention?)
FRIENDSHIP Is the Loveliest Teacher (You Can Easily Miss The Lessons)
PAIN (Don’t Seek Pain, But If It Comes, Embrace It)
LOVE Is A Beautiful Teacher, But Lessons Are Not Always Easy
REGRET Is A Humanizing Teacher (But Don’t Stay in the Class too Long)
SUCCESS (A Fun Course, But You May Not Learn Much from It)
DEFEAT (A Required Course, Not an Elective)
ENEMIES (You can Learn from Them)
DEATH (Learn from It, Before It’s Too Late)
Today we focus our attention on Loneliness – something all of us deal with at some point in our lives. Two questions come to mind. 1) What are the lessons we can learn from our loneliness? 2) What does God say to us about loneliness in His Word ?
Here are the (three) important lessons we learn about loneliness – looking at both our personal experience and what Scripture teaches us
1) Loneliness is Universal
2) God Understands our Loneliness
3) We are Never Really Alone
I. Loneliness is Universal Genesis 2:8-9, 15-25
As long as there have been people, there has been loneliness. To understand just how long loneliness has been part of the human experience, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 2 we read the following:
8Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had created. 9And the LORD God planted all sorts of trees in the garden —beautiful trees that produced delicious fruit. At the center of the garden He placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A few verses later, we continue in Genesis 2:15:
15The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. 16But the LORD God gave him this warning: “You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die.”
18And the LORD God said, “IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE MAN TO BE ALONE. I will make a companion who will help him.” 19So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, birds, and wild animals. But still there was no companion suitable for him. 21So the LORD God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of Adam’s ribs and closed up the place from which he had taken it. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam.
23“At last!” Adam exclaimed. “She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of a man.” 24This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame.
Before the Fall – before the first sin, Adam was lonely. God surrounded man with all of the lush, spectacular beauty of His perfect creation, and still man was lonely. John Milton (1608-74) noted that up to this point, with everything God did, He said, “It is good.” But when the Lord saw that Adam felt lonely, God said, “It is NOT good that man is alone.”
Sometimes, we are tempted to think we are the only ones who struggle with this burden. Ellsworth Kalas tells the discovery that Thomas Wolfe the fine American writer made about loneliness:
Wolfe was a lonely man. He once thought that loneliness was something suffered especially, perhaps even uniquely, by the young, so he wrote an essay titled “On Loneliness at Twenty-Three.” For a time he thought of himself as perhaps the loneliest person who ever lived. But gradually he came to a broader conclusion. He wrote,
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence."
Kalas goes on to note that in our sin, we further complicate our loneliness. We become alienated from God and from one another. And we don’t solve it by marrying. Anton Chekov, the Russian playwright, said, “If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.”
Charles Swindoll wrote that loneliness is no respecter of persons, or age, that it knows no boundaries—that it visits all people. So that we are not insufferable and insensitive to others around us, we must learn this first important lesson.
II. God Understands Our Loneliness Matthew 27:45-46
While lonely people shake their fists at heaven and angrily ask, “God why have You forsaken me? Where are you?” we Christians often forget one central fact about God’s personal experience with loneliness. Charles Swindoll reminds us in his eloquent way:
God knows, my friend and He does care. Please believe that! He not only knows and cares — He understands, He is touched, He is moved, Entering into every pulse of anguish, He longs to sustain and deliver us.
In the strangling grip of Golgotha, our Savior experienced the maximum impact of loneliness. For an undisclosed period of time, the Father forsook Him. His friends had already fled. One had betrayed Him. Now the Father turned away: (Matthew 27:45)
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
In the bottomless agony of that moment, our Lord cried – He literally screamed aloud, (Matthew 27:46)
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The loneliness of those dark moments as our Savior carried away our sin cannot be adequately pictured on paper. Cold print cannot convey it. But is it any wonder that He is now able to sympathize and enter in as we battle feelings of loneliness? Those who bear the scars of that silent warfare need no explanation of the pain—only an invitation to share in the wound and, if possible, help in the healing.
When we are lonely, we need an understanding friend, Jesus is the One who “sticks closer than a brother.” When we are lonely, we need strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other –Jesus is the One “who strengthens me.”
The Second lesson we must learn about loneliness is that Jesus Christ – our Lord and Savior – knows the very depths of loneliness. He faced the ultimate loneliness in order to win our salvation.
III. We Are Not Alone Hebrews 12:1-3
This is where the “great divide” of the Good News happens. Those who know Jesus take comfort in His death for our sins on the cross. Those who do not still think their loneliness cannot be understood by God, and cannot be taken away.
Hear these great words of comfort from Hebrews 12:1-3:
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
When we are lonely, we need to lift our eyes off ourselves. Jesus, the “Founder and Finisher” of the life of faith, invites us to fix our eyes on Him (Hebrews 12:1-3) and refuse to succumb.
God is a Specialist when the anguish is deep. His ability to heal the soul is profound… but only those who rely on His wounded Son will experience relief. The Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky suffered long bouts of melancholy and deep loneliness. He wrote the following words in a minor key:
“NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART CAN FEEL MY ANGUISH…”
Jesus answers Tchaikovsky with these words in a major key:
“NONE BUT THE TRUSTING HEART CAN FEEL MY DELIVERANCE.”
A.W. Tozier (1897-1963) the great Evangelical writer and preacher, says this:
“Most of the world’s great souls have been lonely.” That INCLUDES Christians – men and women who seek God daily through prayer, through reading of Scripture.
The world may pay no attention to us, may even isolate and reject us (as Christians in China are treated today). They may scoff at us, like the following story by James Hewitt illustrates:
A veteran missionary was returning home to the U.S. after several terms on the field. Aboard a ship bound for New York harbor, a secularist challenged him by pointing out the futility of giving one’s life in missionary service. He continued by noting that no one on board ship was paying any attention to the veteran missionary, a sign they apparently considered his efforts quite wasted.
The servant of God responded, "I’m not home yet."
The agnostic assumed the missionary was referring to a large crowd that would meet the ship, and he scoffed again when they disembarked--not a solitary person welcomed the missionary. Once again, the missionary said, "I’m not home yet."
A lonely train ride lay ahead as he made his trek from New York City to his small Midwestern hometown. Reaching his destination, the missionary could no longer fight back the tears as the train pulled off. Again, he stood alone. It was then that the inner voice of God’s Spirit brought comfort by reminding the faithful servant, "You’re not home yet."
Postscript: A Parting Word to Senior Saints
I know there are many reasons in these later years to feel the burden and ache of loneliness. So many of you have outlived that cherished person you married – shared life with, built a home and a family with. Friends of many years have passed on or moved other places.
Remember this:
· Every one of those dear people who have known Jesus is part of the great cloud of witnesses, waiting to greet you when you finally arrive home.
· Your Lord and Savior, Jesus, knows the deepest anguish of loneliness – look to Him when you are struggling the most and feeling the deepest loneliness.
· You are Not Unique. Just as God gave Adam a companion and helpmate, He has given us each other. We people of faith are not supposed to be isolated from one another, trying to carry our loneliness alone. Each of us knows what loneliness is and have lived with it. We can be a comfort to one another.
· You are Never Alone. God is always with you – listen for His voice in the Holy Spirit.
· If your loneliness is inconsolable and unquenchable, then you do not have a personal relationship with God – and you need one!
Rex S. Wignall, Chaplain
Valley Christian Home
July 7, 2002
