Do you feel lonely?
“I will be with
you always, even until the end of the age”
I could almost
imagine the song “Are you lonesome tonight?” echoing to my ears. There were
times those very words reflect exactly how we feel. How many of us battle with loneliness? Though
the world has advanced tremendously with all kinds of social networking from
facebook to twitter, people are still lonely.
No matter what
status we put on facebook; married, single, in a relationship or complicated,
we still struggle with loneliness. Some of us normal folks might look at
celebrities and think they are far from being lonely since they are constantly
surrounded by the glitz and glam of Hollywood or Bollywood. A celebrity might
look at us and wished they could just be at home surrounded by family or
friends; people they could trust and just be themselves without having to be
someone else that the media wants. Remember the late Princess Diana? She
admitted she always felt lonely although the whole world adored her and she had
fans everywhere.
It is a cruel
world for a lot of us. Single people complain that they are lonely because they
do not have a lover as a companion. Friends are not enough and sometimes, they
do not even have many friends. They crave for intimacy and more often than not,
rushed into relationships or casual flings just to not be trapped by loneliness.
How many times these bad relationships turned out to be more heartbreaking and
hazardous to their lives and before they know it, they are trapped in an
endless cycle of casual relationships with a never ending search for the so
called perfect partner. They ended up being lonelier than when they were
single.
Fresh college graduates
who just started work feel lonely being far away from home and the comfort of
college life. Some people go through life slaving away hours at work just so
they could achieve something in their career but deep inside they feel lonely
and they wished with all their heart they could fly around the world and be
free to meet everyone. Some people travel the entire globe making friends with
the entire universe but yet, they still feel lonely because they do not have a
true friend or family or companion by their side. They moved before they even
come close to forging real friendships. You might just envy them for their
jet-setting lifestyles but could these lifestyles be as great as they seem? Have
you watched “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney?” You get the idea.
What about
married people? They cannot possibly be lonely, can they? Their spouse is
practically stuck to them for life and you wonder why there are still many married
people who claimed to be lonely? How many times we see housewives complain of
loneliness because the husbands are hardly around due to toiling away hours to
provide for their family? Husbands who are working elsewhere like the soldiers
on duty in Iraq or an immigrant working as a cleaner in a foreign country; they
would spend every day wishing they are home instead of being so far away from
their loved ones. There are also couples who seemed happy, living together and
who seemed to never quarrel but still feel lonely.
Is there a cure
for loneliness? Can we ever escape the cruelties of loneliness? Why do I go on
describing the entire scenario above and only make you feel miserable? That is
because many of us fit in there one way or another. Perhaps you think there is
no way out.
Everyone in life
will struggle with loneliness; at least in a phase or some difficult days when
there is no one around to be a shoulder to cry on or when you get fired and all
your friends and family are far away from you. Some of us feel even lonelier
when we try to do the right things and are misunderstood.
I want to tell
you something. God knows exactly how you feel. Jesus totally understands your
loneliness. You might think that God is just too far away and He is oblivious
to whatever that happens to you but you are wrong. If there is one person in
the whole world who could comprehend loneliness and relate to you, Jesus can.
Jesus is
probably the most misunderstood person in the world. He came to save His people
but the very people He wanted to save rejected him and called him a heretic. During
the agony in the garden, none of his disciples could stay awake with him. All
of them fell asleep and he had to battle the agony he felt alone. How would you
feel when you knew what you were going to go through just before it all
happened and all you could do was wait? When he was taken to be scourged and
crucified, all his disciples left him. Only John remained at the foot of the
cross. No one was there to help him. He spent nights and days with his beloved
chosen disciples but all of them were too afraid to stand up for him. None
defended him.
You might say it
is all part of the plan and it needed to be done but as a man, Jesus felt
lonely. Jesus could feel exactly how we feel. He was fully man although he was
fully God too. Remember when He cried, “Father, father, why have you forsaken
me?” He was so lonely to the point that He felt His Father had forsaken Him
although as the Son, He knew the Father was always with Him. The worse loneliness
one could ever feel is when one has become so close to God and then all of a
sudden, you feel God is not there anymore. You feel as if God is rejecting you.
You might feel like this but that is far from the truth.
God is always
with us. He has promised that He will be with us till the end of days. Jesus
said,
“I will be with you always, even until the end of the
age” Matthew 28:20
He gives each one of us His Holy Spirit as a
companion to be with us and as a counsellor to guide us when we are lost and to
encourage us when we feel discouraged.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Counsellor to be with you forever” John 14:16
God is with us
regardless of how we feel. We must believe that the Holy Spirit who is with us
is very much alive and He knows us intimately; even more than any humans can
ever understand us. When you feel lonely, come to Jesus. He understands how you
feel and He wants even more to console and comfort you in your loneliness.
There is a story
I had heard many times and many of you might have heard it too. It’s called
‘Footprints in the Sand”. A man had a dream and he was walking on the beach
with God. He could see two sets of footprints on the sand. These footprints
represented the various stages in his life. As he walked, he came to very
difficult moments in his life and the footprints dwindled into only one set. He
was angry as to why God would leave him all alone during his most difficult
times in life. He questioned God and believed that God must have abandoned him
when the going gets tough. God answered,
“During
your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it
was then that I carried you'.
Contrary to
whatever you are feeling now, you are not alone. Jesus is carrying you. He
loves you so much He died on the cross for you. Do you think He will abandon
you now? No human being can ever make you feel complete or fully whole.
Everyone will tend to disappoint you in one way or another. If you put your
hope and happiness depending on how many friends you have or how many hours
your lover could spend with you, you will never have everlasting joy. Even the
perfect spouse will have to leave you and this earth someday at an hour that
you do not know. You will always feel that emptiness and void in you. That is
because each one of us is made to desire God and that void can only be filled
with God’s love. When you are filled with His love; that is when you find you
can be home anywhere in the world without a single friend but you are not
lonely because you have Jesus.
Come
to Jesus. Let Him fill you with His love. Let Him whisper to you,
“You
are not alone. I am here with you.”
