Tag: Jesus Christ

Lonely, or Just Alone?

“Loneliness was the first thing that God saw that was not good”

John Milton

Are you lonely? It really doesn’t matter if you are married or single. Frankly, those who have a spouse can be powerfully affected by a sense of loneliness. (They obviously are pressured to suppress this.) But they truly feel very much alone.

When we find ourselves affected by this issue, we think a lot about being alone. We become an ‘island,’ isolated and separate, and the intense figure of this is the ‘castaway’ of those who, somehow end up completely alone on a deserted beach. 

There is nothing ‘romantic’ or ideal about this experience.

After a week, we start to feel the isolation. It creeps in on us, expands, and begins to ‘feed’ on our perceptions. And that can poison us.

To define it, to be lonely is the absence of human relationships. But to be alone is to be without connections.  They can overlap sometimes, but they are very separate issues. The unmarried 40-year-old could be free from loneliness, and the person who is married (with several kids) feels quite lonely.

We cannot attribute our ‘heart issues’ to our response to isolation.

Some will thrive, and others chafe. Many derive a sense of well-being by becoming married. Essentially they choose the fallacy that this may just solve their feeling of loneliness.  If I cut my hand, a band-aid will not heal the wound, it can only help (on a superficial level,) but the healing comes from within us.

There is a definite need to see the unique situation and understand how it does fluctuate. Things will move and our attitudes may change. We can cross back and forth, and that is quite understandable. But embedded sadness over being alone can be disastrous to a full and amazing life with Jesus.

“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”

John 14:16, NASB.

We certainly need each other. That is ‘how we roll.’ But what is necessary and for certain is, “We are not alone, never.” The deep presence of Jesus can be profoundly close, and all we need is His nearness and our awareness, and it’s going to be ok.

There is so much we can do.

The first is to get real about the issues that are involved.  Go ahead and acknowledge the struggle you encountering.  Secondly, we need to admit the sin of harboring this, and even letting it to take control of our thinking. Thirdly, to actively turn away from sin, and then focus on Jesus as our dear companion and friend.

These three are just focal points. They will often take very different adjustments for each person. But they are definitely a starting point. Even as you work through this, allow the Holy Spirit to be your faithful guide.

 

We Are Hated

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as it loves its own. But I have chosen you out of the world, so you don’t belong to it. That is why the world hates you.“

John 15:18-19, NCV

There is a concentrated sense of evil that is directed at us.  There is an awareness of a hatred that is unreasonable.  Jesus however, predicted it, and warned us to anticipate this brutality.  We are spiritually linked to Him.  The evil that came against Him, has now been shifted to you and I.

The world hates us, and we must accept this.  We don’t belong.  We are the monkey in the wrench.  Our presence ‘shorts out’ a smooth transition, that the Dark one has ordained.  We confuse and misdirect the black forces of darkness, most likely more than they do to us. The issues that we now face have become mutant and a bit perverse, to be honest.

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Matthew 10:16

This is perhaps the most profound truth.  What can sheep do, against the wolves? We become their dinner. The predator overwhelms its prey, and we have to learn to walk in the dark.  Our faithfulness is considered to be an amazing feat, and we definitely let it work in our hearts.

“Wise and innocent.”  As we step into this caustic environment, these are two issues that will keep us safe.  “Serpents and doves.”  Both are received as positive concepts which will help us to manage the dark.  We have an awareness that He has directed us to walk through this ambush.  But we walk in a protective shield.

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The Evil of Twisting Scripture

“It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”

Judges 16:16, NASB

This has become a savage and vicious verse for me.  I used it to alienate a dear sister in the Lord. Vicki was a dear one who ran our office.  She had a heart that fully embraced our work of evangelism in the inner city in San Francisco.  She was an exceptional secretary.

She was wonderful.  She would constantly reach out to me, with the desire to see me established in this ministry of evangelism.  Her heart of kindness motivated me to press into the work of the Lord.  But there was something in my own heart that opposed her presence that was directed to me.

But her constant questions and comments every single morning had become a burden and a hassle.  Out of this frustration, I became somewhat more and more brazen and cynical toward her. I don’t really know why, really. Vickie continued to reach out to me, but I thwarted her work.  She wanted so much to contribute, and I figuratively slashed her tires with my dark skepticism.

One day I read this verse in Judges 16:16, “It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”  I so very absorbed this and laid it on her.  I can see her now opening the Bible she kept in her desk.  She read with eagerness “the Word of the Lord” from me, and she was crushed. The tears streamed down her face.

Mishandling the Word like this should be a capital offense.  I have deeply regretted that moment when I slammed my sister with my twisted interpretation of scripture.  I wounded her very deeply, all ‘in the name of the Lord.”  I imparted to her with “my verse” which was a certain evil, in spite of my noble ministry of evangelism to the lost.

“Brothers, do not speak evil of one another” (James 4:11). Is not this a word which is much needed by some of us today? Alas, in some quarters the habit of discrediting others behind their backs has become so common that it is regarded almost as a matter of course; the mentioning to others of a brother’s faults or a sister’s failures, the repeating of unfavorable reports which have come to our ears—is so general that few appear to make any conscience thereof.

But we do this every day. We contaminate everyone around us with an awful evil.  At the first observation, it seems true and holy.  But as we press into it we find a powerful iniquity.  It is camoflaged and hidden.  But it is quite corrosive and detrimental.

Oh, dear one.  I hope you can circumvent this issue.  I hope you can resist the evil of misguided truth.  We effect so many, we come to this place of analysis where we can reject those on the boundries.  We place them into our “unacceptable” folder.

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