Mike Focht 10/18/2024
Loneliness is a plague in our society. We fear its icy touch and often do all we can, even to the point of sin, to escape it. The pain of loneliness is a reality, but it shouldn’t dominate us as the children of God. Allow me to say this as clearly as possible: Loneliness is a necessary path for the child of God.
Everyone who seeks to walk with God as a stranger and pilgrim in this world will face loneliness in one measure or another. The acute sting of loneliness may come from many angles, but I believe the Scriptures reveal four stages that believers must walk through as they progress in the life of godliness and service. If we forsake these paths because of our fear of loneliness, we may be forsaking our path to mature life in Christ.
First, the sting of loneliness finds the child of God when we hear the call to follow Him. These beginning steps of obedience are lonely because we are turning our back on all we have loved and known before Christ. We can see this illustrated in the lives of Moses and Paul. Moses left everyone and everything he knew when he chose the Hebrew people over Egypt. Paul left all he had worked for and achieved as a Pharisee after his Damascus road experience. Certainly, Jesus goes with us, and that fact is what strengthens us to continue, but even so, turning from our old life to follow Christ means leaving one kingdom for another, one life for another, one family for another, one world for another, and a false god for the True One. The sting of loneliness is a necessary part of that decision.
Second, joy and contentment often set in as we begin to learn what it means to walk with God. We also find a new family and fellowship in the people of God. This is all well and good. But somewhere along the path of growth, God will call His disciple to Himself. There is a place of personal loneliness when the child of God is left alone with God.
This experience is illustrated by Moses’ years in the deserts of Midian and Paul’s years in the deserts of Arabia. These men were humbled and taught of God in those desert places. God wanted them isolated, alone with Him.
God still works to get us alone with Him. It is there—alone with Him—that men and women surrender their skewed ideas, personal aspirations, unspoken desires, false expectations, and improperaffections. And though family, friends, and crowds may be around you, there remains great loneliness as God sifts. Yet on this path of social loneliness, a man or woman is purified and made into a vessel of gold or silver fit for the Master’s use.
Third, there is a loneliness that shades the path of public faithfulness. When the child of God leaves all to follow Him and God begins the molding process in the appointed crucible, there often follows a long and fruitful path of service. On this beautiful path of service, as we set our hands to the plow, we will often be joined by many others willing and enthusiastic to join us. Even so, as the years go on, to our shock and dismay, many will look back. Their absence makes our path lonelier. In those difficult moments of disbelief and confusion, when a beloved friend or mentor who once shared the plow goes astray, we continue to walk with God, only shaded by the cold chill of loneliness.
This experience is seen in Moses’ forty-year wilderness march, as he watched both family and friends fall away from God through sin and death. It is repeated in Paul’s experience as he was forced to defend his love, life, and apostleship to the very churches he founded and cared for so deeply. At one point, Paul tragically confesses, all those in Asia have turned away from me. As the old saint, staring death in the face, he says, Demas has forsaken me… Only Luke is with me… At my first defense no one stood with me, but all men forsook me…
Like ships adrift in the open sea, as we faithfully progress on the good and right way, there will be fewer and fewer friendly sails on the horizon. We cannot escape this path. It is the path the Lord calls us to, and in His great grace, He will draw nearer as others fade farther. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Finally, there is a path of loneliness that not every Christian comes to. It is far removed from the experience of the standard and easy Christian life. Days do not matter on this path—distance does. I am speaking of the loneliness found in private fellowship with God.
There is no fear in this path. The loneliness here is different, for this loneliness is simply a byproduct of a greater reality. Allow me to explain this as best I can. There are times in our fellowship with God, when He comes so near and becomes so personal, that no other human is able to share the communion.
Moses illustrates this experience at the burning bush, his face-altering vision of God’s glory on Mount Sinai, and his unusual habit of speaking with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend. Paul repeats this experience in meeting Christ on the road to Damascus. In the subsequent appearances of Christ, he briefly mentions, and with the heavenly visions of which he could not speak.
Who could they have shared these experiences with? What human words would even do them justice? Is it even possible to fellowship around these moments with other flesh and blood? No, these paths remain joyfully lonely places.
My fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, some places of communion with God are so personal, so deep, that as you walk with God, experience God, and come to know God more, there will be fewer and fewer people you can share such intimate realities with.
God has made these types of intimate experiences possible to all His followers, but sadly, they are not common this side of heaven. God doesn’t play favorites. His desire to draw near to us remains the same. Our desire to draw near to Him is what is lacking.
If God so blesses you with holy views of Himself, do not be distressed if the majority of those around you cannot understand your joy and wonder. Instead, bend your knees and rejoice in your loneliness with Him. Be lonely with God. May we all have places in our lives where we are blessed enough to say like Paul: All forsook me… But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.