When We Are Lonely - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, January 12th. God is our strength no matter what difficulties we face. Part two of the series points you to Jesus as the source of your strength when you are lonely. God does not desire that you and I be lonely, but rather that you and I have friends and that we be a friend. And most of all, that Jesus Christ is our friend above all other friends. All the way from the beginning of time, God has desired that you and I live in fellowship and companionship and intimacy with Him and with those about us. That is the will of the Father.

It has always been His will. And when you and I look around us today, we see people who are so very, very lonely. We wonder oftentimes why they're lonely.

Well, there's some very specific reasons for that. And that's what I want to talk about in this message entitled The Source of Our Strength When We Are Lonely. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 13. And I want us to read simply a part of a single verse. In Hebrews chapter 13 and verse five, you'll recall that in this passage beginning in the first verse.

This passage is about relationships. For example, he talks about loving the brethren and not neglecting strangers and entertaining them and remembering the prisoners and speaking of marriage and so forth. Then he says in verse five, let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have. For he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Right in the middle of this passage about relationships, God injects this awesome promise. I will never leave you. I will never desert you. I will never forsake you.

The only person who could possibly make such a promise is God Himself. Loneliness is one of those experiences many of us face. We'd like to avoid it at all costs. And it is an emotion, an experience that comes our way. It can either be like a hell all our life or it can be something that is short lived.

And that depends upon our response to it. And that's what I want to talk about in this message. When I think about loneliness, I know in my own heart that it is a painful emotion that comes to all of us at certain times in our life. Sometimes it is prolonged like a deep, deep, dark valley, or sometimes it is just passing and it is only momentary. It is one of the most excruciating emotional pains anyone feels.

And you and I live in a whole world of people out there who are extremely lonely. Feeling disconnected with family, disconnected with husband or wife, disconnected with parents or with children. Disconnected with a group that once they belong to, disconnected to their homeland.

If they have come to this country, for example, from a distant place. That separation anxiety that brings about a feeling of being disconnected somehow from someone we love or something that we hold someone we hold dear to us. It is a plague that has no prejudice.

It doesn't make any difference how rich you are, how famous you are, how poor you are, how uneducated you are. It has no prejudices. Loneliness creeps in and sometimes it comes rushing in. And sometimes so overpowering that it drives people to all kinds of situations and circumstances in their life. Well, let me distinguish for a moment between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness, we say, is a separation anxiety that brings about a feeling of being disconnected.

It is something that happens to us. We all like to avoid solitude. On the other hand, is a choice to be alone. Solitude is a time that my mind and my emotions can drain away all the pressures.

And for those moments, I don't feel the pressure of the demands of others. Solitude is a time for refreshment. Solitude is a time for creativity.

The most creative moments of our life are oftentimes when we are alone. Loneliness is a whole different issue. Now, you can be alone without feeling lonely. And on the other hand, you can feel lonely and be in the midst of a tremendous crowd.

People that you know and people who know you. But you can still feel the ache, the penetrating ache of loneliness. Now, when you look around, loneliness has permeated every single area of our society. I think about, for example, mothers who are at home all day long. And they only have either maybe one small baby or maybe two or three children, no adults to talk to. Maybe live in a place that is distant from their nearest friend. There's a sense of loneliness that can overcome them.

Husbands gone all day long. We are growing up an age of children. I don't mean young people. I mean children who are already sensing this awesome feeling, this terrifying feeling of being left alone in a world that is full of violence and crime and bloodshed and horror and fear.

We live in a society of fear. And think about all these little children who are at home by themselves and they watch all of these things that happen on television and you wonder why they're afraid. And you wonder why they're angry.

They're angry because they're tired of being left alone, alone by themselves. I think about, for example, retired people who've been working all their years and here's what they've been doing. They've been saying, boy, if I can just retire, if I can just work till I can retire, now here's what I'm going to do. And so they retire from the midst of a large group of people and they come home.

And if he's married or if she's married, their spouse is there or they may not be there at that particular time. And so what have they got? They've got this empty house or empty apartment, empty condominium. And there they are. And they were just working and living and struggling and saving and investing for this day. Now, this day's come.

You know what happens? All of a sudden, looming up above them is this dark cloud of loneliness. They are disconnected from what their life had been so fully attached to.

And you can take any facet of society, no matter what it is, it's the same thing. I think, for example, about pastors. And sometimes when a pastor first begins his ministry, and I want to say this to all of you folks out there who have a pastor. Sometimes you treat him as if he's untouchable or you treat him as if you put him on this pedestal and he's to stay up there and you just stay down here because he's holy and you're not even anywhere close to holy. And so what you do is you separate yourself emotionally from him. And what happens is there are many pastors who may have large churches who are very, very lonely.

You know why? Because somewhere along the way, somebody said to them, now, if you're going to be a pastor and you're going to be a good pastor, you can't have close friends, forget it. If that's your attitude towards your pastor, you are damaging him emotionally because everybody needs friends and everybody needs intimate friends and everybody needs special friends and everybody needs close friends. Whoever came up with the idea that a pastor is not to have close, intimate friends, people that he chooses above other people to be his friend. You choose your friends. You've chosen your friends in your church. And so oftentimes the pastor feels like, well, if he has special friends, people think he's being prejudiced. He's not treating us all alike. Therefore, let's get us another pastor. You get one just like him.

You get one just like him. You know why? Because he's human friend.

There are people out there who are suffering loneliness in ways that you and I would never dream of. And its effect upon them is awesome. And sometimes we think, well, you know, if you're a Christian, you ought to be able to handle all that. And so it shouldn't be any problem at all.

But it is. And I can think about it in my own life. In fact, the first thing I remember in life is sitting up in the bed.

The walls of this bedroom were brown wooden boarded walls. There was one kerosene lamp and I was sitting up in the middle of the bed with an earache. And I do remember I was alone. That is my first remembrance in life. And I must have been about two years old or so forth. My first remembrance in life is being alone.

My father died when I was nine months of age. And so this little boy inside of me said. He walked away. He's disconnected now in my rational mind as a two year old child and think anything of the sort.

But you see, the subconscious, the true being inside of us understands more than we realize. And so he died. Well, I don't think about death. He was just gone.

He walked away. My second remembrance of loneliness. And it's amazing how we think, well, those things that don't make any difference in their life.

Yes, they do. My second remembrance was that my favorite playmate. And he lived a few blocks down the street from me and I just loved him. And we had to be somewhere around four or five years of age because I know where we lived. I can remember that my mom was gone all day. And so a lady by the name of Ada kept me.

And she was real kind to me, for which I shall forever be grateful. I remember when he would come to play with me and then he said, I've got to leave. I can still feel what I felt. Please don't leave.

Please don't leave. I remember what I would do. I would say to him, if you won't leave, here's what I'll do. I would go down to the store, which was a block away. I would buy some candy and charge it to my mother's account. That's funny to you, but I was surviving loneliness.

I would charge it to my mother's account and come back and give it to him if he would stay a little longer. That's how lonely I was as a four year old kid, because, you see, my mom had to get up and leave every morning early. And she didn't come home till late in the afternoon. When she came home, she had to do what mothers do. Cook meals, clean up and do all the things that a mother has to do. My mother never heard of such an idea as a single parent.

That term wasn't even in, you know, your husband died and it's your job to raise your son. I remember the next thing in my life that caused me a great sense of loneliness. Well, when I started the school, I was too young.

I was going to be six in September and I was only five years of age. My mother had to leave every morning at seven o'clock to go to work. And so she taught me how to cook an egg and a piece of bacon and a piece of toast. And so that was my breakfast some mornings when I didn't need a bowl of cereal. And so she had to leave. And so I had to get up and fix my breakfast. And when I left home, she was gone.

She worked in the textile mill and when I came home, she was still gone. Now etched in my mind, crystal clear to me, just like somebody photographed it and set it in front of my mind today. I'd reach under the mat and get that long key and put it in the lock. And there were two locks and I can still remember how it sounded. I remember what I felt. I can see that lock right now.

Putting the key in the lock and listen to it unlatch and put it in the second one and thinking this. There's nobody home. I'm going to be by myself. And so I was by myself until she came home. I think my sense of loneliness was such that it was more to it than I thought it was, because I can remember walking out of my first grade class and my schoolteacher's name was Mrs. Farrell and sweet kind of teacher and I can still hear her voice.

I walked out the class. She was standing there talking to another teacher and I heard her say, I like Charles. Friend, God put that on the tape record and said it in my mind.

I can still hear Mrs. Farrell saying, I like Charles. My loneliness was so overwhelming that for one person to say I like me and call my name registered forever on my mind. Well, I wish I could say that those are the only lonely times in my life.

But they haven't been and they still aren't. And I know that my loneliness does not even begin to compare with some people who've gone through periods, deep, dark valleys of loneliness that are absolutely indescribable. I understand that.

And I would not share anything about my heart to say, look at me. But simply to say, I do know what I'm about to talk about. I do understand the ache, the hurt, the pain, the sense of hopelessness, helplessness, the sense of being in a fog and cannot see my way out of looking long down that tube and not seeing any light at the other end of the tunnel. And knowing that it's on the inside of me and I can't pull it out, it's on the outside of me and I can't get out of it.

It's just there. I do understand what it means to feel loneliness. And yet I also understand that God has not left us in our loneliness because it's never been His will for us to be alone, to be alone in solitude because we love Him and want to be with Him, yes.

But not the kind of loneliness I'm talking about. And you see, the results of that in people's lives can be absolutely destructive. It will either drive us into destructive habits or it will drive us to God.

And sometimes it does drive people to destructive habits. Why do they become alcoholics trying to forget something and oftentimes it is loneliness? They want to drive out, listen, drive out those feelings. But remember that loneliness is a disconnect. It is a separation anxiety brought about by feelings of being disconnected. That is, there's a loss of intimacy, a loss of touch. And they get on drugs and they have affairs and they get into all kinds of perverted sexual lifestyles.

They marry quickly in situations in order to get away from this feeling of loneliness. They intensify their schedule till it's absolutely health-breaking. Oftentimes there is ill health and prima to a death. And then of course the worst thing of all is that some people can't handle that kind of loneliness, feeling isolated, thinking about feeling absolutely totally shut out and all alone ostracized like an island in the midst of a universe, an island all to yourself. So what do they do? They say life's not worth it. I can't handle it. And they write them a note and they destroy themselves.

They commit suicide. And I want to say to you, my friend, if you're one of those persons who is exactly where I'm talking about, you're caught in that fog and that old black cloud just lays in there and no kind of breeze will blow it away. And everywhere you turn, it's there. It's on the inside gripping you, tormenting you, pressuring you. It's on the outside all around you and you can't escape. You've done everything you know to escape.

You can't escape. And you just ask yourself the question, why do I want to keep living? Because I've been disconnected, torn apart, separated from, I'm out of touch.

There's no intimacy. So what's life worth if there isn't any connectedness, no intimacy, no real genuine fellowship with anyone? And I want to say to you, my friend, don't commit suicide.

Because, you see, that's not going to settle any of your problems. And if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you know what suicide will do? It will bring you to the ultimate indescribable intensity of the very thing you are trying to escape. Because, you see, when a person dies without Christ, they are eternally separated from the very one who created them and the very one who created them for fellowship and intimacy and companionship with himself.

It is never the way out. And when loneliness settles in in a person's life, it can be horribly destructive. It will either drive you into those activities and those habits that are so destructive. You see, when you seek and escape from loneliness by sin, all you do is just broaden the gulf between you and the one thing that you want most of all, and that is to be reconnected. And that is a sense of companionship and oneness and fellowship and friendship. Sin just keeps it making it worse and making it more difficult.

That is never a way out. My friend, you were created for God. You were created to love him, to fellowship with him, to grow in intimacy with him. Nothing in this world is going to bring you back into that relationship but Christ. And my friend, there is not anything in this world that's going to give you a sense of fullness and completeness and oneness.

You may be the richest person in your town. You may have the most preeminence and acceptance in their eyes, but I want to tell you there's only one thing that can fulfill the human heart, only one thing that can make you sense and experience that sense of being reconnected and oneness and joy and indescribable arenae, peace, being bound together, which means to be made whole, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that comes about when you confess your sins to him, acknowledge that you're separated from him by your sins, and acknowledge that when he died at the cross, he paid your sin debt in full, and when you receive him by faith and just say to him, Father, I have sinned against you. I know that I'm separated. I feel this separation. I feel this estrangement from you. I want this reconnection. I want to be forgiven.

I want to be what you want me to be. I'm asking you to forgive me of my sins. I'm asking you to save me, God, from myself, from my loneliness, from wrecking my life.

He always answers that prayer. Thank you for listening to part one of When We Are Lonely. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.