Lonely? You’re in Good Company.
Loneliness can cause us to feel different from others. However, lonely people are in good company. The Bible describes several people who experienced tremendous loneliness.
Adam: A solitary human. For awhile, Adam was the most solitary human ever to live. God’s response to Adam’s isolation was to create a helper for him (Gen. 2:18). Eve gave Adam the companionship he craved along with the ability to create even more relationships with his descendants.
Naomi: A lonely widow. Naomi had gone with her husband to live in a foreign land (Ruth 1:1). After her husband and her two sons died, even the presence of her devoted daughter-in-law Ruth did not prevent Naomi from instructing her kinsmen to call her Mara (meaning bitter), as she believed the Lord had dealt bitterly with her (Ruth 1:19-21). However, God ultimately provided Naomi a helper in Boaz, the man who married Ruth and concurrently restored joy and purpose to Naomi’s life (Ruth 4:13-17).
Tamar: A lonely victim. Ruth’s great-great granddaughter Tamar was raped by her brother Amnon, only to immediately be rejected and cast out of his house (2 Sam. 13:15-19). Tamar’s father, King David, who was best positioned to be her helper, stood idly by. As a result, Tamar lived as “a desolate woman” in the house of her other brother Absolom (2 Sam. 13:20-21).
David: A lonely king. King David should have sympathized with Tamar’s plight, as he often had experienced the loneliness that comes from feeling cut off from human assistance. In Psalm 142:4, David lamented: “Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul.” However, at less pessimistic moments, David recognized that God was his helper (e.g., Psalm 54:4).
Jesus: A lonely savior. Jesus’s closest earthly friends were no help in his darkest hour. After his arrest, they abandoned him (Matt. 26:56), and one of them denied even knowing him (Matt. 26:69-74). It may have been on the cross, though, that Jesus reached the pinnacle of loneliness. There, cut off from human community by the curse of a cross and separated from God by the curse of sin, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
Paul: A lonely missionary. In 1 Corinthians 11:22-27 the Apostle Paul recounted a litany of physical sufferings he had endured. However, Paul seemed to be even more deeply affected by desertions by his helpers than by his physical sufferings. Perhaps few passages in the Bible are more poignant than Paul’s last letter, penned to his dear friend Timothy, in which he lamented his painful abandonment by trusted friends (2 Tim. 4:9-17).
You: Not without hope. The common thread in these stories is the lack of a helper. Solitude can turn to loneliness quickly when we perceive ourselves to be without help. If you’re feeling lonely, don’t be content to stay there. Recognize that your feelings of loneliness are there to motivate you to reconnect with other humans. If necessary, find a counselor to help you strategize ways to find help. Above all, don’t give up. We were created for community. Don’t stop reaching out until you find a way to form healthy connections with others.
(Posted by Jim Gant, PhD)
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