By Chris WittsWednesday 28 Dec 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
If you were with me yesterday morning, I was talking about lonely people and I want to talk about that again. An old lady sat in her wheelchair in the aged care complex. She’d been there quite a few years, and one day a friendly and compassionate visitor came and sat next to her and started talking. And as the visitor got up and prepared to leave, the older lady grabbed her hand. Aren’t you going to move in here with me? She said, can’t you just stay?
(Lonely People – Part 1 – Morning Devotions)
Well, the visitor tried to explain this was not her home. Well, I’m glad you can go home. I mean, this is just a terrible place to be.
How sad to think that there are many people like this who are desperately lonely and this matter of loneliness become or has become a common problem for centuries. It was T. S. Eliot, the great poet who wrote “hell is oneself. Hell is close. The other figures in it merely projections. There’s nothing to escape from. Nothing to escape to. One is always alone.” And in his wonderful book ‘The Wounded Healer’. He used to say that isolation is among the worst of human sufferings.
And when we are lonely, we’ve got no one to share the things that we like or dislike things that we might be proud of or even our shameful moments. There’s no one to talk to about our dreams and worries and sorrows and joys that we might have. So I think it’s important to remember that loneliness, as bad as it is, is not a life sentence. You can do something about it, It’s surprisingly, has got little to do with being alone. You could be hundreds of miles from the nearest person, and you can still be happy and enjoy the peace of solitude. Or you could be a newlywed with your wife and have still that gnawing emptiness of loneliness. So no matter how popular you might be, you can have pain and heartache that no one else feels and the fears and opinions of those people around you they don’t understand. And there are times when we are physically separated from people that we love.
And of course it could be the problems you don’t like yourself. And if that’s true, you’re always alone because you just can’t sort of settle with yourself. And that can drag you down if we don’t like ourselves. For example, it does mean that we’re not seeing ourselves through the eyes of God. Do you know that God thinks the world of you? Because Jesus gave everything for you. No human has ever loved anyone more than the intense love that God has. Because yes, he looks at you and me and sees him room for improvement. But God is powerful enough and loving enough to be working in our lives even when we don’t know what’s happening.
So when you welcome the God of the impossible into your life and you permit him to have his way with you, what actually happens is that you’re a divine masterpiece under construction.
That’s an interesting way of putting it. If Jesus is your Saviour, you’ve had this transformation that’s exploded within you and having God. They’re not only means you’re never without a companion because God loves you and understands you, and then that can have the impact of enriching other people. So let God rule everything the way you speak. What you say the energy you have and with the almighty God in your life, there can really be no such thing as feeling inadequate.
Reach out to people. You’ll find that you will be a blessing and inspiration on right now and, as I just mentioned minute ago, said that when you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able to take that loneliness away, even if it was just for a moment. And you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless and you want to be with that person.
It’s the emptiness inside that you have to be willing to experience, not the person that could take it away. And you might need time to think through all that comment. But knowing God as your friend, your divine friend and Jesus as your Saviour actually meets every need that you have. Yes, it is a very painful experience, but since God created you and me as relational beings, if you like, the absence of companionship can indeed be very discouraging.
Let’s Pray
Well, Lord, we know about this. We know that we want to do our own thing. We don’t listen to others. And sometimes we don’t listen to you, please open our ears to hear your voice and take away the loneliness, I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.