Alone?

            Do you ever feel alone? Not as in, a pleasant moment of solitude in which you collect your thoughts, de-stress, and breathe. I’m talking about being alone, helpless, frustrated, desperate, needing someone and yet feeling that there is no one you can turn to. Have you been there? Sometimes fear, grief, or failure trick us into believing there is no help, that we are truly alone. It doesn’t matter what we’ve heard about God always being with us. The “Footprints in the Sand” quote seems lame and empty. All the Scripture and all the quotes that are supposed to bring hope and assurance seem to fall flat. This isn’t new, or unique to you. Many others have felt that way. Today, I’d like to take you with me as I explore some of those who struggled with feeling alone, along with some truths that can be our anchors when we are feeling alone and overwhelmed.

            The first person I’d like to mention is Job. Job was an upright man, dedicated to serving God. And then tragedy struck. In one day, Job lost all his livestock and most of his employees to raiding bands or to ‘acts of nature.’ And to top it off, as soon as Job had received that news, he found out that all his children had died when a house collapsed on them. What grief and loss! Then to add to Job’s misery, he got boils. In fact, it is recorded that this case of boils covered him from head to toe and he was unable to find relief. In this situation, three of Job’s friends came to comfort him. But their endeavors to comfort him quickly turned into accusations. They assured him that though he acted like he was doing good and obeying God, that he was actually sinning grievously. Job felt alone, abandoned. He felt that even God was nowhere to be found. This is his anguished, desperate cry. “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him” (Job 23:3-9). Sometimes, we can feel this way. The things God has allowed in our lives don’t make sense. And maybe we’d like some answers. But more than that we long for strength in our long days filled with grief and pain. And most of all, we desperately want to know that God is there. Not someone saying, God is with you. But to know, deeply, personally “God is with me.” We see God working in others’ lives, but we need to experience that closeness in our own. Let’s look back to Job for a moment and see what truth he was clinging to as his anchor in the storm. In the midst of his grief and desperate longing he declares, “But he [God] knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). Job clung to the truth that even when we don’t see God or understand what He is doing, God sees us and He knows what He is doing in our lives. We can claim this truth as well, and find hope in our hour of grief.

            The second person I’d like to look at is Elijah. Elijah was God’s messenger to call the people of Israel to come back to God and stop worshipping idols. After a three year drought, God powerfully showed Himself to be the true God, as well as sending rain (1 Kings 18). As a result of the happenings of that day, the queen (who was fully devoted to the idol-worship) began plotting Elijah’s death. In desperation and disappointment, Elijah wished for God to end his life, and then ran from the queen. He found a cave to stay in, and while he was there, God spoke to him, asking what he was doing there. Elijah responds, “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have  forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10). In patient, gentle love, God replied, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. and, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave” (1 Kings 19:11-13a). God proceeds at this point to send Elijah to call the people who will be God’s instruments of guidance to the children of Israel. Then He says to Elijah, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal [the idol], and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (v. 18). When we look around and see all the evil that is going on around us, when we see all the hatred and fighting, when we see all the dirtiness and sin being praised and promoted, when we see the truth mocked and the pure things defiled, when we see the overwhelming flood of wrong, it is easy to feel that we are alone. We wonder if no one else is aware of what’s going on. We ask, “God, do you see this?” But God has promised that the day of judgment is coming, and that He will judge every person according to what they have done (Romans 2:1-10, Matthew 16:24-28). And despite what others may say or how we may feel, we can cling to the truth that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). We are not alone. God has not forgotten or begun accepting wickedness. But He is calling sinners to Himself.

            Dear friends, I don’t know where you are. I don’t know if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the wickedness and sin that seems to be springing up and overrunning everything. I don’t know if grief and loss has filled your heart with a desperate longing for strength from God and the opportunity to experience His presence in a meaningful way. I don’t know if, for now you’re doing okay. Wherever you are, may you cling to the truth of who God is and find peace and security in Him, though the storms are raging and you feel alone. God has not abandoned you. Call out to Him and wait patiently for Him to strengthen and encourage your heart.

“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised).” Hebrews 10:23