People are not all alike. Some people greatly prefer to be alone. They can be quite content to enjoy the company of themselves. They might be antisocial or introverted or misanthropes, and so on. A relaxing day sitting at home reading a book and sipping a cup of tea is their, well, cup of tea!
Others go crazy if they are left alone even for short periods of time. They crave the company of others, and they get all rather worried if they stay isolated. They are gregarious, they thrive when being around others, and they are social butterflies.
And of course many people find themselves somewhere in between these extremes. For what it is worth, I tend to be in the former camp. I am now home alone with my dog. But I do not mind it greatly. I of course miss my wife who passed away nearly three years ago now, and my sons all live relatively close by, so I get to see them fairly often.
So for me, I can get by pretty well being alone. But for others, it can be a crushing reality, and some become quite depressed, even suicidal, about being isolated from others, or being social pariahs. Books and films of course have dealt with these issues so often.
Plenty of songs have also addressed this. Here are just a handful of obvious tunes:
Christians, like others, can also struggle with loneliness. The Bible speaks about this in various places. Partly it does so by discussing those who have felt alone, betrayed or abandoned. Think of biblical characters such as Job or Elijah or David or Paul. And Jesus himself knew all about this, especially as he endured the cross. As we read in Matthew 27:45-46:
“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli,lemasabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).”
And various texts can be cited as well about the promises of God for those who feel alone and isolated. Psalm 68:5-6 for example puts it this way:
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families.
As Christians, we are not meant to always be abuzz in social gatherings, while neglecting times to be alone with God. Nor are we meant to be isolated hermits (although God might have a special call for SOME people to do this, perhaps for a while).
Christianity is about loving God and loving others. The two great commandments make this perfectly clear: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
So folks like me need to push themselves to get out of their comfort zones and spend more time with other believers. We are told NOT to neglect fellowshipping with others: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
But having said all this, there is still a place for differences in the Body of Christ. God made us different, and we need not be ashamed of who we are. In some ways my own contentment with being somewhat alone has meant that I have been able to do the work God has called me to do.
Staying at home and writing articles is one way that this occurs. But other believers are people persons, and their calling might be to move into pastoral ministry, or to be a counsellor, and the like. So different giftings and callings can reflect different temperaments and personality types.
On walking alone with God
So it is OK to be who you are. But there is still a sense in which the man or woman of God may well find that loneliness might even be something God that can call us to. It might be part of having a closer walk with God. Many famous Christians have spoken to this.
Man-The Dwelling Place of Godby Tozer, A W (Author)
Let me mention just one. In Man: The Dwelling Place of God, A. W. Tozer has a chapter titled, “The Saint Must Walk Alone”. It is an important essay, and I have spoken to it before. But just four short quotes might be of help to some of you:
“Most of the world’s great souls have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness.”
“Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company. Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. Society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross. No one is a friend to the man with a cross. ‘They all forsook him, and fled’.”
“The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world.”
“The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful ‘adjustment’ to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints.”
The words of Tozer will be of comfort to some. But again, God did not make us all the same. Being fallen creatures, we usually need to work on some areas in our lives. Misanthropes like me need to work on their people skills, and to learn how to get out more and socialise more, at least to some extent.
And those who thrive on always being out and mingling with others might need to learn the value of spiritual disciplines such as solitude and biblical meditation, learning how to be happy in God’s presence alone for periods of time.
In closing, if you are feeling quite lonely, there are two obvious things we must remember: seek out the fellowship of other believers, and recall the wonderful promises of God that he is always with us, and that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
