A Path God Uses

Steve DeWitt writes on loneliness-- the whole piece is worth reading, but here is his conclusion:

Loneliness has an ugly twin sister named fear. When I am lonely, I fear that life will always be this way. Am I unlovable? Is there something wrong with me? Here loneliness can lead us to a most wonderful truth: God didn’t love us because we are loveable but simply because he is love. Remember: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8), and, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). We find that God’s love is not something you dress up for or qualify yourself by being loveable. We simply receive it as the gracious, free gift he offers. This love is the love for which my loneliness longs. To have Christ is to know this love.

I may not have a wife, but I have Christ. You may not have a husband, but you have Christ. You may be separated from family, but you have Christ. You may be a widow, but you have Christ. You may be rejected by my spouse, but you have Christ. And since you and I are made for him, to have him is to have his Spirit as a guarantee that someday I won’t ever feel lonely again. Therefore, we cannot invest our ultimate hope in a new relationship, friendship, or romance. Our hope as a Christian must be in the full realization of who we already have. In our moments of inward desolation, the Lord is there and with him there is a path through the valley of loneliness

In my worst moments of relational despair and unfulfilled longings, I look at the possibility of a life alone, and my loneliness guides me down a secret passageway to divine assurances. When I allow it to lead me there, I find the God-sized ache softened with his presence and promise. “Aloneness” doesn’t have to mean loneliness; it can actually be the path God uses for my soul to find its rest in him.