Almost everyone has experienced the pain of loneliness to one degree or another. Some people's lives are being destroyed by it. Fortunately, God has a cure.
Loneliness is caused by adopting the wrong goal in our hearts. When we are lonely, our goal is to be loved or to find a companion. Although loneliness puts our focus on our desire for friendship, loneliness also makes it more difficult to make friends. It is not a constructive force; it is destructive. In fact C. S. Lewis called lonely people "those people who simply want friends and can never make any."
When people are driven by their loneliness to reach out to others, their efforts are contaminated by a selfish agenda. John Powell compares a lonely person to someone with a toothache--constantly in search of a dentist, someone to solve his problem. Inasmuch as they are trying to meet their own need and to alleviate their own pain, they are trying to use others. Since people don't like to be used, they aren't lining up to spend time with them.
When you were a kid, did you ever take a magnet and chase other magnets around with it? This is what a lonely person experiences. The more desperate they are for companionship, the more other people seem to avoid them.
They think the solution to their problem is to find someone to love them, but that is not the case. Samuel Shoemaker, an evangelical leader after World War II, wisely observed, "We are not lonely because we are not loved, but because we do not love."
Have you ever been up very early and seen a mist or gloom hanging over the horizon? This gloom never appears later in the day, because as soon as the morning sun comes over the horizon, it burns away the gloom. There's a scripture about this phenomenon, but it's not talking about the weather. It's talking about what happens in people's hearts when they lift their focus off of themselves to be a blessing to others.
In Isaiah 58:10, God says, "If you pour yourself out for the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall be as the noonday."
Jesus expressed this same principle in John 15:11-12. Notice the biblical connection between loving others and experiencing joy:
"I'm telling you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you."
Years ago I was invited to speak at a Singles Conference in California's San Bernardino Mountains. As I spoke to them about "How to Overcome Loneliness", the group became downright hostile. Many of them were older singles, and loneliness was a major issue in their lives. I guess they felt like I was kicking them when they were down. They seemed to interpret my message as if I were condemning them by saying, "You're not only lonely, you're selfish too!"
As soon as the session was over, Anita, the director of the conference, pulled me aside. Anita was the one who had invited me to speak. She herself was an older single and she said to me, "This is exactly what they need to hear. If they keep doing what they have been doing, they are going to stay in bondage. They need to understand how to live a different way." I replied, "I think the problem may be that I didn't tell them about my own struggles in this area."
So in the next session I told them my own story. When I was first hired by Dallas Baptist University in 1989, I served as director of admissions. For those years in admissions, I worked every day with a staff of recruiters. Not surprisingly, these were fun people to be around and we had a great time planning and executing various events. Then I moved over to student development where I worked with one other man: my friend Brent Wallace. Brent was not an employee of the university. He worked for the LifeGivingWords ministry. Brent helped me to write my part of the book "This Was Your Life!" along with a couple of articles and a tract. Often during our lunch break we would play ping pong or foosball. After three years, our funds ran out to pay Brent and he had to move on. So after many years of working with a staff or with Brent, suddenly I was by myself-all day every day.
The gloom of loneliness settled upon me every morning. It was terrible. Very heavy and oppressive. The scripture tells us to "put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness" so each day I chose to give God thanks for His blessings, and the gloom would lift, providing temporary relief. However, the next morning the gloom was always back again.
My mind was dominated by a single thought: How can I get rid of this loneliness?
After about three weeks of this torture, I suddenly realized I wasn't caring about anybody else in the world. I had become the center of my own attention.
Philippians 2:3-4 says:
With humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
On that day I made a conscious decision to begin caring for others. At that moment the loneliness disappeared, and this time it didn't come back.
When we humble ourselves in this way, looking to the interests of others, we are like a magnet that has been turned around. Instead of avoiding us, people are attracted to us, because people love to be loved. They love to be listened to; they love to be encouraged. People love for another human being to show genuine interest in what's happening in their lives.
During this last decade the loneliness has tried to return several times. Often it happens as I drive onto campus. But whenever loneliness tries to grab hold of me, I say, "I'm not going down that path again! Lord, who can I serve? Who can I be a blessing to?" I look for a student I can offer a ride to. As I lift up my focus, the loneliness disappears, and God's joy comes back into my heart. It's amazing what this change in focus can do.
Someone once said:
"You can make more friends in two months by being interested in others, than you can in two years trying to get others interested in you."
Some lonely people feel unable to love. They feel like an empty cup. Since they can't give away what they don't have, they think they need someone to fill them up first before they will be able to reach out in love to others. In a sense they are right.
To be able to reach out to others unselfishly, we must affirm that our needs for love and significance are already met in Christ. We may need to meditate on the fact that this is indeed true, even if it doesn't feel true. This affirmation results in a "full cup" perspective. We realize that we can share love with other people. We thus experience the reality of 1 John 4:19: "We love because He first loved us."
When you begin to suffer with loneliness, you can humble yourself and use Philippians 2:3-4 like medicine to correct your focus and cure yourself. Or better yet, you can take it like preventative medicine. If you set your mind each day and say, "Lord, make me a blessing to people today. Who can I help? Who can I show Your kindness to?" then it will be hard for the gloom of loneliness to even land on you in the first place. By changing the goal of your heart, not only will you be free from the gloom of loneliness, and not only will you experience joy, but God will use your life to bless many others.
This article is based on material from the conference entitled, This was Your Life! Preparing to Meet God Face to Face by Jamie Lash. Copyright 2005. This article may be reprinted in its entirety.