Psalm 27:10
“Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the Lord will hold me close.”
I know it’s not just me—no one likes to feel lonely. Even though friendships can lead to hurt and disappointment, most of us still have a desire to seek out friends because we want companionship; we want to be welcomed; we want to feel known—our hearts long to not be lonely. Today, that’s the topic I want to address regarding friendships: handling loneliness biblically. In a world that is more connected than ever because of the internet and social media, countless people everyday still feel “alone.” I think we can all relate to the feeling that “No one understand me” or “I must be the only one with this problem” or “I’m sure everyone else has plans but me.” All those thoughts can be tied to feeling alone or lonely.
I know there are people who say they love being alone or that they are loners, but I have never heard someone say, “I like being lonely.” The feeling of loneliness is almost exclusively used in a negative connotation. Many people talk about experiencing loneliness in the context of singleness or in desiring romantic relationships. But even our families and friendships make us feel lonely when we’re misunderstood or have been rejected, or when we feel like we have no family or friends there for us.
Having friendships helps us feel like we’re not alone, abandoned, despised, rejected, abnormal—all feelings associated with being lonely. But besides just addressing how loneliness feels, I want think practically about the Bible’s solutions for when we are struggling with being lonely. A common solution of the world is to seek out friends because, as I’ve talked about in other posts in this series, they make us feel welcomed, loved, known, relatable. I also discussed how God did design us to live in relationship with others and how we are made for biblical community. In the Bible, though, we find so much more hope for our loneliness, rather than just in our relationships with others. The biblical solution for handling loneliness is not just to seek friendships, but to rest in the hope that the Gospel brings.
I think the opening verse for today, Psalm 27:10, is an important passage to consider when trying to understand how Gospel hope should affect us. King David is saying that no matter if the people who should love and care for him the most in this life—his parents—abandon him, he trusts that the Lord is still with him, still holding him close. Some of you have actually experienced abandonment by parents, which is unthinkable for those of us who have not. That kind of relational loss, rejection, or betrayal hurts beyond words and has a lasting impact on us. Yet David can talk about it as just an “even if” because of the truths he believes about his Savior and Lord.
King David had a special relationship with the Lord, which was where he sought comfort—but he did not have the example of Jesus Christ that we now have of our God walking through the same experiences we will face in life. Did you know that Jesus, our Lord and Savior, knows what it means to feel lonely?
Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
This was a prophecy about the suffering Savior who would come to walk among God’s people. This was then fulfilled in the life of Christ—He was despised, rejected, full of sorrow and grief. Men hid their faces from Him, and He was not esteemed by those around Him. Jesus knows what it means to feel lonely! Because we have a Savior and God who can actually empathize with us in our loneliness, we can trust that we also have a God who is able to comfort us when we are alone:
1 Corinthians 1:3-5
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
If we follow Jesus Christ, we will experience the same things He went through and suffered—but we also share abundantly in the comforts Christ offers. And what does He comfort us with? The promises of the Gospel!
Mark 10:29–30
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.
For those of us who choose to follow Jesus, the hope of the Gospel means He will provide all our needs in this life, even if there are times when we are lonely. It also means we have the hope of eternal life in Heaven with God, where we will constantly be in His presence and will never face loneliness again!
The Gospel tells us that we have a God who loves and knows us more than we could ever imagine. We are never truly alone, because He really does hold His children close. He never forsakes or abandons. So when we feel lonely, we must reflect on those truths, like the Psalmist in Psalm 139:
Psalm 139:1-6
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
As I’ve been studying this topic on friendship, I have been so encouraged and thankful that God created me for Christian community and relationships with others. However, I have been reminded so much more in this study of how my relationship with God must come first and foremost in my life in order for me to more fully enjoy the blessing of friendships. I wanted to spend today focused on the Gospel hope in seasons of loneliness, because if we forget to keep that front and center, we so easily fall into wrong thinking about friendships.
In my next post, I plan to talk about a couple more aspects of friendships that we must be weary of—idolizing friends and fearing man in our relationships. I want to round off this series on friendships with more Gospel truth about how we can glorify God when confronting those common heart struggles. I am praying that you continue to be encouraged by what God’s Word has to say about our relationships, and I want to thank you for joining me in this study!
Is It Just Me?