Alone - Is A Lie

Alone? Who is truly alone? Nobody. A person might experience loneliness - the cause of isolation by another through something like rejection, but nobody is ever alone. First, God is omnipresent - everywhere. Second, God blessed us with a relationship with Him and each other. Thirdly, concerning any kind of circumstance, too much history has transpired to think that any one person is going through a situation that nobody else has experienced in some form or fashion. Paul states it like this in 1 Corinthians 10:12-13

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."

This is not to belittle the challenge or experience you are going through, but to inform you and encourage you that while old problems surface in new ways, God will be there. The Lord's resolution might not be what you had in mind and when you thought He would act, but He said he would "provide a way out so that you can endure it".

God is the one who has been with humanity from the beginning. God made Adam, walked with him and charged him with certain responsibilities. Then, "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'" (Gen. 2:18)

The word "alone" in the original Hebrew, bad, means properly separated; by implication a part of the body, branch of a tree. Adam was a third of the equation (he, God and Eve), a point on the perfect relationship triangle that mirrored The Holy Trinity. God took a rib from Adam, formed woman and brought Eve to Adam who now completed the other side of him; who was now not alone in kind. 

When God manifested Himself throughout history it seemed to be in three ways - (1) before His people, (2) alongside His people and (3) within His people. Before His people usually as The Angel of the Lord, an audible voice or speaking directly to the then leader of the Hebrew people. Alongside His people He came as The Christ, God's representation of Himself in flesh. Within His people God dwells by the power of the Holy Spirit after Christ's resurrection and ascenscion to Father God's right hand.

Today, the believer needs to hear, trust and testify to God's Presence and Provision displayed all around the Christian. This assurance will do wonders to comfort the anxious and falsify the notion of being alone.

God describes His word and presence in front of us as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (Psalm 119:105). He supplies us with direction for our lives in the short-term - lamp unto our feet - and the long-haul - light unto our path.

He depicts Himself as one who protects on either side - "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." (Psalm 91:7) 

God also portrays Himself in at least two places as your "rear guard" - Isaiah 52:12 and Isaiah 58:8

Then in Deuteronomy 32:11-12, Moses poetically illustrates God as an eagle that hovers over its children. "...like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him." Even from above us the Holy Spirit is present and covers.

When relying on each other to keep loneliness at bay there is always room for improvement. The Holiday Season seems to hit people particularly hard. However, if we can at least buddy-up with someone or multiple people, then we will have made a great start at keeping loneliness and all its friends like depression - away.

There are always two and sometimes more individuals we can observe in society and certainly in Scripture that pair-up to help and compliment each other.

Batman and Robin, Obi-wan and Luke, Han and Chewbacca, Abbot and Costello, Sunny and Share, Bo and Luke Duke, Simon and Simon, Donny and Marie Osmond, The Wonder Twins, or you and your best friend.....make a great pair or dynamic duo. These are just a taste of life teaching us that when it comes to living, relationship(s) not "solo-ism" is the better choice.

Scripture supports this decision to have a close friend or friends in which you share life and maybe even your work. People like God and Adam, Adam and Eve, Moses and Aaron, Moses and Joshua, Mordecai and Esther, David and Johnathan, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Silas, and Priscilla and Aquila - were Biblical examples of dynamic pairs. There are pieces from each relationship/partnership that I hope I have and will attain in close relationships of my own.

Sometimes there were more than two! Daniel had his friends...Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The Disciples had each other. When the local churches started, they too had each other and shared a lot with each other, including their finances. There is strength in numbers. A small or large group of friends can be a great support group and takes some degree of pressure off the best friend relationship or mentor relationship one might have in addition to the group friendship.

Alone is hard, if not impossible in these instances. We were never meant to be alone, that is a fabrication of The Father of Lies. Paul strongly admonishes Timothy and any believer with blood family - "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (1Timothy 5:8) Then in Galatians 6:10, Paul speaks about the believer's spiritual family when he says, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." There is great difficulty in being alone and experiencing isolation or loneliness when at the same time one is tending/caring for the needs of his/her blood or spiritual families.

Not that solitary moments are not healthy for us now and then. Our own personal time balanced with our precious relationships are a must for a healthy us. Jesus exercised this personal time and even then He was never alone and neither are we.

All of creation can be sure of one thing, there is No Privacy. God is everywhere, sees everything and knows all. His numerous Holy angels are present also, executing God's will in every area of creation. I cannot speak to those who have passed on - whether they "look over the Banister of Heaven" and can view our lives here on earth. However, just the fact that God and His interested spectators are watching should be enough to warrant a lifestyle change or at least a pause to consider one.

When observing Christ's unattended moments we can see that His private life not only prepared Him for His public life, it matched it. His individual moments were spent in prayer and He prayed publicly for people also.

With no privacy granted to us from Heaven - do my alone moments truly match behavior in public that would bring glory to God? If I praise Him in private to His face, why not in public? If I proclaim to Him who He is to me in private, why not in public? If I pray in private, why not in public? As long as we still have the freedoms we have and as long as there are lost and struggling people needing to see a good life-example of a true Christian, then we must match up our private and public moments to show forth a level of integrity struggling to be seen. This journey, this lifestyle all starts with you and it all begins in your alone moments but it also means you are really, never alone.

Therefore, not only is God with us from the beginning, globally surrounding us with His presence, but He creates us for relationship and fills our life with relationships, with the opportunity of more relationships to come. There is no escaping God's presence, we were meant to harmoniously commune with Him and each other and know that Alone - Is A Lie.

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