Last night, was a hard night. You know those days when everything just seems to crash and burn so hard you are just walking around with a pit in your stomach not even really sure how to feel? Well, that was me last night. It was not a fun situation.. After some talks, and many tears, and frustrations and all that, I went and sat in my room and just got praying "God why do I feel this way? Why is this happening? What is the purpose of this? I feel so alone and have no one to turn too" and I felt like God was pulling at my heart saying "I will never leave you nor forsake you. If you have me, what more do you need?" And then it hit me.... maybe I was feeling alone by the World because God was just trying to bring me back to himself, and remind me that when I have the Lord I have all I need. Maybe I needed to feel alone for awhile to be reminded that my relationship with the Lord should be the most important of all. So why was I turning to other people for comfort, joy, and peace, and getting left unsatisfied neglecting to turn to The Lord who guarantees me all those things and so much more than I can even dream!
I think the feeling of loneliness is something everyone struggles with at times. whether your physically alone or not. You can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. The fact is God is the only one that satisfies that void, this is why we have to learn to rely on him first. The way we talk with friends about everything, spend time with them, care about them, and put in effort with them, and just generally want to be around them is the way we should want to spend time with God. He wants not just to have a relationship with us out of convenience, but wants to know us deeply and intimately. Timothy Keller said it perfectly in his book The Meaning of Marriage he says "To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretence, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us" This to me is a perfect picture of the way God truly loves us, and all of our deepest desires are satisfied by him.
If we never strayed from the Father, there would be no Fathers voice calling us back to Him. But that is one of the most wonderful things about the God we serve! He desires to have a deep and intimate relationship with each and everyone of us. And so He does continue to call us back to him. In Romans 5:1-2 it says "Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory." And it doesn't just stop there either, it goes on in Romans 5:5 to say "And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love." ...... When we place our trust in The Lord.. there is no way we will ever be disappointed, because God gives us his love. His perfect love, even when we are undeserving of it. When we have the love of Christ, it is the greatest love we will ever have and know, and His love is the only love that will truly fill every void within us.
