Single, Christian, and Lonely...How Do You Deal?

"Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.” 1John 5:4-5 The Message (MSG)

The other day, I heard about a very confident and successful 45 year old Christian woman who said that, although she very much would like to be married, she doesn’t feel lonely at all. I thought that was awesome, but I also realize that for a good many of us it isn’t the case. When I was in my late twenties, loneliness seemed to me to be my constant and miserable companion. I had been a Christian for many years, but I lacked both wisdom and faith as it relates to the emotional condition of loneliness; and no one had ever really schooled me on the subject. My girlfriends were in the same boat as me, and they all believed that a shortage of good men was the problem. None of us ever challenged this belief, because we had all kissed our share of toads, hoping to find a prince, but it seemed to take forever.

In the meantime, I noticed that I was slowly but surely becoming a very cynical woman. An edge of bitterness had set in, and for months I didn’t notice it. Instead of taking a good long look at myself, I jumped on the pity-party band wagon and began to talk about how awful it was to be unmarried, and how it was slim pickins’ in the world of singledom. I was angry that God had not given me what I wanted most, and as the months tarried, I became extremely offended in the faith. I was hurt and disappointed, and I didn’t know where to put those emotions.

How can you be angry with God? He’s GOD!!! I had been taught all my life that it was a terrible sin to be angry with God or to aim any emotions of that sort in His direction.  I tried bottling up my disappointment and anger, so that they wouldn’t interfere with the nice persona of a Christian that I had learned and claimed as my own. It didn’t work. Before long, layers of emotional stuff latched on to my fear of being alone, and the sadness became almost unbearable. My days seemed empty and meaningless, and I cried for long periods of time. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

I was in a really bad place, but as I look back on it I have to chuckle a bit. God can handle anything that my immature-self could have possibly thrown at Him, but I didn’t see it that way. I thought that He would punish me for not reverencing Him in the way He deserves and for feeling angry towards Him. I thought I would feel all of His wrath and none of His mercy, because I had behaved so abominably, but that wasn’t the case. In Isaiah 41:10 The Message (MSG), God told the Children of Israel, “I’ve picked you. I haven’t dropped you.’ Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.” This is exactly what He did for me. As He always does, God lovingly taught me to deal with my feelings of loneliness, and He did so by first showing me that I needed to surrender them to Him.

In Matthew 11:29 (KJV), Jesus Christ said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Every one of us has a yoke of some kind on our backs. At one time in my life, mine was loneliness, and it was very heavy to carry. Jesus had a yoke as well, and it was one of the very best kind. Many of us have read the passage in Matthew 11, but very few of us take the time to really allow the truth of it to marinate in our souls.

Jesus Christ instructed us to take something of epic spiritual value from him. In order to take anything, you and I must have empty hands to hold what we’re aiming to take. If our arms and hands are already full, and we’re weighted down from all the stuff we’ve carried for so long, it stands to reason that our first order of business is to release. Jesus Christ assured us that we don’t have to make one more step carrying our heavy burdens. We can stop right where we are, and give everything over to him, because he can handle that and infinitely more.

He said something else of profound consequence in this verse; he said, “…learn of me.” You see, for those of us who are experiencing bouts of depressing loneliness or have experienced it in the past, we need to know that just as we learned the behavior, we need to now unlearn it. We need to do a swap out, and we can’t really accomplish this until we set our intention to unlearn something un-useful and replace it with something infinitely better. Christ promises the ‘infinitely better’.

You can wrestle with loneliness all day long, but at the end of the day, it’s still going to be loneliness. The only way to dethrone it and to stop it from having reign in your life is to give it up. Release it to Christ, because loneliness is not your fight. You’ve already been declared victorious over it through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 1John 5:4-5 The Message (MSG) tells us, “Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.” The Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthians 15:57(KJV), “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our blessed Lord doesn’t tell us to take his yoke just for the sake of doing it. He tells us to take his yoke because therein contains everything we need to live a victorious life. He died on the cross and rose with all power in his hands. He declared in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” You and I are not the way, the truth, and the life. CHRIST is! No man comes to the father except through him. That’s power! He rose with victory, and defeated the enemy. He’s victorious beyond anything we can imagine, and his spirit dwells in us; we can’t help but to be victorious too.

1John 4:15 (KJV) says, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."  What are you confessing today? Are you confessing the powerful name of Jesus Christ and victory through him over any obstacle or challenge? If that’s not your confession, I dare you to change the way you think and speak. Make a shift and stop focusing on what you don’t have and begin to praise God for what you do have. If Jesus is the head of your life, there’s no room at the top for loneliness. You’ve got to let it go.

Place your hope in Christ, you won’t be disappointed. Through our blessed Lord, God created you to be an overcomer! You don’t have to settle for anything that doesn’t lift you higher spiritually and closer to Him. He wants all good things for you, and the moment that you believe this in the innermost part of your being, you’ll experience a release. Take the yoke of Christ and learn of him. Get in the Word and leave loneliness behind. Embrace the Father with everything that is within you and let Him fill your cup. He’ll bring you joy and infinitely more. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.