Psalm 139 “Never Alone”

Psalm 139 “Never Alone”

Last week I talked about the importance of friendship, finding good friends and being a good friend. No matter how many people know or friends we have there are times we feel alone. Loneliness is a difficult thing to handle.

The survival group Outward Bound, as part of their training has an isolation day, 24 hours of being in the wild with nothing and completely alone. It is surprising how unnerving it is for people.

Loneliness comes to us in many ways, the children grow up and move out, your spouse dies, a friend dies, you retire, you are at home due to illness or physical limitations, or in a nursing home. There are also times in the middle of a crowd we can feel lonely.

In 1 Kings 19:14 Elijah just finished his battle with the prophets of Baal with all the people cheering him. Elijah ram into the mountains and this is what he tells God. “I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

In 2 Kings 6 Elisha and his servant find themselves surrounded by an army, the servant says to Elisha “Alas, my master! What shall we do” translated “we are all alone”.

Like these two great prophets of God, for whatever reason we feel alone. A song in “how the west was won” the singer cries “I’m so lost, so dog gone lost, that even God can’t find me.”

So, what do we do about loneliness?

Seek relationship with someone. Make an effort to go meet people. It is surprising that we are often afraid to connect with people. Join a club, volunteer, buy a puppy and walk it around town.

Know the truth that you are not alone.

Psalm 139 says that God knows when you get up or lie down. God knows what you say and what you think. God watched you being formed as a baby and still sees you today. The psalm tells us there is no place where we are hidden from God and His Spirit. Verse 17 says. “    How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand.      I awake, and I am still with you.”

1 Kings 19:18 God tells Elijah you are not alone; “there are seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal.” In 2 Kings Elisha prays for God to open his servant’s eyes; “So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha and his servant.”

We are not alone.

How can we help lonely people?

Be sensitive to what people are saying and what is going on in their life.

Give them your time.

Shut-ins and nursing homes, go visit people. I hear from people “they don’t know I am there” “they will forget I have been there before I am out the door.” “I don’t know what to do because they don’t talk.” Yet we often hear from caregivers that a person’s whole week was better because someone came and visited.

Just sit with them, read the Bible to them, read a book, watch tv with them, whatever. We do not know what they experience, but we do know our presence makes a difference.

While we all need alone time, we must fight loneliness by making better connections with people and with God. The Bible says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” And “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We are never alone!