My Unusual Journal
My Unusual Journal 37 - Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 1:14 PM
Life Can Seem Lonely at Times
Life can seem lonely at times. There is only so much your concerned brother or sister can do to help you in your struggle against “spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6.12) They can pray the effectual, fervent prayer that you desperately need; they can counsel you and do whatever else is humanly possible, but there is an inherent loneliness in your being YOU. No other human can get into your mind with you nor can they squeeze into your private space and be an addition to your harried self that will provide a twofold barrier against the forces of evil; and you cannot make it without someone to stand with you and in you.
Of course no one can fill that need except the Spirit of God Himself who has promised never to leave you alone. Only the Holy Spirit can inhabit your private space with you. Only He can strengthen you within so that you can successfully wage the fight of your life against the devil that is determined to tear you down from your lofty place in God.
God is infinite and eternal and He is never lonely. He goes beyond space and time, incorporating them both within His infinite and eternal Self. Eternity and Divinity (“God-ness”) are one and the same. Eternity is not just a concept; it is a Being. Nothing and no one has existed forever except one Person. I call Him a Person advisedly as He is the prototypical Person from whom all lesser and mortal persons sprang. We are in His image and after His likeness.
We who follow Christ will live forever, that is, to eternity, but we have not been followers of Christ forever. We have not existed from eternity although we will go into eternity. As stated, only God, of all things that exist, is forever, having been on the scene of existence backward into eternity and existing forward into the same infiniteness.
I am not promising you that you will never have a temporary sense of aloneness. All the great men of the Bible had to experience it; they were human and mortal and had to experience feelings that are corollary to humanity and mortality. Jesus was inundated in loneliness when all of His fellow mortals and even the Father deserted Him. But not one of these believers in God was left to wallow forever in His enforced and unwanted solitude. God, who was always there despite the fearsome aloneness, brought each one out in due time and now every one of these believers in God is somewhere with their God, immersed in the joy and peace that only God can give.
Eternity is like a circle: there is no beginning and no end. All believing mortals have been placed on that circle so in a sense they and you are a part of the circle. Nevertheless neither they nor you are the circle; you are not God. Believing mortals have been transported onto the circle of eternity only by the grace of God.
God is everywhere and there is no place where He is not. He is infinite and His creation is finite. We mortals do not extend into infinity; therefore we must be within the being of God. Again, this is not to say we ARE God; we are within Him, enveloped by Him, but we are not an essential part (of the essence) of God. We have eternal life, but that does not make us gods in our own right. God alone is the quintessence – the heart – of eternal life. There can be no eternity of being for mortal man without God. But with Him all our feelings of being alone are effectively banished. How can you continually feel lonely when the almighty God, Creator of all things, lives within you?
P.S. There are still bits and pieces of thought relevant to this writing that are swirling in my mind and heart. They have not yet coalesced into what I can discern as truth. They are interesting to me as a student of Scripture, but until they come together into what I see as Bible-based solid truth, I will not dare to espouse them here. Nevertheless they are very interesting… especially if these “bits and pieces” should eventually coalesce into concepts that actually square with the Word of God.
As I push so resolutely – resolutely? I don't really mean that – toward establishing a family record for longevity (91 years old), I find that growing old may at times be physically devastating – and even lonely – but spiritually it is such a remarkable time of life! It will be just as interesting for you also, but only if you learn now to make the life of the Spirit your only true reality. As real as the life of the flesh seems at this moment, it is only a shimmering mirage. Do not cling so avidly to what you can see and touch: it will all too soon crumble to ashes in your desperate grasp.
Comments