Meeting Jesus Through Loneliness: How to Conquer Loneliness

if there's one thing I can truly say that I know it's loneliness I laugh at some of those survival shows where they're out in the woods for like 2 weeks and can't handle the loneliness I'm like 2 weeks seriously I'm not looking for any sympathy I'm okay thank you and looking back I'm actually very grateful for all the loneliness because without it I wouldn't be who I am I wouldn't be talking to you right now and I certainly wouldn't care about any of this stuff I think we all know loneliness it's part of life like

and there's two types of loneliness there's the type where we're just totally isolated as in there's just nobody else around we're completely physically alone and it hurts and then there's the type where we could totally be surrounded by other people friends family maybe even a spouse but we still feel that nobody really gets me sees me hears me understands me and what's going on inside and it's like we become lost in this shell of ourselves and it's a very lonely place to be and it hurts and then over time something strange happens we become very

accustomed to the loneliness and it's like the loneliness becomes our only friend when we get up in the morning it's there when we go about our day it's there when we go to bed at night it's there and over time it just grinds us down and we either become so afraid of it that we do all kinds of stupid things to avoid it and these are not us or we surrender to it and completely withdraw and hide away from the rest of the world and for those of us who are believers and maybe even for

those of us who are not we fall down on our knees and we say God this loneliness is crushing me please send someone into my life a friend a spouse just [Music] somewhat now here's the thing and this is the thing that took me way too long to figure out it's set the whole time God was there listening Arms Wide Open saying well what about me I've been here the whole time and I've thought about this a lot but imagine the person you love most of all the person you've given everything for falling down on

their knees in front of you and begging you for someone else now I'm not saying this to make us all feel guilty I'm saying it because it's true and if we're taking our faith seriously we have to know this that God wants to be the number one that friend that spouse the person we're going to turn to and here in lies the problem and solution to our loneliness now if you look at any saint over the last 2,000 years I don't care who it is you'll find one thing in common not one of them were

lonely quite the contrary actually and that's not to say they were surrounded by tons of friends and everyone perfectly understood them I would bet they were the most misunderstood people of their time but they all knew they had the one friend that mattered most the one person who understood them perfectly now I've thought about this a lot and you can tell me if I'm wrong but I think that there are three things and if any of these things are missing it's what makes us feel lonely the first is presence and I'm not talking about just

having people around I'm talking about getting some real attention because we all know we can have people around but they're not paying any attention to us the second is understanding or even even deeper than that acceptance because we all need to be accepted for that person we are way deep down inside in our core and not that other person we all pretend to be and third love there's not one person on this planet who doesn't want to be loved and I'm not talking about that sappy stuff that we've turned love into I'm talking about real

unconditional love I remember them as p u l or p and when these tanks are empty we're lonely but when they're filled up we're not now here's the thing we're all going to run around looking for that person those friends that spouse even our own families to fill up those tanks but they can't we can't we can fill them up a little bit but those tanks are huge and we're very small so try this the next time you're feeling those pangs of loneliness think of these three things PLL first presence God is already there in

every moment of Our Lives even right now at this very instant you are present to God and not in a oh I know he's just looking down on us from way up there type of way but I look at it like picture someone in your heart and mind whom you love and really focus on them with all your attention as if they were the only person in the universe I think this is more like how we're present to God even at this very instant he sees you in his heart and mind and this goes both

ways because he's present to us when we give him our full attention in our hearts and minds or in other words what we call second understanding I think we all the idea in our head that well God doesn't really understand what I'm going through when in reality it's God who's saying no it's you who doesn't really understand what you're going through God doesn't understand us from the outside as an object or a thing or even as an intimate like a parent or a spouse he understands us from the inside as we understand ourselves times a

million trillion of course so at this very instant he understands those millions of experiences the UPS the Downs the joys the Sorrows every gesture every motive every one of the tiniest little ripples in our souls that have shaped us to who we are he understands perfectly and he accepts you now just a little disclaimer here and I have to say this God does not accept sin he cannot he will not just like a mother will not accept the cancer that's killing her child but sin is objective it's something from the outside that we let in

but it's not part of our identity God accepts our true identity and finally love it always used to bother me when people would tell me over and over oh don't worry God loves you because I'd be like great I'm miserable my life is totally falling apart I'm completely alone so if this is God's love then I'll pass but we're looking at it all wrong because we're basing God's love on Tiny human standards if I feel good and I have some success then God loves me if not he doesn't which is selfish immature and narrow-minded so

look at it this way love is willing the good of another so what is one of our greatest Goods feeling good or some worldly Prosperity what about existence itself go back to focusing on that person in your heart and mind whom you love very much now imagine if it was the very Act of you loving that person of you holding them in your heart and mind that held them into existence in the very instant you turned your heart and mind away from them they cease to exist that's how God loves you so the very fact

that you have existence at this instant is evidence of God's love and singular attention for you now let you just marinate on that one for a little bit so anytime you feel lonely just think of those three things and go to him just as he would your best friend or a spouse or someone in your family that's what he wants my favorite definition of a friend is that person I can really unpack my heart with Jesus said I'm not leaving you orphans and I've called you friend the king of all the universe is offering us

the most extraordinary friendship we could ever have and it only just begins in this life if the entire planet deserted me I would still have the one friend that mattered most if nobody else paid me any attention for the rest of my life I would still have perfect undivided attention from God and if I had all the love and understanding of the entire world that doesn't even come close to the love and understanding I get from God no friend or family or spouse could ever fill up those tanks so just go to the source and

take that pressure off of everybody else and yourself and then we're not so needy and dependent anymore and then here's the thing it frees us to have real meaningful relationships with everybody else and also to see the ones that maybe aren't so real and meaningful and the more we really live this and get it all into the right order I'm telling you it's going to make all your other relationships better and all that loneliness will just fade away now I just want to leave you with one last thought we all know what loneliness looks like

we can spot it a mile away and we all know what it feels like and if we're going to call ourselves Christian then we have to reflect him in every way so when we see that loneliness in someone else reach out and be present with our full attention and try to understand where they're coming from as best we can and love them and again I'm not talking about that sappy stuff I'm talking about doing whatever we can with our little tiny power for their good imagine if we all did that there's another line that I

love that says we're not miserable because we're not loved we're miserable because we don't love let that one sink in a little bit as I said in the beginning and I 100% mean it as I look back I'm very grateful for all the loneliness because without it I wouldn't have ever really known him and in turn I would have never really known myself so loneliness is nothing really scary I just see it as a big magnet that's drawing us home hey all' two things first and I'm really excited about this one if you're looking for

community and who isn't and a place to just talk about about our faith ask questions and kind of just see that you know what everybody's kind of going through the same thing I am come join our Discord server it's awesome there's so many awesome people on there we're waiting for you second I honestly can't say thank you enough thank you for all the support thank you for watching thank you for the likes the shares all that stuff thank you for helping us grow I am so appreciative and if you want to consider supporting this crazy

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