HOW CAN I DEAL WITH LONELINESS?

HOW CAN I DEAL WITH LONELINESS?

Some teenagers and young adults today feel lonely at different times in their lives. There have been many times when I have had encounters with loneliness, and it can be so overwhelming and difficult trying to explain it. Most of the time, people associate loneliness with a state of being alone or having no companions. However, it goes way beyond that.

In my case there were times when I had close friends around, yet I couldn't shake off the feeling. I instead wallowed in this feeling and in the process pushed quite a few people away. In my times with loneliness, I was susceptible to sin. I wanted to engage in acts to make me feel good, but they only lasted for a short while. Globally, people engage in so many acts like drinking, sexually immoral acts and even drugs to temporarily feel good in their lonely days. This, in a long while affects aspects of their lives. After many times of wallowing in loneliness, I realised that the only healthy thing to do was to deal with the loneliness. And what better way to do this than with the word of God.

Loneliness did not start from recent times. Back to the days of the Bible, there were people who went through the lonely phase. Hagar, Elijah, King David, Job, even our Lord Jesus. Even though the Bible might not have emphatically stated it, we can tell the loneliness that some of these people might have gone through. Imagine the loneliness Hagar felt when she was alone in the desert and was out of water for her son. At that point she had no one to share in her frustration. Imagine losing your children, your wealth, your friends, and your wife and it begins to look like God no longer got your back. Or imagine the feeling you would have, knowing that one of your friends was going to betray you, your best friend was going to deny you and those you cared about were going to turn you in to be killed. Yet these people were able to come out successfully.

Right from the story of creation, it is evident that God was active in dealing with loneliness. Sometimes being alone breeds the feeling of loneliness. Genesis 2:18 says, ‘The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone….”’. God took out a factor of loneliness. In the scriptures, there are many assurances that God is with us even when we are lonely.

There are several scriptures to back the fact that God has not forsaken us and that he is always with us. Deuteronomy 31:6, 1 Samuel 12:22, Psalms 25:16, Isaiah 41:10, 1 Peter 5:7 and many others attest to this fact. This should constantly ring in our minds. God will not forsake us. He will be with us to the end of time. He cares for us. We must always remember this especially when we are faced with loneliness. What do we do with this piece of information? We draw nearer to God as he is closer to us. Once we have realised that God is the only constant, we must reach out to him. It may feel overwhelming talking to people about how we feel but he is readily available. We can do this by developing a habit of talking to him sincerely and constantly. Reading his word, listening to sermons, and meditating on his word are not only ways of enriching our spirits. They are also good ways of dealing with loneliness. Connecting to God is the ideal way to begin the process of overcoming loneliness.

The next step is to work on our thoughts and our actions. “…but be transformed by the renewing of the mind....”, Romans 12:2. Most of the things we experience start from the inside. Jesus also talked about us speaking what our hearts are full of. This means that we must be careful of what we focus on whenever we face loneliness. This is because the more we focus on the loneliness the more we take our focus away from dealing with it. The more we do this, the more the possibility that it would eat us up.

Another way to overcome loneliness is companionship. Right from the start, we were not meant to be alone. No one is supposed to be an island. However, we have to be mindful of the companions we keep for bad company corrupts good character. Inasmuch as the urge to keep to ourselves during our lonely days is high, we must trust a Bible-believing person, someone with whom we have fellowship with. For the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9 that “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.” Having someone to rely on is a way of dealing with loneliness. Personally, I could not have gone through my lonely days alone. Fight the urge to keep to yourself and involve yourself with the wise to fight loneliness. Proverbs 13:20. Also, we must not push away the companions God has given to us

In all, we must remember that the goal is to have a relationship with God. Remember, God loves you and He is never leaving