When You Feel Lonely
Turn for Help, Part 2

Don't hide from me now! You've always been right there for me; don't turn your back on me now. Don't throw me out, don't abandon me; you've always kept the door open.

Psalms 27:9 (MSG)

Research (1992) found people may turn to religious beliefs as a means of coping with loneliness.

When asked "how does faith help you in daily life?"

They answered:

  1. Experienced God's love and care
  2. Realized God was trying to strengthen them
  3. Let God solve their problems
  4. They took control over what they could and gave up the rest to God

However, The research revealed Christians get lonelier than non-Christians. Why? When you believe God has left you and you are all alone, you have no one! Not even God to help you.

Your loneliness experience feels like: a yearning for another person engrossed in sadness and hopelessness. Loneliness is an undesirable condition.

When you feel lonely, you feel dissatisfied, deprived, and distressed.

Women experience loneliness with:

  1. Desiring to be with her husband
  2. Wanting to be loved by someone
  3. Wanting to love and take care of someone
  4. Wanting to have someone around the house
  5. Needing someone to share the work
  6. Longing for the previous form of life
  7. Experiencing loss of status
  8. Experiencing loss of other people as a consequence of having lost her husband
  9. Fearing the inability to make new friends

Loneliness includes longing for the past, frustration with the present, and fears about your future.

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows - this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.

Psalms 68:5-6 (NLT)

[God] gives sight to the blind, he lifts up the fallen. God loves good people,... takes the side of orphans and widows

Psalms 146:8-9 (MSG)

How does God help you to not feel lonely?

1. Having a relationship with God, helps me develop better relationships with others

God gives me unconditional love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. Because of His unconditional relationship with me, I learn how to have unconditional relationships with others.

God says:

You are better off to have a friend than to be all alone, because then you will get more enjoyment out of what you earn. If you fall, your friend can help you up. But if you fall without having a friend nearby, you are really in trouble. If you sleep alone, you won't have anyone to keep you warm on a cold night. Someone might be able to beat up one of you, but not both of you. As the saying goes, "A rope made from three strands of cord is hard to break."

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (CEV)

There are two kinds of loneliness: Social and Emotional

In Social loneliness, you get dissatisfied and lonely because you lack a social network of friends and acquaintances.

In Emotional loneliness, you get dissatisfied and lonely because you lack a single intense relationship.

Remember this: it's not possible to ease one type of loneliness by substituting the other type of relationship.

2. Having a relationship with God, gives me the same relationship Jesus had with His Father

Jesus said, "Do you now believe?... I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."

John 16:31-32 (NKJV)

Jesus said "He who hears you hears Me"

Luke 10:16 (NKJV)

Jesus said, "the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel."

John 5:19-20 (NKJV)

Jesus said "for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me."

John 8:16 (NKJV)

Jesus said "He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."

John 8:29 (NKJV)

Say out loud with me 3 Times "I AM NEVER ALONE!"

I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

John 14:20 (NKJV)

The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.

John 14:21 (MSG)

The top 5 categories I feel most lonely

  1. Being unattached: having no spouse, having no romantic partner, breaking up with a spouse
  2. Alienation: feeling different; being misunderstood; not being needed; having no close friends
  3. Being alone: coming home to an empty house, being alone
  4. Forced isolation: Being housebound; being hospitalized; having no transportation
  5. Dislocation: being far from home; starting a new job or school, moving too often; traveling often

Remember this: loneliness can be developed because of changes in your life about what you want out of your relationships. Changes in your mood, or situations.

If you will stop thinking about your relationship with God is just like any other relationship, you can stop thinking your alone.

3. Having a relationship with God, helps me feel worthy and loved

Since God assured us, "I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you, we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help."

Hebrews 13:5-6 (MSG)

When you are lonely, you:

  1. Evaluate others more negatively
  2. Don't like others very much
  3. Interpret others' actions and intentions more negatively
  4. Have a hostile attitude
  5. Tend to be socially unresponsive and insensitive
  6. Are challenged in developing intimacy in your relationships
  7. Reject others

How do I cope with loneliness?

I will pray to God

Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.

Psalms 61:1-4 (NKJV)

I must believe God will support and stand by me

for he who comes to God must believe

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)

I must constantly depend on God

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

Psalms 62:5-8 (NIV)

I need to concentrate on enriching my relationship with God and others

We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through his own body. We have a great priest [Jesus] in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise. Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.

Hebrews 10:19-25 (TEV)

  • Live every day in God's presence
  • Hold firmly to the hope Jesus gave you
  • Show concern for others
  • Develop the habit of meeting together in God's house for worship and spiritual growth

Do not lose your courage, then, because it brings with it a great reward... We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we have faith and are saved.

Hebrews 10:35-39 (TEV)