The Role of Loneliness in Our Relationship with God

A long time ago I wrote an article about friendship with God being the answer to our loneliness. It was a beautiful piece about all the practical ways God fills all aches of our hearts (ie. not just a cliche). However, the perspective was more from a place of “here’s how God can fill you when you are lonely”. I never realized exactly how actually critical loneliness is as such. We see it as a cross, a pain, a sorrow that no one should ever have to bear. We want to comfort the lonely and fill their ache. While I’m obviously not saying its bad to console people, what if the God of provision has a purpose for our pain? What if the role of loneliness is precisely the key to the heart of everything!

The Importance of Loneliness in our Relationship with God

In the last article on this topic, we explored how everyone experiences loneliness at times, which is obviously true, but I have come to believe that it is even more than that. Loneliness is the key, the bullseye, the core of it all.

Loneliness is the very center of the heart of man.

It is the heart of our soul, if you will. This is why we seek attention, and why we want to “be unique”. It’s why we desire so deeply to be seen, known, and loved, and why we feel the need to “matter”. It’s why we hurt when we are shunned, and why the greatest earthly happiness is in union, friendship, and relationship with others. It is why other people are the source of our greatest human joys, and also our deepest pains. Our desire for them to validate our lovability leaves us vulnerable. It is why euphoric earthly love “fills us”, at least until the feeling is gone.

It is not good that the man should be alone – Genesis 2:18

Alone comes from the Middle English All-[in]-one, meaning, among the more well-known definitions, entirely contained within oneself. This passage suggests that it is not good for man to be entirely contained within one “Adam”. He needed a relational and equal counterpart to be a true mirror of the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead. (God Himself being the third party in this triune image).

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:27

The Trinity too is pure relationship, that’s why it is called Triune – three united as one.  We are made in their image, this image of the God who IS relationship. It is only natural that our greatest desire would be reciprocated love.

This is why we cannot truly fill ourselves, why inanimate loves cannot satiate us, and why imperfect love devastates us.

It was created that way.

Loneliness is the heart of man’s soul because it is the source of our longing for God.

As infinite and infinitely perfect, God is the only One who can satisfy the insatiable longing for perfect union in relationship and intimacy of the human soul.

Our pain is meant to be opened up to Him. Our dissatisfaction with the fleeting and painful nature of relationships in this life is precisely to point us to Him for healing and comfort. This loneliness is truly necessary to realize that only He can fill our longings and, thus, make us desire Him.

Loneliness even within the deepest possible human relationship

One of the deepest pangs of marriage is the eventual realization that our spouse will never fill us. Most of us get married trying to satiate the longing for God, but when we realize that our spouse falls short, we want to quit, move on, or try again, citing that we just “don’t love them anymore” or “it just didn’t work out”. Maybe they weren’t the one for you?

OF COURSE NOT!!!! We were created for God.

This is why marriage is a vocation! It isn’t meant to grow you closer to your spouse, NO, it is meant to drive you closer to God!  (Note: this does not mean you are never supposed to grow in closeness with your spouse, it just means that the human frailty of both spouses is meant to drive the other toward God. The closer they both grow to Him, the closer they end up to each other, but more as a side-effect of closeness with God rather than a direct result of actively pursuing each other.)

God’s will. Vocation – from the Latin Vocare, is a calling – a beckoning to CLOSENESS, more so than a sending (as in Mark 6:7-13, and Luke 10:1-3). It means that any “vocation”, any “calling” you follow is designed precisely by the hand of heaven to bring you (and those around you) closer to God.

This includes marriage!  **Mind.Blown.**

But, loneliness has a negative connotation

It’s important to turn this around and to realize that loneliness is an expression of our longing. When we realize that He is the fulfillment of our longing and we learn how to fill our longing with Him, then we no longer feel longing. We no longer feel lonely. Instead, we desire that solitude which is the place in which we most find God… in the unadulterated love of our empty hearts.

Therefore, we strive to remember that, when we experience loneliness, it is not a curse.  It’s not that God wants us to be unhappy on this Earth or that He wants to take away human companionship from us. God is not cruel, He is jealous (Exodus 34:14). He is not punishing us, rather, in our loneliness, He has simply reserved us for Himself.

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Struggling with Loneliness?

The Friendship of Christ is a beautiful compilation of sermons given by Robert Hugh Benson in 1911-12, summarizing a series he gave on the role of loneliness, the intimate friendship we can have with the Lord, and all the different human ways we can have it. It is a beautiful book because it helps us understand the purpose of our loneliness and all the practical means God has given to us here and now to not only fill our loneliness with God, but also to tap into that pain and use it precisely to become who we were created to be all along. It is a series as concise as it is poignant and will certainly benefit anyone struggling to feel like God can fill their deepest human ache.