Learning to Lean

Our God, from your sacred home you take care of orphans and protect widows. You find families for those who are lonely.

Psalm 68:5–6a (CEV)

“I’m so lonesome, I could cry.”

Elvis Presley sang these words in the 1970s, hitting on a timeless theme. Loneliness makes for popular songs because we all feel like a foreigner or an orphan at times. Loneliness can reach out and bite suddenly, or creep up and overwhelm, or just hazily hover for long periods.

Too often we try to evade loneliness, ignore it, or quick fill it with someone we might have no business being with. None of these are helpful and all of them can be dangerous.

So, what to do with yourself on a Friday night at home or a Tuesday morning in the school cafeteria? Remember whose you are—you are God’s. The God of everything chose you. He adopted you as his precious child. Spend the time talking to him and hearing back from him through the words of the Bible. (Check out Psalm 25 or 145.) Let him show you his love in a sunset or forest or the way your hands move.

Everyone has to learn to deal with loneliness and be okay with being alone because there is no way to avoid it happening at some point in your life. It can make a great song, but the pain can also make us turn to look for a deeper relationship with the God who loves us. In that way, loneliness can actually be a good thing.

SPIRITUAL FITNESS TRAINING

The Bible includes imagery that depicts God’s presence in our lives: at a banquet table, gathered under his wings, carried as a lamb, held as a nursing baby, in his fortress, or behind his shield. Choose one of these images and sketch it on some paper or in a journal. As you do, thank God for always being near you.

INSPIRATION

Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in.”

—C.S. Lewis, British professor, theologian, and author of The Chronicles of Narnia and many other books

KEEP IT GOING

Related passages: These additional verses will help you expand Scriptural knowledge and place on the armor of God’s Word to tackle each day. Swipe to read the passages today.

Psalm 25:16

Isaiah 66:13

Romans 8:15–16a

1 John 3:1