Transforming Lonelinessنموونە

Section One: Loneliness Can Become a Pathway

A caterpillar becomes a butterfly. An acorn becomes an oak tree. Dusk becomes night. Dawn becomes day. Such transformations seem miraculous, don’t they? They occur as an act of God, without human intervention.

Then there are transformations that require human effort. A weed patch becomes a garden. A stack of lumber becomes a garden shed. A clump of clay becomes a flowerpot. All stunning transformations where the end result bears little resemblance, if any, to the original materials.

What will your loneliness become?

I believe this is an important question to consider. Your loneliness could become bitterness or depression, withdrawal or isolation—or it might become motivation or purpose, an impetus to change. I believe that if we work in partnership with God, loneliness can become a pathway to a deeper relationship with Him and others. That’s why I’ve chosen my favorite loneliness quote from Elisabeth Elliot for you to consider: “Loneliness is a wilderness, but through receiving it as a gift, accepting it from the hand of God, and offering it back to Him with thanksgiving, it may become a pathway to holiness, to glory, and to God Himself.”*

Take a closer look at Elliot’s quote and you’ll see that she blends an act of God together with human effort to arrive at the pathway that leads to holiness, glory, and God’s very presence. I see that same blend at work in the story of perhaps one of the loneliest men mentioned in the Gospels— Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus lived and worked in Jericho as the chief tax-collector. In Jesus’s day, the Romans farmed out tax collection to Jewish people willing to take the job, and each tax collector could extort more than his fair share from those in his jurisdiction. Tax collectors were notoriously crooked and they over-taxed the people to gain personal wealth. They made life miserable. They were hated. Zacchaeus was not a popular figure. He was ostracized by the Jewish community, his own people. I expect that he was a very lonely man.

Zacchaeus lived up to the reputation of tax collectors. He was the chief tax collector in the Jericho region and no doubt, he made a killing. He was rich and he was loathed. One day he heard that a new rabbi who was drawing big crowds, Jesus, was coming to Jericho. Oh boy! That was the ticket to have. Zacchaeus had to see what was going on. The verses of Luke 18 immediately preceding the story of Zacchaeus tell the remarkable story of Jesus healing a blind man while on the road approaching Jericho. It’s likely that this amazing news had already reached the people of Jericho.

The crowds were so large Zacchaeus couldn’t even get close to Jesus. And no one was going to make way for the chief tax collector. In frustration, he realized the only way he would be able to see Jesus was to climb a nearby sycamore tree. He’d probably climbed many as a boy. So up he went.

And there Jesus was—right beneath him. Talk about a front-row seat! Zacchaeus could see and hear Jesus without any obstruction. Then something unexpected happened.

Questions:

1. The news of Jesus healing the blind man alongside the road as He approached Jericho had no doubt filled the people with wonder, curiosity, and a desire to see and hear this Jesus. What stories of Jesus most fill you with a hunger to experience His presence and power?

2. Zacchaeus was so eager to see and hear Jesus for himself that he climbed a tree to do so. In what ways do you attempt to draw nearer to Jesus so that you might experience him more personally?

3. Can you think of some ways that you might apply greater personal effort to interact with Jesus for yourself?

*Elliot, Path of Loneliness, 127.