Have you ever said, “I am all alone”? I suppose we have all said that or at least thought it at sometime in our lives. Even if we haven’t said it, we have thought it.
We feel alone in the middle of the night with a sick child. We feel it when we have lost someone we love. We also feel that way when we have a disagreement with our spouse or with a teenage son or daughter. I’m sure the teenager and spouse feel that way too!
Sometimes we can feel alone even with someone right there with us. We may feel betrayed, physically ill, desperate, and sad. But there is always someone there beside us, God, our heavenly Father.
When Adam and Eve were sent from the Garden of Eden, they must have felt such sadness. Think of how they must have felt as they turned to look back, and they saw Cherubim and a flaming sword that turned in every direction (Genesis 3:24). They had lost everything. They were together, but they felt alone.
After Cain killed his brother, Abel, God spoke to him. He said, “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth” Genesis 3:11-12 (KJV).
Cain spoke to God and told him that his punishment was greater than he could bear, verse 13. He must have felt so alone as he was sent away from his family.
When Moses killed the Egyptian, he ran from Pharaoh. When he reached the land of Midian, Exodus 2:15 says, “And he sat down by a well”. He was truly alone in a strange land, an Egyptian prince alone and afraid.
Bathsheba was left a widow, pregnant, and alone after King David had her husband killed in battle. All that was left for her to do was mourn for her husband, II Samuel 11:27.
There was the widow in Zarephath in I Kings 17 that was alone trying to feed herself and her son. When Elijah met her she was planning to make one last meal and die.
When the devil took everything from Job, he sat in ashes and scraped his body with a piece of pottery because he was in such pain from the boils that covered his body. Even though the devil spared his wife, he felt alone.
On the night of Jesus’ betrayal, the Gospels report Peter’s sadness after he denied that he even knew the Savior. When Jesus turned and looked at Peter, think of the distress he must have felt knowing he had denied the Lord.
Judas was struggling with his own loneliness. He had traded his Savior for 30 pieces of silver. He tried to return the money only to find that those in power, whom he thought were his friends, turned their backs on him. He was truly alone with no one to help. At least that is what he thought. In his despair, he hanged himself.
In Acts chapter 7, we read about a man that stood to preach a sermon as powerful as any ever preached. He stood alone before powerful men and proclaimed the history of God’s chosen people and the Son of God standing at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He stood alone, and “they cast him out of the city and stoned him”, Acts 7:58.
There are a lot of other stories that give us details of loneliness, but none of these were really alone. There was always someone there.
Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden, but God was still there. Cain was banished from his family, but God protected him by giving him a mark so that no one would harm him.
Moses ran for his life, but God was there in the land of Midian where he found work as a shepherd and a wife. He also found God in the form of a burning bush and the courage to save the nation of God’s people from slavery.
Bathsheba lost her beloved husband. She even lost the child that came from her adulterous relationship with King David, but David provided her with a home and a child that became the wisest man to ever live. God did not condone their sin, but He did not leave them alone. David was penitent, admitting his sin and asking forgiveness.
The widow didn’t suffer alone. God sent Elijah to provide her with the provisions she needed to survive. Even when her son died, God through Elijah healed him. The widow then proclaimed, “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth”.
Job was not alone. He had three “friends” that came to sit with him, but who provided little comfort in his distress. He had a wife that tormented him, telling him to “curse God and die”. In the end, Job had more than he had in the beginning. The scripture says, “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning…”
Peter discovered that he was never alone. He was a chosen apostle. He became a leader among those apostles, and he delivered the first of many outstanding sermons on the Day of Pentecost. He healed the sick. He suffered persecutions, but he was never alone. God was always with him.
Stephen wasn’t alone as he preached that last sermon. Even in the pit where he was stoned, God was with him. He prayed to the Father, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”, Acts 7:60.
Judas was never alone either. God was there waiting for his penitence, but it never came. The only reason he was alone was his own failure to look to the Lord for forgiveness and become obedient. He was a chosen disciple, but he failed to repent of betraying the Son of God.
So, the only way we will be truly alone is to fail to be obedient to God’s Word. Romans 15:4 says, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”. We have hope in the examples in the scriptures, and we will never be alone if we follow God’s Word.
Sandra Oliver