Hey Believers!
We're Back! For real this time. Back to our regularly scheduled weekly newsletters, blog posts and social media presence. This year's hiatus went a little longer than expected, but it feels good to be coming back to what I love.
Sometimes life happens and it's necessary to take a beat to regroup, refocus, and start again, especially when you feel like just calling it quits altogether.
One of the things that I was struggling with in my time away was an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Important people in my life have made some very dramatic life changes that has limited my access to them. Some of the changes are worthy of celebration, other changes broke my heart and all of the changes challenged me to lean on God in a way that I have never had to before.
Whenever things would get rough, I could pray, but more often than not I would turn to the people that God had placed in my life for comfort. I had always felt that because we are His hand and feet that the arms of the people that love me were God's way of showing me His love. And honestly I still believe this to be true, but it's a dangerous thing to rely more heavily on God's blessings than we do God. When this happens our faith can be challenged when our blessings seem to fail us. God will allow for this to happen to help us realign with Him, so that our faith and relationship with Him can be strengthened.
The people God has placed in our lives to love, comfort, and pray for us are most certainly blessings, but are still human. Eventually, they will hurt or disappoint us and if we’ve abandoned relationship with God in favor of our relationship with His blessings we’ll find ourselves in a rough spot.
Balance is key. We’re created to crave companionship, but not at the expense of our relationship with our Creator. So if we find ourselves in a place of loneliness for whatever reason, we can use this opportunity to connect with the One being capable of omnipresence: God.
Hebrews 13:5 says,
“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
1 Chronicles 28:20 says,
“And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 says,
“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
and finally John 16:7 says,
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
When God promises His presence, it isn’t so that you can feel watched by some “eye in the sky” monitoring your every move so that He can dole out punishment as He pleases. God promises His presence so that we can be reassured that there is never a moment that He isn’t actively loving us and working things out for us on our behalf. His presence is a promise of comfort, of strength, of understanding in every hard time that we experience.
So whenever we find ourselves feeling alone, we can call out to our God and trust that He is always there.