Does God Get Lonely?

The tiny village of Pillybrook had run out of umbrellas.

It had been raining since March, and it was looking like it would be a wet Christmas too, but as the villagers squinted up at the bright sun in the sky, they couldn’t help but wonder — what was causing all this rain?

As the local weathermen scratched their heads and the news reported more crops being covered by rainwater and tools starting to rust in their leaking sheds, one schoolboy made his way to the village library. He filled his pack with the latest mystery thrillers, magazines, comics and puzzle books, then headed to the toystore to pick up a few board games. Finally, he returned home, where he packed himself a tuna sandwich lunch and a thermos of hot chocolate. Weighed down with his goodies, he threw on his poncho, put on his boots and stepped out into the rain. He stuck his tongue out to catch a raindrop on it — still salty.

The climb uphill was easy at first, but Luke soon began to feel the weight of the packs on his back. He took a swig from his thermos and carried on, climbing the great Pythonuse mountain, a little bit closer to the summit with every step. As he climbed higher, the raindrops grew larger — giant, salty drops falling into his eyes and stinging them. Luke squeezed his eyelids shut, feeling about the rocky face of the mountain, till he could take some cover under some trees. A long way of climbing and many pitstops later, as Luke pulled himself up to the very top of the mountain, he heard it — the great mournful sound of crying. A man as large as a cave was sitting on a stone, there on the top of the mountain, great drops of tears rolling down his face, falling heavily to the village below as showers of salty rain.

The lonely giant looked up at Luke as he approached cautiously, slowly drawing out the books and board games from his pack. “Want some company?”, the boy asked with a smile. The giant stopped crying and took out a handkerchief as large as a bedsheet from his pocket. He wiped his eyes, blew his nose and said, “F..f..for…me?” His sniffles stopped as boy and giant spent the next few hours solving puzzles and rolling dice, and soon the giant was giggling and laughing at Luke’s jokes and stories of the villagers in Pillybrook. Back in the village, the people peeped out from under their umbrellas as the rain slowed to a drizzle and then stopped completely.

After spending a few fun days with the newly-merry giant, Luke put on his boots again and shouldered his backpacks to set off for home. The giant had enjoyed many hours of his company and was now sad to see him go, but Luke promised that he would be back the next week with more books and games. Over the years, the Pillybrookers made it a point to hike up the mountain in groups, to spend time with their giant and he was never lonely again. And that was the end of the days of salty rain in Pillybrook.

God is no helpless giant, but he does get lonely there on the mountain, waiting for us. Down in the village, we either don’t know that he even exists, or if we do, we don’t understand him, taking him to be someone awe-inspiring or terribly fearsome.

And in truth, this is what loneliness is — not so much the feeling of sadness that comes from being alone, but one that comes from not being seen and understood.

We might be living lives that are cloistered or crowded, but we’re all looking for someone who will see us for who we are and then show understanding and acceptance.

But sometimes, for someone to truly see us, they need to taste our tears — just as the boy had to taste the salt in the rain to find the giant — we need to be willing to show people the parts of us that have been the most misunderstood.

For God, one such misunderstood part that he needed to show us, was his Word. The prophets, Pharisees, scribes and teachers had misunderstood and misrepresented God’s word to such a degree that Jesus, the Word of God, had to become flesh and live amongst us — we had to taste him to know what God was really like. [John 1:14; Psalm 34:8]

For us humans, the parts of us that are most misunderstood are those that hold the keys to understanding us — why we are the way we are. This is most often our inner child that says whatever he feels, expresses love without worrying about not getting it back; who doesn’t think about how he will be judged before he does anything. Only when we know that the other will not grimace or flinch when we reveal this side of ourselves to them, can we trust them enough to introduce them to these parts of us. For many, this person who is impeccably trustworthy, does not exist.

But there is at least one who sees us from the inside out — God. God knows our inner child intimately; he knows us before we even had a heartbeat. [Jeremiah 1:5] Not only does he know who we were, he also knows who we will be. And he loves us despite this, because he knows exactly what he made us to be; and this is how he sees us.

When we see ourselves this way, the way that God meant us to be, is the moment we learn to love our true selves. But how do we begin to see ourselves like this? In the Bible, it is on the mountaintop, away from everyone else, that men encounter God and learn about him…and themselves. Abraham learnt on Mount Moriah how much he really trusted God — and had reason to. On Mount Horeb, Moses learnt that murderers could be prophets too. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reveals to us who the blessed really are. It is when we go up the mountain to be alone in the quiet stillness with God like Moses, Elijah, Jesus and the prophets, that we learn who we are — this is where we come into ourselves, with time spent with the one who made us. It is this alone-ness with God that can take away our loneliness — that will make us feel truly seen and understood. It is here, away from people, that we can ask the questions that we don’t want others to hear the answers to. The Holy Spirit shows us gently, when we ask the right questions — like, “What do you want me to learn from this?” Only through the answers to these questions can we grow into the people we were meant to be. And unless we do, we remain isolated from our true selves — forever lonely.

For there is a loneliness that comes from people not knowing or understanding who we are, but it is a far greater loneliness that comes from being alienated from oneself.

There is comfort in being understood by others, and comfort from being seen as one’s true self, but what happens when we cannot be assured that our true self will be understood by others? The two are not mutually guaranteed and we are sometimes asked to choose. In previous generations, the emphasis was on fitting in — why can’t you fit into this box that already exists? So one dissociated from the qualities that made one different — the “you” became the parts that were acceptable to society and the parts that were not, ended up being rejected by their own self. In recent generations, the converse occurred, with society asking — why don’t you stand out? And so people went looking for ways in which to be different, building an entirely new self, picking up qualities and characteristics along the way like a haphazard posy, held together with a dirty ribbon — a false self.

In both instances, there results a kind of loneliness from ourselves. Pulled against our true nature, we lose parts of ourselves that make us who we are, and then go through life longing for those missing parts, like a lover pining for the beloved.

One of these parts of ourselves is God — we were made in the image and likeness of God [Genesis 1:26], so we may discover ourselves along the way if we sincerely tried, but a major piece would still be missing until we found God.

When we do find God, we experience the comfort that comes from reconciling the feeling of being “different” and “same” together.

We are uniquely made and so we are different, but we were made to be part of the same body in Christ. It is only when we all accept Christ as our head that we can begin to start coming together as a group, as the body that we were meant to be, for “in [Christ] all things hold together” [Colossians 1:17]

But we cannot do this while on the mountain.

The lessons learnt on the mountain must necessarily be taken down to where the people are – not equipping one to “deal” with them, but to love them. When we have the God experience up on the mountain, we begin to shine from the encounter, like Moses, and people will want to know what we have learnt. Even off the mountain, we are called to be holy — set apart from darkness, not from people.

Was Jesus lonely?

If loneliness is the feeling of being ‘alone’ in our emotions, or our situation, of being ‘unseen’ and misunderstood — was there ever anyone lonelier than Jesus? Fully man and wholly God, even those closest to him could not have understood him. Even for those who knew beyond doubt who he was, like his mother, he had to explain when he was not ‘lost’ and merely in his father’s house. His closest friends were unable to understand the things he said to them so plainly.

We still continue to misunderstand Jesus, take his love for granted and leave him knocking patiently outside the door of our heart. We expect Jesus to sympathise, and he does, having himself experienced much, including the loss of a parent, the death of a friend, friendship, betrayal, anger. He even knew what it feels like when we sin — not because Jesus ever sinned, but because he bore the consequences of our sin and became Sin. [2 Corinthians 5:21]

But in all of this, even while the betrayal of his disciples was imminent, Jesus said, “Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me” [John 16:32]. The sooner we too are able to say this with confidence, having spent enough time on the mountain with our Father, loneliness will have no hold on us.

Still, if loneliness is to be felt, like Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, it is to remind us that like Jesus, we do not belong to this world.

How can I beat loneliness while in the world?

It is in telling someone else, “You are not alone” that our own loneliness fades.

• Our own physical loneliness puts us in a unique position to help others who are lonely. You are lonely, not paralysed. Reach out to others who may be lonely — those in retirement homes, hospitals, shelters… friends are to be found in all places. When we make ourselves available to help, God sends us not only those who need our help, but also those who can help us. If you cannot find a community you like, build one!
• For an emotional loneliness, journal — it is so gratifying when you begin to discover the parts of you that you once shunned, and allow them a place at the table. Loneliness can take a hike when you’ve got all of you with you.