Are You Lonesome Tonight?
As we move into short days and long nights, it becomes easier to feel discouraged. If we are increasingly secluded (by weather and, this year, by governmental edict), we can experience genuine loneliness. I enjoy being alone, but I have a choice in the matter; others do not. Solitude occurs when we want to be alone; loneliness happens when friends and family are taken from us. Solitude soothes, whereas loneliness looms. Because God knows all about us, His Word speaks to us about the painful subject of loneliness. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
It is instructive to note that the followers of God have always been in a minority. From Noah’s family (only eight – Genesis 7:7) to the seven thousand of Elijah’s day (I Kings 19:18), God’s people have been a remnant – often, a tattered remnant. So it was leading up to the first Christmas. Take time to read chapters 3 and 4 of Malachi. The promise of a forerunner to the Messiah is explicit, as is the fact that most of the people did not care. Some, though, did care; Malachi 3:16a says, “Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another.” Yes, that is what God’s “few” (Matthew 7:14; 20:16) need to do! We are increasingly isolated in a godless, hatred-spewing, violence-promoting culture, one that does not even want us to say “Merry Christmas.” Let us read the Christmas account and sing the seasonal songs of the Savior. Let us worship a God who did not stay aloof from our aloneness but “was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).