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.)
The loneliness of rejection is particularly painful. During my years of teaching, I sometimes saw children who were not welcomed into a group of youngsters, and I grieved. Of course, we cannot make a person choose to like another person: friendship cannot be forced. Still, though, I remember especially the sweet face of one kind little girl who for some reason was not accepted by her peers. She handled this rejection well – I was apparently more distressed about it than she was. Why do we do these things to people? Why do people reject Jesus? We read in John 1:10-11 that “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” This rejection fulfilled Isaiah 53:3: “He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” These are soul-searing and soul-searching words. Lord, may we not inflict the loneliness of rejection on others, and may we never reject You.