Even Old People Need a Father. God is our Father.

 It is said that elderly people can become like children, weak, dependant and in need of support. I am nearly 76. My mother died at that age, but I am still mentally and physically active, and I expect to live past 80 at least.

When I turned 70, I started to think about the limited time I have left in this life. It didn’t frighten me. 

I had been reading a lot about near death experiences, in which people were clinically dead, talked to Jesus or even visited heaven. I am looking forward to the next life. Every year is a year closer to a much better life that never ends.

I am looking forward to seeing my parents and other believing friends and loved ones. I am looking forward to pursuing my passion for music and art.

It is wonderful not to have to go to work. I don’t have to comply with stupid bureaucratic procedures that contributed nothing to the effectiveness of my work. I don’t have to deal with fastidious managers and stressful deadlines. I don’t have to get up at 6 in the morning, deal with peak hour traffic, and keep working in the afternoon when I am getting tired.

 Some things are better, but some things are distressing.

I miss the social stimulation of working with students and colleagues. In the last few years I have also lost some dear friends. People get sick. People die. Even if they are believers and went to heaven, I miss their friendship.

Recently I was praying. I felt that I was still a young person in an ageing body. I no longer had parents to love me, although I was happy that they are in heaven. I felt like I needed a father. Although I am devoted to God, the fatherhood of God is something I have never fully emotionally connected to.

I lay in bed and repeated over and over.

“I need a father. God, you are my father.” Even though this was not an overwhelming feeling, it was a reaching out to my real heavenly Father. We all need a father, no matter how old we are.

A couple of days later, I was reading the psalms. I came across a familiar promise of God, and it was an answer from heaven to my prayer.

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. Ps 27:10 NIV

This verse took on a new meaning for me. I know Christians whose parents abused or deserted them, but that was not my experience. My parents cared for me long after they reached old age. They never abandoned me.

I did not grieve when they died, because both of them became believers on their death beds. I was relieved and happy they were safe in heaven.

But now I realise I need a father. And God spoke to me through psalm 27. God is my Father and he will never let me down.

The Problem of Loneliness

 Those who trust Jesus have a hope and a good future, but we can be lonely along the way.

Loneliness is a sad reality of our life on this earth. Sadly there are so many broken relationships, divided families, displaced refugees and isolated victims in wars, victims of abuse, workplace bullying or human trafficking … The list is endless in troubled times.

Loneliness can be dangerous. In lonely times, we can experience heightened negative moods and emotions. You can be depressed or despondent. Behind many posts and comments on the internet is panicked fear.

In loneliness we seek comfort, and that is good. We can call friends or listen to nice music. We can have a pet as a friend or read a good novel. You can study something that fascinates you. A young German in an American prison was a fitness freak.

There are good ways to ease the pain of loneliness, but unfortunately there are also bad ones.

 You can drink, eat, smoke marijuana or watch porn. There are men who visit brothels and women who seek wild sexual experiences. This only makes your loneliness worse.

Eating, drinking and sex are part of a normal, healthy life, but when they become addictions and take you away from good human companionship, they make you even lonelier.

There are Christians who claim you don't need friends if you have Jesus. Either they have never experienced deep loneliness, or they have an exceptional spiritual gift to enjoy a close friendship with God and a calling to walk alone, like John the Baptist.

There are also introverts who like to be alone, but you must not expect others to be like you.

If you are a very strong believing Christian who likes to pray alone for hours and are content as a single intercessor, you must never expect that lonely and depressed Christians without partners or friends should be like yourself.

Such advice is not only misguided, but life-threatening. It can lead to despair and suicide.

In the Bible before the Fall, Adam was alone. What did God say?

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” Gen 2:18 NRSV

If you are alone and friendless, some Christians will blame you if you are not involved in a church.

But there are Christians who repeatedly have negative or traumatic experiences in churches.

There are so many churches where you are expected to conform and think just like everyone else. You don't need manipulation. You need friendship.

There are Christians who see psychiatry, medication and psychotherapy as worldly and evil. But there are Christians who, despite active membership in churches, find better understanding and compassion in a clinic than in church.

As a young Christian, I had traumatic experiences in churches. For a while, I got more help in a psychiatric hospital than in church.

I am grateful that I have not needed psychiatric care for many years now. I have also been actively involved in good Christian fellowship for years.

If you are lonely, please never give up. God hears your prayers. There are other Christians who understand your pain and loneliness. Ask God that you find the right people.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jer 29:11 NKJV

God Loves Lonely People

 True discipleship can be lonely.

Jesus was rejected by his neighbours in Nazareth and his natural brothers did not believe in him before his resurrection.

Joseph was prophetically gifted, but his brothers sold him to human traffickers. 

After his conversion, Paul was a faithful preacher. He was constantly persecuted.

There are faithful disciples even today who are misunderstood and rejected by their families or churches

There are Christians who have a burning heart to save lost souls. They pray for people on the street. They witness miraculous healings and conversions, but in some places and in some churches they are looked down upon because they are seen as wild fanatics.

If you act exactly like Jesus and the first apostles, many Christians will criticise and reject you.

Consistent discipleship is like a coin with two sides. On one side you will see misunderstanding, rejection and sometimes loneliness. But on the other side you will find new friendships and deep fellowship with God and others.

Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel

will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. Mk 10:28–30 NIV

Paul was constantly persecuted, but he had close friendships with Luke, Timothy, Epaphras and other faithful Christians.

It is better to have a couple of real friends than just superficial fellowship in your family and church.

God is love. God is kind.

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
At the very beginning, God declares that friendship is positive and necessary. Gen 2:18 NIV

Many misunderstand this verse. Eve was to be a help to Adam, but the Hebrew word in no way implies subordination.

The Hebrew word EHSER appears in 21 verses. Twice Eve is referred to, but in 19 verses THE HELPER is God Himself.

Many single women have experienced a close friendship with God. God cared for them like a husband or father.

There are also many lonely people who are not alone because of discipleship and persecution.

In the Bible, Jesus not only healed despised women, lepers and demonised men, but freed them from their shame and isolation.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:8 NIV

Jesus loves you. He understands your loneliness. He wants to help you. He has never changed.

Help for the Lonely

 I know a half-blind widow in our neighbourhood. Christian neighbours visit her and help her from time to time. Another neighbour takes her for a walk.

Another neighbour is a very elderly widow. A Christian woman visits her and stays for hours because she is very lonely and depressed.

There are lonely people all around us.

• Many drink because they are lonely.

• Others are addicted to porn because they are lonely.

• Some visit brothels because they are lonely.

• Others become obese because they seek comfort in food, but other people look down on them and they become even lonelier as a result.

• Many men and women desire sex with many partners, but this does not satisfy their loneliness.

Even in the church there are often very lonely Christians. Some pastors have no close friends.
A good pastor knew about a woman who was very active in a large church. She sang in the choir.

One day she went home, took a gun and shot herself.  

There are so many substitutes for real companionship..

There are thirsty people in poor countries who don't have fresh water. They drink dirty water and get sick.

You probably sometimes see a Muslim woman with her head covered. What do you think?
Many Europeans react very unfriendly because they feel they are flooded with unfriendly Muslims.

But Jesus loves these women. They often experience rejection from Europeans or bullying from their husbands. Many are lonely. They need neighbourly love.

Prostitutes are rarely alone, but they are often lonely. They need real kindness.

There are also very rich people who can't buy real friendship with a heap of money.

If you look at all your fellow human beings with God's neighbourly love, God will help you to comfort a lonely person here and there.

In the Bible, lepers were very lonely. They were not allowed to have contact with family or friends. Jesus touched them and healed them.

Jesus said that his disciples must help lonely people with love. Whoever helps a suffering person with God's love helps Jesus himself, because Jesus loves such people.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Mt 25:34–36 NIV

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Mt 25:40 NIV

For many people, Christmas is the loneliest time of the year. How can you comfort someone?

Misunderstood and Alone

Jesus paused at a well and spoke to a woman. This was considered very unseemly.
Firstly, Jesus was a Jew, and she was a Samaritan woman. As a holy Jewish preacher, it was also expected of him to distance himself from women.

The woman was surprised because normally Jews wanted nothing to do with Samaritans.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) John 4:9 NIV84

It turned out that she was a genuinely despised woman because she was in an illegitimate relationship, but Jesus did not care about outward appearances when the Father was leading Him to a person who might be open to God.

Many preachers call this woman extremely sinful because she was married five times and divorced who knows how many times. We fall into the temptation to judge her as a slut, but Jesus understood humanity better than most Christians.

In those days, and in many cultures today, no woman was allowed to just kick her husband out.
The man was in charge. She was either rejected several times or widowed over and over again.

In many cultures today, and most likely in Samaria back then, single women are considered fair game. A woman married five times may have been innocent, but simply barren.

There are also cultures and countries today where such a woman has to make an unsavoury choice. 

No man wanted to be the sixth husband, but alone and without a family, she would have to prostitute herself or simply be exposed as a victim for repeated rapes. 

So she lived with a man, even though it was obviously not ideal.

Shame and guilt often go together, but shame is not guilt. Jesus bore the most extreme shame when he hung stark naked on the cross, although he was totally blameless.

A devout Christian woman who is persecuted, enslaved and raped by communists or Muslims for her faith experiences terrible shame, but in God's eyes she is completely innocent.

Perhaps you are misunderstood. This can be a very cruel and lonely experience, and it can last a long time.

A German poet describes these experiences with deep insight.

Strange, walking in the fog!
Lonely every bush and stone,
No tree sees another,
Each one is alone.

Strange, walking in the fog!
Life is loneliness.
No one knows another,
Each one is alone.

Hermann Hesse was perhaps rather depressed and the poem is very pessimistic, but he has uncovered a grain of truth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains how we must all stand alone before Jesus.

Only Jesus understands you totally, and despite all your faults He loves you too, just as He loved that woman at the well.

We can have times when we find real togetherness with someone, but these good times come and go. Jesus gave this woman new hope.

She was very misunderstood and lonely, but Jesus gave her a new life in which she could safely find real community and also human relationships. By believing in Jesus, she became a signpost for her village.

This loneliness, this life of misunderstanding, was never God's intention for you.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7 NIV84

When we try to live our lives without God, we move away from the only source of love and understanding.
God wants to help you find your way back to His heart.

Comfort in Loneliness

What comforts you in your loneliness?

• Do you have a friend you can call?

• Do you have a book that touches your heart? Do you have a favourite song that cheers you up?

• Do you know a Christmas carol that you can sing with a little joy?

• Do you have a happy memory that makes you smile?
  

 Are you overwhelmed by fear and bitterness? Please don't give up!

Maybe you have a neighbour who is also lonely. Can you give some food or groceries to a neighbour who has nothing?

Jesus was also lonely on this earth. He found comfort in the Psalms.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me.

He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness! Psalm 57:1–3 ESV

Jesus was fully satisfied in the love of the Father in heaven before creation, but he came to us here to comfort you. 

Here on earth he knew what loneliness was. He exposed himself to loneliness to comfort you in your loneliness.

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he prayed in despair.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ... Psalm 22:2

But in the end he prayed to the Father:

And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ ” Having said this, He breathed His last. Luke 23:46 NKJV

This is good prayer if you are dying, but you can also pray it if you feel like dying. God raised Jesus from the dead. He wants to raise you up from your depression.

You can surrender your spirit into God's loving hands now. He loves you.

When God lifts you out of the pit of despair, you will know how to comfort others.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 ESV
 

The Promises of Jesus

You can always trust Jesus.

• You can trust Jesus when you are sick.

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 

This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”  Matthew 8:16-17 (ESV)       

  

And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. 

Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. Acts 10:38 (NLT)   

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Heb13:8 (NKJV)   

• You can trust Jesus when you are guilty.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 Jn 1:8-9 (ESV)  

• You can trust Jesus when you feel rejected.

However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. John 6:37 (NLT)   

 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 (NKJV)  

• You can trust Jesus when you don’t know if God accepts you.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (NKJV)   

The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. 

He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.  2 Peter 3:9 (NLT)   

...for he longs for all to be saved and to understand this truth: 1 Tim 2:4 (TLB)

• You can trust Jesus when you feel pressurised, tired and overwhelmed.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NLT)   

• You can trust Jesus when you feel empty and unsatisfied.

And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. John 6:35 (NKJV)   

 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. 

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10 (NKJV)  

 

• You can trust Jesus when you feel alone.

    "But I will send you the Comforter—the Holy Spirit, the source of all truth. 

He will come to you from the Father and will tell you all about me. John 15:26 (TLB)

  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. 

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20 (NLT)  

• You can trust Jesus to speak to you. 

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27 (NKJV)   

• You can trust Jesus when you are grieving over the loss of what was precious to you.

 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." Luke 19:10 (NKJV)  

• You can trust Jesus to care for your children.

 He will feed His flock like a shepherd; 

He will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom, And gently lead those who are with young. Isaiah 40:11 (NKJV)  

• You can trust Jesus when you are afraid to die. 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 

for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4 (NIV)   

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 

Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. John 11:25-26 (NLT)