By Bill Gaultiere (c) 2010
I know what it’s like to feel lonely.
The worst thing is to be in a group of people and feel alone… Other people are enjoying conversation, smiling, laughing, but it appears that no one wants to talk to you and you start to feel more and more self-conscious. It seems like people are looking at you standing there all alone. You feel awkward, anxious, embarrassed, bad about yourself.
Maybe you have felt this way too.
The Psalmist did. He described himself as a lonely bird sitting atop the roof of house and waiting for the Lord (Psalm 102:7).
Time and again the Psalmist shows us how to pray our way out of loneliness and into the arms of the Lord: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted” (Psalm 25:6; see also Psalm 142:4-5). Knowing this way of the Psalmist, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16).
Over seven years ago I began praying in lonely places with Jesus and I experienced His presence with me – I wasn’t alone! Even in group situations where I found myself left out of conversation I learned to meditate on Scripture and carry on a secret conversation with my Lord – I wasn’t alone!
One day hiking with Jesus I watched a lonely bird and wrote a prayer poem to express how the Lord loved me out of my loneliness:
A Lovely Bird
On the hillside
A lonely bird
Apart from the flock
Standing atop a reed
Blowing in the wind
I’m longing for a friend
~
From the heavens
A Lovely Bird
A heart for the flock
Stooping onto my reed
Dancing in the wind
We’re singing together
The Bible is filled with promises of Comfort for the Lonely.
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