Ιησους
Χριστóς
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee…” Isaiah 41:10
… be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (KJV)
Have you ever been lonely? What did you do in that situation? Did you go to
God and ask Him to fill that void, or did you go to people and places and
realize that no one or nothing can fulfill that which your heart craves for?
There is a God given hollow inside of each one of us and only God can fill
that. Many people, when looking for love, end up with the wrong type of
love. Sometimes, when we need divine love, we search for it in mortals. When
a girl is deprived of her father’s love, she would look for it in another
male. If a boy lacks his mother’s love, he will have difficulty in dealing
with women. This is dysfunctional. There have been break-down in marriages
because the girl sought the Father’s love in her husband or the husband
sought the mother’s love in his wife. Some men in this case, get married to
older women as a substitute.
Because God is all sufficient, He can fill any void of love deficit whether
you did not receive love from your father or mother. But because humans are
limited, no human can substitute for the love of God.
In this day and age where young people leave their homes to pursue their
studies and careers, they move away from their loved ones. Sometimes they
look at it as freedom, but end up in bondages of live-in relationships and
compromise on everything that they ever stood up for. We have counselled so
many young boys who have cried to us and said that because of the bitter
loneliness from being away from home, they have become alcoholics, drug
addicts and have sought false love, some even contracted STD’s because of
the negligent life style.
There was this wonderful young lady who was in search of love and
acceptance. She, like many of us, looked for it in the wrong places and from
illegitimate sources. She, a chronic liar, indulged in alcohol, sex and
other things while being a part of a vibrant Church and participating in the
choir. She was so much in search of an identity and not finding it outside
the Church; she broke up with her boyfriend who’s an unbeliever to search
for it within the Church. She then told people that she kept getting dreams
of marrying the choir Pastor of her Church and went about telling people
that she and the choir Pastor were going around. After she was warned not to
do that and advised that she was being deceived by the devil, she then
chased after a well known Evangelist of the same Church and told her mother
and friends that she loves him. She used to send him flowers, cards and call
this Evangelist at late hours in the night and wanting to go over to his
residence and to be with him, tempting him into sin. Being in commissioning
with God, the Evangelist strongly rebuked her and requested her not to call
him when she said she wanted to go to his house that night. The very same
night she sent him a text message saying that she had found another guy! Do
you think this girl’s search will stop with this new boy?
Many people go from one person to another, from one Church to another, tying
to create a universe that is parallel to their false imagination. As Bishop
Fulton Sheen stated: “Each
of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the
emotional universe which he inhabits.”
You see, this girl was trying to find God in godly men, but she had a wrong
notion about God’s love.
Obsession of love without a moral framework will pull the vulnerable person
into sin and false illusions. The devil is a liar and he will deceive the
Christian that is not vigilant.
C.S Lewis describes love in four ways.
Agape (ἀγάπη) means pure love, that of the love of God.
Storge (στοργή) means affection, it is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.
Eros (ἔρως) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. "erotas" means "(romantic) love within marriage.
Philia (φιλία) means friendship, a dispassionate virtuous love.
In seeking the Agape love, we need
to understand that it only comes from God and not from man. In dealing with
people, we need to distinguish the Philia
love from the others.
“Ask anything.”
My Lord said to me.
And my mind and heart thought deeply
for a second,
then replied with just one word,
“When?”
God’s arms then opened up and I entered Myself.
I entered myself when I entered
Christ.
And having learned compassion I
allowed my soul
to stay.
St. Thomas Aquinas
This
virus of false affection has its victims who are married people too. We need
direction in moments of loneliness. Nobody is inevitable, everybody goes
through that. Me, being a Psychologist and a Missionary, I go through these
seasons and the first thing I do is go to God and then to my
Many people have a fear of being alone or being in silence. Even when people are cleaning or carrying out jobs, they listen to music. Some, even while reading, cannot be without listening to music. People in this world do not want to be in silence. Maya Angelou said “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
Please pray for me and
for other servants of Christ as we face biting loneliness apart from
solitude as we travel proclaiming Christ.
As Richard J. Foster said:
Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.
Pray that we may honour Christ in all that we do. I receive so many responses from people from around the globe about my articles speaking to their hearts and that by using examples of real life issues, it really helps them. This encourages me.
Thank You.
Love,
dom.