What does the Bible say about loneliness?

It is remarkable the instruments God uses to display His grace towards man, and the different exercises of heart persons go through, which prepare them for the service on which they are to be sent. There is a loneliness which may even be occasioned by a man's own folly, in which he finds himself without a single thing to get comfort in, that he may prove that to be in the Lord which he would not know in any other way.

It is cause for thanksgiving that, in spite of the general breakdown, the blessed God has preserved those with whom His people can associate. Doubtless there are still saints of God who, like John on Patmos, find themselves alone; to such, as to John, the Lord would draw particularly near, speaking to them of His unceasing love, and assuring them of the sympathy of One who had felt loneliness as none other. "I looked for some … for comforters, but I found none" (Psalm 69:20).

This is a precious promise from the Lord to His own: even if isolated, or left alone, they can have the comfort and joy of His own company. Those who delight in the will of the Lord, and in simple obedience seek to do it, will have the sense of His presence with them, even as we read, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21).

Earlier, the Lord had promised His presence to His own collectively, saying, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:18); now the promise is to the individual saint. So often down the centuries, as in these last days, devoted saints of God have been isolated and left alone because of their fidelity to Christ; if deserted by others, or unable to meet with the faithful, they can still have the companionship of Christ. What they lose of Christ's company in the midst of His own because of faithfulness to Him, or because of circumstances ordered by Him, can be compensated by the sense of the manifestation of Himself as promised.

It matters not where the worshipper is, — on a dreary shore; in a noisome dungeon; amidst the filth and ferocity of brutal savages, or the frivolity and atheism of hollow-hearted worldlings; surrounded by the whirr and clash and roaring dissonance of the heaving factory, or toiling in the depths of the lamp-lit mine, — the man of prayer need never feel the withering pangs of loneliness. Wherever you are the Lord is there, and it only needs prayer to bring Himself and you together. Recollect Him, and He is beside your path; resort to Him and He lays His hand upon you.

I remember going a while ago to see an old widow, in a little house in Edinburgh. She had tumbled down, and thought she had broken her thigh. I said to her, "How do you get on here all alone? Have you no one with you?" "No one all day," she said. "My granddaughter lives with me, but she goes out in the morning to her work, and does not come back till the evening." "And are you happy all through the day?" "Yes, I am quite happy, and no mistake. I have Christ for my Saviour, and I have got the Book which tells me all about Him, and I have a hymnbook too, and can sing His praises when I am all alone. I would not change places with her Majesty, Queen Victoria, on the throne, God bless her!" There was a poor lonely widow, who did not know where her next meal was to come from, who had not one near her, even to make her a cup of tea, and yet she would not change places with her Majesty the Queen. Why? Because she had got Christ, Christ for her salvation, Christ for her strength, Christ for her peace, Christ for her joy. Happy woman! She is now with her Lord.

In the ways of God, this weary, thirsty, lonely sinner finds herself in the presence of the weary, thirsty, lonely Saviour. She was wearied in the service of sin: He was wearied by His journey in the service of love. Her sins made her a lonely woman: His love made Him a lonely Man. Love brought Him where sin put her. Even so, a little later, His love takes Him into the place that sin brings us — the unutterable loneliness of the Cross, when lover and friend forsook Him; when He looked for some to take pity and found none, and for comforters but there were none. Betrayed by a false disciple, denied by a true disciple, forsaken by all the disciples; lifted up between heaven and earth; cast out by man, and forsaken by God, He had to face the awful loneliness of the Cross. What took Him into that loneliness? It was love — love that the waters could not quench, and the floods could not drown. The love that made Him a lonely Man at Sychar's well took Him into the yet greater loneliness of Calvary's Cross. If men reject such love, little wonder that they will find themselves at last in the loneliness of a lost eternity.

But more than this, "I lie awake, and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop" (v. 7). the sparrow is the social bird, found in companies. The Lord Jesus surely desired company, but even when with His disciples, we read of Him that "He was alone praying" (Luke 9:18). His disciples did not enter into His thoughts, so that His exercises were solitary. Similarly, the house speaks of fellowship, but where fellowship was desired it was lacking. How little we understand the loneliness of the path of the Lord Jesus in the world!

(vv. 8-9) Moreover there is the consciousness that sin not only separates from God, but that sin makes the person an object of loathing to his acquaintance. That it shuts the soul up in an awful loneliness from which he cannot come forth. Nevertheless, in its misery, the soul is not allowed to be abandoned to despair: thus the hands are stretched out to God.

In connection with the various classes of sinners which are named, it is very interesting to notice, as unfolding the heart of God, those who are mentioned as drawing forth His compassion — the hireling, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. It is ever so in the Scriptures — that those who are lonely, sorrowful, or oppressed are the special objects of His tender mercy — those described in one of the psalms as the needy, the poor also, and him that hath no helper (Ps. 72), concerning whom it is said, "He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight." Surely we may gather instruction for ourselves from such a scripture, teaching, as it does, how we may have practical fellowship with the heart of God; for if we would walk with Him, His interests and objects must be also ours. What a field of service is, therefore, opened to the saints of God — a field which has no limit, and which surrounds us on every side. Yea, as the apostle James says, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27.)

I have no doubt you find yourself more alone; at our age it is natural. How few remain of those I once was associated with, but in general I have a happy feeling that they are with the Lord. I was always a solitary soul, thinking more for than with people: but it is good to be more alone - most good, if it be more alone with Christ. What a place that is!