Healing Lonliness in The Quiet Place

Throughout time, there has always been a deep loneliness and an empty void in the heart of man that is painful, and it cries out to be met. It expresses itself as a deep yearning that is palpable. So profound is the loneliness that it is often felt as an intense desperation to find someone or something to take the emptiness away. 



In reality, that aching inner yearning is the heart cry of the human soul that is searching for God. It awakens in a child like a tender flower, but sadly, through time, it is quelled, suppressed within and often silenced throughout the growing up years. 

The Progressive Silencing of Inner Loneliness

The stress and strain of life often anesthetizes this yearning and most people find a myriad of things to sooth and numb the emptiness within. If we were truly honest with ourselves, we all need significant times in our lives where we can experience the peacefulness of complete and total silence…. blessed solitude. Those precious Quiet moments are where we can make a heartfelt exploration of our deepest questions and pose them before the Almighty God of the universe. 

The Gentle Whisper of a Loving God

God is timeless, yet He pauses, draws near to our hearts, and listens to what we are truly saying when no one else is really listening. 

With the tragic falling away from God that took place with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, man turned away from God and lost his pure and unhindered communion with his Creator. Mankind has since been left with a spiritual vacuum and a profound painful emptiness.

The Lonely Place of the Human Heart

The Quiet Place within the heart of man, where he walked in the cool of the garden with God, became instead, a lonely place. Every person who has ever lived has experienced the awareness of a profound inner thirst, deep within the heart. 

We discover in life that no amount of money, fame, possessions or power can satisfy the longing within or fill the emptiness. History has proven that whatever man attempts to use to fill that void never brings permanent fulfillment or genuine inner peace. Instead, there is an acute dissatisfaction with what was thought to be the solution to fill the emptiness within. Life is lived in a lonely Shadowland, unseen by others, but seen and understood by God. 

Only God can Heal the Lonely Heart

  

There is an unquenchable thirst that only God can satisfy, for it is the expression of the homesickness of the human heart for intimate communion with God. Sometimes you can be missing one person, yet it feels that your whole world is a lonely place. Why is that? It is because unrequited love has awakened the deepest need within, and that is a longing to find the Edenic innocence, and complete serenity of The Quiet Place, where God walks with you in unhindered communion.

David described this yearning as a deep thirst:

“Just like a deer that craves streams of water, my whole being craves you, God. My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:1-2

God Alone Understands our Loneliness

Loneliness is the unquenchable thirst that nothing on earth can satisfy.  In spite of all of the sentimental poetry, romantic novels, tender musical ballads, or passionate love stories depicted in movies, there is no earthly relational experience that can truly satisfy the innermost loneliness of the human heart. 

We all need love and the companionship of intimate others, but the deep loneliness that abides within can consume us, and is a result of our soul being homesick for an intimate relationship with God.

The Human Heart is Thirsty for God's Love

Jesus identified the deepest need within mankind as an awareness of an inner thirst that cries out to be satisfied, conveying that every person knows that they are insatiably thirsty, and void of a lasting  true happiness.

 

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”John 7:37-38

God Reaches out to Each of Us

When God awakens our thirst for Him, He does so on an individual basis. When we  become conscious that He is drawing us to Himself, we are awakened to our inestimable separation from Him, and discover that it is on the basis of His grace and mercy, saturated by His love, that we are given access to His heart.

"By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." I John 4:8-10 


God Opened the Door to His Heart

God has sought us through His Love, and bought us through His Grace, for we had a debt that we could not pay so He paid a debt that He did not owe.


"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

God Invites us to be Near His Heart

When God brings us home to Himself, and He then lets us sit by the fire, and then He fills us with His comforting and all encompassing love.

 

"Come near to God and He will come near to you..." James 4:8 

The Only Way to Heal the Lonely Heart

Our deepest need is to bask intimately in the fullness of God’s love. There is nothing apart from God that can truly fill the inner void, because it was created by God, for God, and only He can dwell there. For Adam and Eve, the Quiet place was experienced in the external beauty of the Garden of Eden, and in their continual communion with God.

Jesus Christ has provided, through the sacrifice of Himself, access to the very heart of God. The Quiet Place has now become an internal reality where we, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, provide a holy place to commune with God alone. 

"That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the believer's what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19

The Blessedness of The Quiet Place

The Quiet Place....a blessed time where you set aside a time of uninterrupted solitude to meet with God. Precious moments where you share with Him your love and draw strength from Him to do His will. Nothing on earth can replace what God has available for you, as you meet intimately in The Quiet Place.  

 Please take a moment to listen to this inspirational rendition of, "There is A Quiet Place" Just close your eyes and go there...

                                                               

When you Struggle with Apathy

It was a frigid wintery morning, with  a northern Alberta wind buffeting the region with an intense frosty chill. The night before, a fierce bitter arctic blizzard had rolled relentlessly across the prairies. It moaned and howled like something that had crawled out of an unholy abyss. It stalked the farm, rattling storm windows and buffeted the house continuously through the long night. 

The snow covered panorama of the surrounding fields was bleakly windswept with mounds of drifting snow that were not there the day before. It was still snowing hard this morning, and  it was possible that some of the outbuildings housing the farming equipment had been damaged, so I dressed warmly to survey the impact of the storm. 

Stepping into the Storm

As I closed the front door, I heard a truck coming slowly down the debris strewn driveway. It pulled to a stop, and I recognized my neighbor Ken who stopped by to see if I needed any help after the blizzard. Farmers are a family.

He stepped out of the truck, and was followed by his big old white dog named Frost. The faithful companion loved to be out chasing down wandering cattle, lost sheep or any other living thing that he could get a bead on. We set off toward the barn, and as always, Frost ran on ahead, and true to his nature the hunt was on, only this morning, the chase was not like anything I had ever seen him do before.

Chasing after the Wind...

Frost  would leap and bark, spinning in circles, snapping at unsuspecting prey that he appeared to be hunting. I looked at Ken and he just shook his head with a sorrowful grim look upon his face.“He’s not been himself for a couple of months now. The vet thinks he is about at the end of his days…..”

Nothing else needed to be said. Frost had been Ken’s second hand on his cattle farm for a number of years. However, the old hunter's  world at present was intensely focused upon one futile objective…chasing after the wind. It was heartbreaking to see this fearless hunter, skilled cattle herder, and loyal companion, now totally disoriented, and frustrated, as he frantically barked and bit at the cold prairie wind on this wintery morning.

The Futility of a Life without God

It was Late one evening, some weeks later, and I was sitting at my desk, trying to work through several complicated life impacting issues that lay inert on the horizon of my future. I looked out the slightly frosted window, and gazed at the snow covered fields that were luminescent in bright moonlight.

Suddenly a gust of wind swirled the snow covered scene outside my window and the image of an old faithful dog, leaped before my eyes, turning this way and that, and I was struck with an intriguing thought:

Maybe the real issue for me this night was that I was spending all of my time trying to find My strategy to sort out my frustrating real life problems. In reality, like the old dog Frost, I was just chasing the wind. I had spent very little time of late in The Quiet Place. Decision making in the Will of God can only take place when His will becomes the focus of our lives.

   

Drifting from The Quiet Place

Spiritual drifting leads naturally to Chasing after the Wind. We are created to worship God in the Quiet Place where His will, not ours, becomes our strategic mind-set in sorting through life's challenging problems.

  
The drifting creates futile patterns in our life and germinates the seed of Apathy which  becomes the critical issue in Spiritual Drifting.

The Apathetic mindset grows slowly, rooting the following attitudes where we become:

Driven in All of our Activities...

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:14. 

Principle: Only God gives Purpose to my life.

Exhausted with everything we do...

“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind “ Ecclesiastes 2:11.  

Principle: Only work that I do for God’s Glory has Purpose.

Consumed by the pursuit of wealth and overwhelmed by loss of financial security...

“To the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 2:26

Principle: Only God can give me a Biblical Perspective on Wealth. 

Apathetic about what used to be meaningful...

“Toil Is Meaningless, so I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 2:17.

Principle: Only God can give my Work a sense of Value 

Progressively pessimistic with a sarcastic perspective...

“Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:17.

Principle: Only God’s Wisdom has any Meaning

Envious for what other people have that we have lost...

“And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:4

Principle: Only God frees my Achievements from Envious Competitiveness


Decision Making in The Will of God

Always remember that God's Word is the only compass that never changes, the only Book that will always tell you the Truth, and the only life Road Map to help you navigate through whatever critical time you are experiencing right this moment. 

Decision making in the Will of God becomes a mindset when our primary goal is to please Him. Storms can dim our view of what is best to do in a given situation because often changing our circumstances becomes more important than changing our attitude in the midst of adversity.

Often we miss the beauty and majesty of the winter storms of life, because we only see the storm, and not the creative display of our God's artistic handiwork (Psalm 19). When trials come our way, they can become strategic trails to a deeper walk with God.

There is strength and courage that we receive when we immerse ourselves in God's Word. He wants each of us to discover the vital importance of spending meaningful time meeting with Him in.... The Quiet Place. 

It is only there that we discover that decision making in the Will of God flows out of our heart desire to please Him, and enjoy unhindered communion. That is where our thinking must be centered, otherwise we are more often just going through the motions in our spiritual walk and finding ourselves...Chasing the Wind.

Please take a moment to listen to this inspiring song that gives insight in how to overcome seasons of Apathy, and the challenge to resist Spiritual Drifting in our lives.

The Motions   By Michael West

When you Face the Unknown

From the time we first begin to explore the world into which we are born, one of the toughest lessons to learn is how to deal with the unknown. Those unpredictable, uncertain, cannot guarantee, just not sure, it could be disastrous realities that just may happen tomorrow. 

The primary reason it is so hard to deal with the unknown is that we only have a small piece of what we can ever be sure of regarding tomorrow.  It wears away at us because we cannot be absolutely certain that it will be anything that we imagine it may be. Lurking away on the periphery of your thoughts, it can work away at your peace of mind today, like a nagging toothache. 

Why it is hard to deal with the Unknown

All of life is in a continuous merge of changing circumstances. We are created to be planners, goal setters and are purpose driven by nature. Every time an event happens that can touch your life, all of the variables change with it: the how, why, who, when and where, change with it…second by second by second by second. No wonder it is so difficult dealing with the Unknown.

Facing the Challenge of the Unknown

There are certain personalities that have a harder time with the unknown. 

The more perfectionist, detailed and structured the person, the more stressful the unknown becomes. However, in The Quiet Place as we worship God, we are transformed by His presence, and soothed by His peace. When everything else seems to be falling apart, and we have no control over the details of the Unknown, we can stop striving, and begin to rest in His protective care over ourselves and our loved ones.

Yield Control of the Unknown to God

Our earlier life experiences can make it harder to deal with the unknown. The more a child lives with traumatic events, where they had no control over the tough times they experienced, the more the unknown becomes an issue. The bottom line is that we all struggle with the unknown.  The older we become, the more we realize how little control we have over anything.

^“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. “ Matthew 6:25- 34

Yield Depression and Anxiety to God

When a person struggles with depression and anxiety issues, it is harder to deal with the unknown.  The brain’s Limbic System controls our emotional responses to everything that we experience. One’s perception of the future becomes their reality. Hormonal secretions race through the body and impact mood, and motivation. What is real is what they feel, and many times it is laced with dread.

Yield your Finances and Needs to God

Today most people are living with limited financial resources. Getting downsized at work, being laid off, terminated or being unable to work due to health issues all impact how we look at the unknown. Having a greater responsibility for others to care for also makes it harder to deal with the unknown. 

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:6-7

God has a Purpose in the Unknown

Recognize that God allows hard times to teach us to humble ourselves before Him and acknowledge Him always and in all things as Lord. Like the seasons of nature, God weaves His Sovereign plan from the budding of blessings in the spring, to the storms that hit our lives in the winter of the soul.

^“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7

God has a Plan in the Unknown

Remember that God wants us to maintain a Biblical view of life, and the foundation is to be built upon seeking wisdom from the Scriptures.


Maintain a Biblical Strategy to Face the Unknown 

^“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”  James 1:5

Maintain a Biblical Strategy in your Thought Patterns 
 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

 Maintain a Biblical Strategy in your Daily Planning

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.^” Proverbs 3:5-6

God Gives Peace to Face the Unknown

Rest in God’s peace and trust Him to  use the unknown future in your life as a means to be glorified through you however it turns out.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.”  Jeremiah 17:7


^“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”  Hebrews 11:6

A Prayer for this moment

"Lord of all things and Creator of Heaven and earth, I thank you that you invite me to call you my Heavenly Father. You have led me to yourself through your Son, The Lord Jesus Christ, and have redeemed me through His precious Blood. The horizon of my tomorrows is unknown to me. In your infinite all knowing wisdom you have chosen to not give me access to what is ahead, for it may be too much for me to handle today. I kneel before you and release the anxiety and burden of the Unknown to your Sovereign Will."

The Lord Jesus taught us to pray...

"Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who have sinned against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever.”   (From Matthew 6:9-13)

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the Heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3

Take a few moments and listen to this encouraging music video by Mercy Me entitled "Word of God Speak."

When you have a Broken Life

With broken pieces of my life I try to build once more,
I cut my fingers on the glass, a mess upon the floor.
How can I rebuild broken dreams into a better thing,
When complications fill my mind and heartaches play like strings?





  





  
I lift the pieces from the floor and throw them all away,

yet one remains to puzzle me and remind of better days.
It is called hope and seems to be a way to start again,

my life so out of focus now, it says I must begin.

To find for me my special place, a haven from the storm,

and never let my true self try to mimic or conform.
So take the bitter with the sweet, the winter with the spring,
as day by day my song takes flight as my heart begins to sing.

The melody will lift the heart of the weary and the sad,
As I begin to radiate the healing that I've had.
Don't ever think a life's so gone you cannot take the chance,
to take the hand of your inner child and lead her in the dance.

As others see you come their way, your walk will be so sure,
that living life and finding hope is not a simple cure.
It comes with reaching up and breathing gentle prayer,
the gift you're given, a door of hope, now handle it with care. 

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

“I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.² He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.³ He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."  Psalm 40: 1-3 


Listen to this song on video by Matthew West, as it is encouraging and inspirational for girls who have been wounded in their lives and continue to be...broken.

The Silent Cry of the Lonely Heart

Throughout time, there has always been a deep loneliness and an empty void in the heart of man that is painful, and it cries out to be met. It expresses itself as a deep yearning that is palpable. So profound is the loneliness that it is often felt as an intense desperation to find someone to take the emptiness away.

In reality, that aching inner yearning is the heart cry of the human soul that is searching for God. It awakens in a child like a tender flower, but sadly, through time, it is quelled, suppressed within and often silenced throughout the growing up years.

The stress and strain of life often anesthetizes this yearning and most people find a myriad of things to sooth and numb the emptiness within. If we were truly honest with ourselves, we all need significant times in our lives where we can experience the peacefulness of complete and total silence…. blessed solitude. Those precious Quiet moments are where we can make a heartfelt exploration of our deepest questions and pose them before the Almighty God of the universe. 

The Gentle Whisper of a Loving God

God is timeless, yet He pauses, draws near to our hearts, and listens to what we are truly saying when no one else is really listening. 

With the tragic falling away from God that took place with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, man turned away from God and lost his pure and unhindered communion with his Creator. Mankind has since been left with a spiritual vacuum and a profound painful emptiness.

The Lonely Place of the Human Heart

The Quiet Place within the heart of man, where he walked in the cool of the garden with God, became instead, a lonely place. Every person who has ever lived has experienced the awareness of a profound inner thirst, deep within the heart. 

We discover in life that no amount of money, fame, possessions or power can satisfy the longing within or fill the emptiness. History has proven that whatever man attempts to use to fill that void never brings permanent fulfillment or genuine inner peace. Instead, there is an acute dissatisfaction with what was thought to be the solution to fill the emptiness within. Life is lived in a lonely Shadowland, unseen by others, but seen and understood by God. 

Only God can Heal the Lonely Heart

  

Loneliness is an unquenchable soul thirst that only God can satisfy, for it is the expression of the homesickness of the human heart for intimate communion with God. Sometimes you can be missing one person, yet it feels that your whole world is a lonely place. Why is that? It is because unrequited love has awakened the deepest need within, and that is a longing to find the Edenic innocence, and complete serenity of The Quiet Place, where God walks with you in unhindered communion.

David described this yearning as a deep thirst:

“Just like a deer that craves streams of water, my whole being craves you, God. My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:1-2

God Alone Understands our Loneliness

Loneliness is the unquenchable thirst that nothing on earth can satisfy.  In spite of all of the sentimental poetry, romantic novels, tender musical ballads, or passionate love stories depicted in movies, there is no earthly relational experience that can truly satisfy the innermost loneliness of the human heart. 

We all need love and the companionship of intimate others, but the deep loneliness that abides within can consume us, and is a result of our soul being homesick for an intimate relationship with God.

The Human Heart is Thirsty for God's Love

Jesus identified the deepest need within mankind as an awareness of an inner thirst that cries out to be satisfied, conveying that every person knows that they are insatiably thirsty, and void of a lasting  true happiness.

 

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”John 7:37-38

God Reaches Out to Each of Us

When God awakens our thirst for Him, He does so on an individual basis. When we become conscious that He is drawing us to Himself, we are aware of our inestimable separation from Him, and discover that it is on the basis of His grace and mercy, saturated by His love, that we are given access to His heart.

"By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:8-10

God Opened the Door to His Heart

God has sought us through His Love, and bought us through His Grace, for we had a debt that we could not pay so He paid a debt that He did not owe.


"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

God Invites Us to be Near His Heart

When God brings us home to Himself, He then invites us to sit by the fire, and then He fills us with His comforting peace and all encompassing love.

"By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:8-10

The Only Way to Heal the Lonely Heart

Our deepest need is to bask intimately in the fullness of God’s love. There is nothing apart from God that can truly fill the inner void, because that place within that was lost, was created by God, for His Spirit to fill, and only He can dwell there. For Adam and Eve, the Quiet place was experienced in the external beauty of the Garden of Eden, and in their continual communion with God.

Jesus Christ has provided, through the sacrifice of Himself, access to the very heart of God. The Quiet Place has now become an internal reality through His indwelling Spirit, where we can worship and commune with God. In reality, the painful experience of loneliness in one's life, should open a pathway to the heart of God. It is a blessing of gain, disguised as loss.

When Loneliness Gives Way to Peace

"That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the believer's what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19

The Blessedness of The Quiet Place

The Quiet Place....a blessed pause in life, where you set aside a time of uninterrupted solitude to meet with God. Precious moments, where you share with Him your love and draw strength from Him to do His will. Nothing on earth can replace what God has available for you, as you meet with Him intimately in The Quiet Place.