Me, Myself, & God

But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you.
    O Israel, the one who formed you says,
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
    I have called you by name; you are mine.
² When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
    you will not be burned up;
    the flames will not consume you.

Isaiah 43:1-2

Here's an exercise for you. Read the above scripture once more but replace "Jacob" and "Israel" with your name. How does that make you feel? Well I can tell you how it makes me feel. It makes me feel loved and reminds me that I am NEVER alone. Yes, there may be times when you may feel alone but God is with you through it all. I look at loneliness as a stage in the process. For example, imagine the mother who is weaning their child away from the bottle. The child is frustrated and doesn't understand the transition the mother is having it make from the bottle to the sippy cup. That bottle has been the child's comfort for months and the thought of it being taken away and something else replacing it is unbearable.


I believe this is how God works when He is pruning us away from certain things. I discuss a lot about moving forward and not looking back in my blog posts, but it would be absurd of me to think doing this is not a difficult task. I'll be the first to admit that it is not an easy task at all. While going through the process of moving forward and not looking back there lies a sense of loneliness. I believe that this feeling is normal during this process. You will feel alone during this process because you've given something up just like the child who's mother has taken away the bottle. In your state of loneliness know that God is weaning anything and everything away from you that keeps you from wanting and seeing Him more clearly.


During this time you must rest in God and know that even though you may feel lonely you are NEVER without Him. The scripture above shows us that even through the most difficult situations God will never leave your side. John 14:16 says, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. " You see even in our darkest hours God is right by our side. He longs for you to want more of Him. During the times that I feel lonely I cling to God even more. I realize that in my state of loneliness God is tugging at my heart and saying, "hey I want more of you." I constantly look up scriptures with the words comforter in them and feed my spiritual being. As humans, we have to intake food and water to live. Well as believers you have to intake God's Word so that your spiritual being can live. "But Jesus told him, No the scriptures says, people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." You see God wants more of you! During this time of loneliness your job is not to fill that void with other things but to fill it with the things of God. Only He can fill any void.


The child who's mother is weaning them away from the bottle doesn't understand what it's mother is doing. The child doesn't understand that it can't drink from the bottle continuously. The child has to grow and mature and it is the mother's job to make sure of it. Yes, there may be long nights of crying for that child just because they desire that bottle instead of the sippy cup but in the long run that child will grow pass that stage. That child will no longer crave that bottle at night or cry itself to sleep. Well the same applies to you. You won't always feel that sense of loneliness due to God instructing you to put something down that you once loved or enjoyed. You won't desire or crave what isn't good for you. Continue to feed your desires and cravings with the things of God. Then one day you will look back and thank God for the process.




P.S. You're not in this process alone!