Sometimes loneliness can draw you into a deeper fellowship with your Savior.
SHAUNA: Hi, I’m Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. And now here’s a very personal reflection from Joni.
JONI: I remember it was only a cross-stitched proverb I once saw hanging in someone’s hallway, but as I sat in my wheelchair looking up at the words in the frame, I knew it was a direct and personal word of the Holy Spirit to me. And the cross-stitched proverb stated simply this: “Others may, but you cannot.”
You see, back then in the early days of learning to trust the Lord in my wheelchair, I could not help but watch many of my Christian friends enjoying all sorts of wonderful activities. I recall trying to join in on the fun – one time I even went with my friends to a ski lodge in Vermont – but when I got there, I felt totally out of place and uncomfortable. Yes, these are my friends and, yes, there was lots of camaraderie and fellowship, but bottom-line, it was all about the skiing. And skiing, for me, wasn’t even a remote possibility. Not wanting to cause my friends to feel badly, I kept those feelings to myself and quietly retreated, not from my friends, but from the activities. My spirit felt the better for it, but I was also pretty lonely.
Now here’s where that proverb kicks in, because although I may have been alone in my wheelchair, those became marvelous times of fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Having forfeited activities that were, for the most part, morally neutral [like, you know, skiing, hiking, canoeing], I was more free to pursue a pure-hearted devotion to God. It was my loneliness that that which drove me deeper into the heart of my Savior. And that’swhy this proverb “Others may, but you cannot” became so precious to me. I knew that God was drawing me away to himself. And let me explain more about that.
Distancing yourself from something, or some activity, that once held your heart can be kind of a withdrawing into the desert of solitude where your desires can be purified. It’s a way of detaching your desire from the magnetic pull of this world in order to attach those desires more firmly to Christ. The love of God constrains us all, but it more tightly constrains some than others, making the soul restless until it finds its desires fulfilled in the Lord and in the Lord alone.
The Apostle Paul experienced this when God drew him away to spend seven years alone in the desert before beginning his ministry. Now that may be pushing solitude to the limits, but in that time the Holy Spirit helped Paul to hone his message. In fact, Paul wrote in Galatians 1, “But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, no, I went immediately into Arabia.” It’s the same message as that cross-stitched proverb: “Others may, but you cannot.” And that solitude in Arabia drew Paul closer to Jesus.
SHAUNA: Remember friend, “Loneliness can be conquered only by those who learn how to bear God’s solitude.” Do you need more insights into fully understanding that desert of solitude you sometimes find yourself in? Do you find yourself asking, “What is God doing?” Well, I know God has answers for you at joniradio.org. Go there today and let Jesus minister to you through Joni’s radio programs. And while you’re there, make sure to leave us your prayer requests so we can hold you up in prayer. That’s joniradio.org!
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