A.W.Tozer on Loneliness

This winter, our church has been working though Kyle Idleman's book and DVD series, "Not A Fan; Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus."  And last night, the video we watched as a group challenged us to consider what sacrifices Jesus is calling us to make.  

Not because these sacrifices will make Him love us more.  

But because these sacrifices will help us remember that this world is not our home...we're just passing through on our way to our eternal Home with Him.  And, because we are commanded by Jesus to 
"take up your cross {daily} and follow Me." (Luke 9:23)

During our group discussion after the video, a friend of mine recommended the following article by A.W. Tozer, called "The Saint Must Walk Alone."  Often, if we are truly seeking Jesus and walking as He leads, we will face loneliness...friends and family won't understand the choices that we make, and will drift away from us.  Yet in the suffering this causes, we can find comfort in the fact that Jesus knows what it is like, since He faced that reality during His time here on earth.  But Tozer says it much better than me. :)  Here is a portion of this thought-provoking article, with the link to the full article following:

"Sometimes we react by a kind of religious reflex and repeat dutifully the proper words and phrases even though they fail to express our real feelings and lack the authenticity of personal experience. Right now is such a time. A certain conventional loyalty may lead some who hear this unfamiliar truth expressed for the first time to say brightly, “Oh, I am never lonely. Christ said, `I will never leave you nor forsake you,’ and `Lo, I am with you alway.’ How can I be lonely when Jesus is with me?”

Now I do not want to reflect on the sincerity of any Christian soul, but this stock testimony is too neat to be real. It is obviously what the speaker thinks should be true rather than what he has proved to be true by the test of experience. This cheerful denial of loneliness proves only that the speaker has never walked with God without the support and encouragement afforded him by society. The sense of companionship which he mistakenly attributes to the presence of Christ may and probably does arise from the presence of friendly people. Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company. Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. Society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross. No one is a friend to the man with a cross. “They all forsook Him, and fled.”

The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of our nature. God made us for each other. The desire for human companionship is completely natural and right. The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share inner experiences, he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way."  (read the full article here)