The Bible gives us count­less exam­ples of indi­vid­u­als who expe­ri­enced lone­li­ness in their own lives:

• God com­manded Abra­ham to leave his home and fam­ily and did not even tell him where he was to go.
• Jacob had to leave home and flee.
• Joseph’s own broth­ers hated him and sold him to traders that car­ried him to Egypt. Moses had to flee into the desert from his home in Egypt.
• Eli­jah felt the pangs of lone­li­ness and went so far as want­ing to die.
• Daniel, as a young boy was car­ried cap­tive into and strange land far away from his home and friends.
• Jere­miah was ostra­cized from his own peo­ple. John the Bap­tist lived in the desert away from fam­ily and friends.

The list can cer­tainly go on, but rather than name exam­ple after exam­ple, it is more impor­tant that we are able to see the big­ger pic­ture behind why God allowed these men to expe­ri­ence the extent of lone­li­ness that they did. Through­out all of God’s deal­ings with man, those whom God wanted to use have had to walk alone many times. It is dur­ing these times of loneliness, and only these times of lone­li­ness, that we  learn to lean heav­ily on Jesus. Lone­li­ness helps to usher us into “the secret place of the most high” (Psalm 91:1), and allows him to become our all in all. In order for us to be what God wants us to be, we must first learn to trust him. We must know him as our true Com­pan­ion and Friend, one who “stick­eth closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

So the next time you feel the pangs of lone­li­ness begin­ning to over­whelm you, remem­ber that they serve a much greater pur­pose than what we real­ize. They will drive you closer to Jesus allow­ing him to touch you and mold you into becom­ing a ves­sel that God can use.

Taken from Ques­tions Pen­te­costals Ask by David F. Gray, 1987. Word Aflame Press: Hazel­wood, MO.