The Saint Must Walk Alone (A.W. Tozer)
MOST OF THE WORLD'S GREAT SOULS have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness...
Hi Epi,
"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?"
"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 Godgiven 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 his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone."
"... true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find."
WORD!! Already is I'd say. Would rather be "lonely" than with those who are in the world...
" He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and overserious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. "
Oh so true, this is how it is exactly in my own experience...they say there are "no lone ranger Christians" But...I disagree as I am a lone ranger Christian (IRL) except for the most part, this site, and those who I have grown close to over the years.
"He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart."
For reals!!! Hunger for those who can be hugged, helped, and share Christ with are like, no where to be found around my area, and I'm sure most others as well.
"It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else."
Exactly! It's always been that I knew that even if nobody else on earth loved me, I knew God did, and what comfort that brings. It is a lonely walk for sure brother but, just knowing that He loves us, the unlovable, is so very comforting.
"the lonely man of whom we speak is not a haughty man, nor is he the holier-than-thou, austere saint so bitterly satirized in popular literature. <--- Lol, sure do not EVER think myself holy at all really, though am trying to grasp that we must "be holy as He is holy"
He is likely to feel that he is the least of all men and is sure to blame himself for his very loneliness.<---Perhaps he IS to blame for his loneliness, I think I am to blame as, I did not truly come to Him until late in life so, no true Christian friends...?
So happy that feeling of being home in this world is long gone. If anything, it's feeling more and more foreign.
" He wants to share his feelings with others and to open his heart to some like-minded soul who will understand him, but the spiritual climate around him does not encourage it, so he remains silent and tells his griefs to God alone."
Truth.