When You Feel So Painfully Alone

Beginning in July we are rebroadcasting historic sermons from previous Speakers of The Lutheran Hour on the last Sunday of each month for the rest of 2010. These messages are being aired to honor the 80-year tradition of The Lutheran Hour and in anticipation of the new Speaker’s arrival.

This month the sermon will be given by the Dr. Dale Meyer.

O God, the Protector of all who trust in You, without whom nothing is strong and nothing is holy, increase and multiply Your mercy on us, that with You as our Ruler and Guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.

“Out of the mouths of babes”-Dr. August Mennicke of Minnesota passes along the following incident. “Our daughter shared a conversation she overheard at home. Our 3-year-old grandson was standing at the basement stairs, trying to muster enough courage to make the descent. Before taking the first step, he said, “Oh Jesus, it’s awful dark down there. You’d better hold my hand.” (“Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted,” p. 58)

Do you know that feeling? Of course you do. Getting older doesn’t eliminate the big challenges in life that make us feel so small and alone.

For some of you the challenge is advancing age. So many of your friends and family have died-perhaps all have died-and you feel so alone.

Some of you feel isolated by health problems. You can’t get out and do the things you used to do so easily, things you’d love to do again. Your health forces you to be alone, sometimes painfully alone.

Some of you know the struggles of the single life. While everyone else has family and talks about family, that talk, well intentioned as it might be, leaves you feeling painfully alone.

Some of you feel shunned. People whom you used to consider your good friends now avoid you. What did you do to them? You may not know, but they’ve turned their backs on you, and the loneliness can be painful. So many situations leave us feeling like that little boy standing all alone and peering down the steep basement steps into the darkness.

Of course, you know you’re not alone. There are others who have experienced your feelings. For example, Job did. Once he had been healthy, but that had been taken away from him. The Bible tells us he had “painful boils from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Job took a piece of broken pottery to scratch himself as he sat in the ashes” (Job 2:7-8). It was so bad that out-of-town friends, who had come to comfort Job in all his problems, didn’t even recognize their old friend when they first saw him. And when they did recognize him, the Bible tells us, “They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw that he was in such great pain” (Job 2:13).

Job could also identify with you when you are shunned by former friends. People who had respected him and sought him out in his heyday, now mocked him. “Now they make fun of me with songs. I have become a joke to them. Since they consider me disgusting, they keep their distance from me and don’t hesitate to spit in my face” (Job 30:9-10).

Job didn’t feel that he was over the hill; he felt he was being buried under it. “Now my life is pouring out of me. Days of suffering seize me. At night God pierces my bones. My body doesn’t rest…(God) throws me into the dirt so that I become like dust and ashes” (Job 30:16, 17, 19).

How he longed for the good old days. “Any ears that heard me, blessed me. He says, in Job, chapter 29, “Any eyes that saw me spoke well of me, because I rescued the poor who called for help and the orphans who had no one to help them. I received a blessing from the dying. I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it was my clothing. I practiced justice, and it was my robe and turban. I was eyes for the blind person. I was feet for the lame person. I was father to the needy. I carefully investigated cases brought by strangers. I broke the teeth of the wicked person and made him drop the prey out of his mouth. I thought, ‘I may die in my own house but I will make my days as numerous as the sand. My roots will grow toward the water, and dew will lie on my branches all night. My power will be fresh every day and the bow in my hand will remain new'” (Job 29:11-20).

Ah, the good ol’ days! You know the feeling? Now, Job wasn’t alone in all this. His friends tried to comfort him. When you feel painfully alone, I hope that your friends give you a call, that they stop by to visit or that they send you a card to cheer you up. Misery loves company. But misery wants more than company. “God,” Job complained, “why is this happening to me?” That’s what you ask, too: “God, why is this happening to me?”

God often does not answer the “why” question. He didn’t answer it for Job. Job complained about God’s ways. “I call to You for help, but You don’t answer me. I stand up, but You just look at me. You have begun to treat me cruelly. With Your mighty hand You assault me. You pick me up and let the wind carry me away. You toss me around with a storm. I know You will lead me to death, to the dwelling place appointed for all living beings” (Job 30:20-23). Through all the complaint there is wonderment: “God, why are you doing this to me?”

But God did not answer the “why” question. Instead, God thundered, “I am God.” To Job, God said, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have such insight” (38:4). “Who shut the sea behind gates?” (38:8). “Have you ever given orders to the morning?” (38:12). “Can you bring out the constellations at the right time?” (38:32). “Can you call to the clouds?” (38:34). “Can you send lightning flashes?” (38:35). “Can you give strength to a horse?” (39:26). “Is it by your order that the eagle flies high?” (39:27). For four long chapters, God goes on in this fashion and says to Job, “I am God.”

Job got the message. Job said, “I know that You can do everything and that Your plans are unstoppable” (40:1-2). “I had heard about You with my own ears, but now I have seen You with my own eyes. That is why I take back what I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show that I am sorry” (Job 40:1-2, 5-6).

God often does not answer the “why” question for us either. God wants us to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). If you and I were to have the answers to all the “why” questions, if you knew why your fortunes changed, why an illness came, why friends shunned you, why you feel so painfully alone, if you and I were to have the answers to all the “why” questions, then we would be walking by sight. Everything would be obvious to us. But our heavenly Father wants you and me to walk by faith. That, I hasten to add, is not a blind faith, a Pollyanna optimism that has no basis in reality. Living by faith, even when you don’t know why things are the way they are, this living by faith rests on the fact that God has made good promises to you, and your heavenly Father is not going to abandon you but will bring you through your temporary troubles. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Living by sight does not exalt God; faith does. And so, faith humbly but confidently says, “Oh, Jesus, it’s awful dark down there. You’d better hold my hand.”

He will. The One who was whipped and spat upon, the One who was abandoned by all His friends, the One who hung on the cross, this One said, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). So often He doesn’t answer “why” we suffer, but always, always He who suffered for you is there when you feel so painfully alone.

He’s with you as the Conqueror, as the One who defeated death and the devil. What can we say about all of this? St. Paul asks, “If God is for us, who can be against us? God didn’t spare His own Son but handed Him over to death for all of us. So He will also give us everything along with Him. Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, He was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in heaven. Christ also prays for us. What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from His love? The One who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in al these difficulties. I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation” (Romans 8:31-35; 37-39).

In “Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted” (that’s the book in which Dr. Mennicke tells his story), Dr. Arnold Kuntz writes this: “Ufe narrows down, and crisis comes. Suddenly only one thing matters, and there, in the narrow place, stands Jesus.”

So when, as Dr. Kuntz writes, “life narrows down and crisis comes,” put your thoughts on Jesus. He is God. Remember, that’s what God told Job. Job was worrying about little things, the whys and the wherefores of all his problems. God called Job to focus on the big thing. “I am God,” He thundered. So also for you. Jesus says, “Whoever has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:8). Put your focus on Jesus. Pour out your heart to Jesus. He’ll help you and give you hope. Hebrews, chapter 4, says, “We need to hold on to the declaration of faith: We have a superior chief priest who has gone through the heavens. That person is Jesus, the Son of God. We have a chief priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He was tempted in every way that we are, but He didn’t sin. So we can go confidently to the throne of God’s kindness to receive mercy and find kindness, which will help us at the right time” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

In your prayers and in the struggles of your soul, keep asking, “Why?” Do not put that question to God defiantly. The sad truth is that we all suffer because this is a broken and hurting humanity. But do ask God “why” with the humble goal of learning more about His ways. Take your questions to the Lord by taking them to Him in His Word, the Bible. The upshot of such prayerful Bible reading will be that you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the Father’s way with us, His children.

Sometimes, in fact, you will learn why something has happened to you. For example, Job learned that some people avoided him because they were living by sight. These fickle people were impressed with Job when the sun was shining, but when Job’s fortunes turned sour, they turned away. People can still be shallow, and sometimes they leave you feeling painfully alone. Searching the Scriptures will sometimes answer the “why” question for you.

But for many of our problems, the “why” question will go unanswered. That does not mean, however, that your times of questioning and praying and reading are wasted. Those earnest times with God will expose you to His power in the Good News of Jesus Christ and that exposure will strengthen the faith that you desperately need. Jesus Christ is the only name under heaven by which you can be saved (Acts 4:12). Your times spent with the Word of Christ will help you, as we prayed at the start of today’s message, to “so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal.”

The day is coming when you won’t be concerned about why. That will be the day when the former things have passed away and God will make all things new. That will be the day when faith will be replaced by sight, when your trust in the promises of God will be replaced by the enjoyment of happiness in the presence of God in heaven. Just like prayer and Bible reading, that focus on glory to come can help you endure the tough times now. St. Paul says, “I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

“Ufe narrows down, and crisis comes. Suddenly only one thing matters, and there, in the narrow place, stands Jesus.” Call out to Him in your pain and in your loneliness. “Oh, Jesus, it’s awful dark down there. You’d better hold my hand.” Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers)
December 26,2010 Originally aired December 28, 2008
Topic: When You Feel So Painfully Alone

ANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer.

KLAUS: Hi, Mark.

ANNOUNCER: Pastor, a listener is concerned that his congregation has decided to do away with having services on New Year’s Eve. They were told the pastor needed a little “down time,” shall we say, after all of the special Advent and Christmas services. They were also told that because New Year’s is not an official church holiday, the church is not obligated to hold services on New Year’s Eve.

KLAUS: That’s an interesting and very long letter. Anything else that needs to be thrown into the pot?

ANNOUNCER: No, I think that’s the basic situation here.

KLAUS: Well, fair enough. Well, after listening, and some deep consideration, I have to say that I come down squarely on both sides of the argument.

ANNOUNCER: So you have no clear-cut answer, one way or the other?

KLAUS: Certainly nothing that’s ever going to be written in stone. First, the part about the pastor being tired -there’s no question that the clergy have been pretty much running full steam all the way from Thanksgiving right through Epiphany, which is in early January. Extra services, perhaps accompanied by a few funerals, a wedding or two, some private counseling -it really takes a lot of energy and preparation.

ANNOUNCER: But, might not the congregation say, “Hey, this is all part of the deal and you knew that when you became a pastor.”

KLAUS: They might indeed feel that way. But you know, Mark, things aren’t always what they seem and the congregation might not have been given the entire story.

ANNOUNCER: Really? What else might be going on?

KLAUS: You know, Mark, I’ve known pastors who were dealing with a severe illness, either personally, or they had immediate family members who were -cancer, or something else. At such times, that burden can be twice as heavy, and they may,
indeed, need a rest. Or perhaps it’s a case where an associate pastor has taken a call to another congregation and the remaining pastor is left with a great deal of work that falls to him, one person, which had originally been taken by two. All kinds of reasons, legitimate reasons, why a pastor might indeed need some “down time.”

ANNOUNCER: But shouldn’t the congregation then just be to.ld that? I think most people would understand.

KLAUS: Yes, I think most people WOUld, too. But we need to realize that a pastor may
have reasons that he wants to keep personal and private. And that really does become
his right.

ANNOUNCER: OK, I understand that. Now, how about the reason, that New Year’s is
not a church festival. What advice could you give there?

KLAUS: Well, in most denominations, New Year’s Day is listed as a minor festival.
Certainly you are not going to find January 1 st mentioned in the Old Testament as a day that has to be celebrated. On the other hand, the idea of saying “Thank You” to the Lord for His presence in the past year, and, on New Year’s Day asking Him to bless us as we
go into that unknown future, is a wise and appropriate thing to do.

ANNOUNCER: And while we are talking about it, I can think of other special days not mentioned in the Bible -The Fourth of July, for example.

KLAUS: Or Canada Day.

ANNOUNCER: Well, shouldn’t the church celebrate those special times, even though the Bible doesn’t command it?

KLAUS: Mark, I can’t tell you the number of times I was proud to stand with an honor guard and speak in a cemetery on Memorial Day. I don’t know too many pastors brave enough to leave Mother’s or Father’s Day unmentioned when those days roll around. Why wouldn’t you want to use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to speak about the great sacrificial love our Savior’s has had for us?

ANNOUNCER: So it would be OK?

KLAUS: More than OK. You know, for years I’ve watched the church complain about how the secular world has taken over Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. I have absolutely no problem taking a secular occasion and using it for God’s purposes.

ANNOUNCER: So that might even mean that you would, perhaps, reclaim holidays that once were ours. Here I’m thinking, for example, of Thanksgiving Day. Without God, who are we really thanking?

KLAUS: Right again. You know, if you watch Thanksgiving Day specials on TV, you see folks sit down to enjoy all the trappings of the festival, but not a single word of prayer is ever spoken in most of those shows. How strange is that? As you said: To whom are they being thankful, if not to God?

ANNOUNCER: Well, in closing today, what do you think? What about this New Year’s Eve service?

KLAUS: I think in Christ, we are free to celebrate it -gladly, completely, totally. Then, after we’ve thanked God for the blessings of the past, and we’ve asked Him to be our help and hope in the future, then why not enjoy watching the parades and the football games.

ANNOUNCER: This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music selection for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“Now Greet the Swiftly Changing Year” by Jaroslav Vajda & Alfred Fedak. Sung by the choir of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Wichita. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“Savior, Again to Your Dear Name” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.