Never Lonely

At the recommendation of my spiritual director, I've been working through Dallas Willard's book Hearing God:  Developing a Conversational Relationship with God as part of my personal devotional time lately.  Today, I came across the following questions in the book.

"Have you known people who were so close to God that they were never lonely?  What do you think of the prospects of such a relationship for you?"

This really made me stop and think.  I've asked a lot of questions about loneliness over the past nine months.  Having left all of my deep relationships in the US and moved into a new country and culture, loneliness has been a struggle at times.  So I started to reflect...

Of course, God created us to be in community.  While we can sing, "All of You is more than enough for all of me," we don't totally mean it in a literal sense.  God did create us with a need for other people.  Even with that fact established, though, many of us struggle with loneliness even while we are IN community!

• Sometimes no one will answer the phone or respond to a text, and not a soul is on Facebook chat--and just in an hour or so of isolation, we feel lonely.
• For singles, we can be blessed with the most incredible relationships in the world and yet give in to loneliness for a significant other.
• In the context of community, we can still battle loneliness when we are not in close proximity to those who know and understand us best.

So what does our loneliness say about our relationship with God?

1.  Feelings lie.  Just having a feeling of loneliness doesn't mean my relationship with God is on the rocks.  Let's not take this to an extreme.  However, perhaps a life characterised by loneliness would be an indication of a spiritual need.

2.  Maybe loneliness is a God-given reminder of our need for communion with HIM. The truth is, only God knows and understands us perfectly. Only He is always available and always present.  He can always "answer the phone" to listen to our needs or "give us a text" through His Word in response to our cries.  He is the most faithful Friend.  At any point that human relationships are unsatisfying, we should be reminded that our sole satisfaction MUST indeed come from our relationship with God.  He desires for us to live in His presence--if we do, we are never alone.

So have I ever known someone who was so close to God that they were never lonely?  I'm not sure... Do I want to be the kind of person who is so close to God that my life is marked by satisfaction and contentment through my relationship with Him?  Absolutely.  Anyone have some thoughts on how to progress toward that end?  I'd love to read them.