Knowing God - One who watches!

Ever thought "I am quite alone - no-one understands me at all"  - even in a crowd we can be lonely!

Loneliness is awful - even the word Lonely sounds sad and desolate.

We can be lonely anywhere - work, home, surrounded by family and friends anywhere - no matter what we are doing or where we are.

A guy called Tim Hansel put it this way:-

"Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Loneliness is feeling alone...no matter how many people are around you. It is a feeling of being disconnected, unplugged, left out, isolated."

Simply put - we can be in a crowd supposedly enjoying ourselves and still feeling desperately lonely.

Kendra Cherry puts it this way:-

"While common definitions of loneliness describe it as a state of solitude or being alone, loneliness is actually a state of mind. Loneliness causes people to feel empty, alone and unwanted."

So what are some of the causes of loneliness?

Reading a research article by John Cacioppo, a University of Chicago psychologist, loneliness is strongly connected to genetics.

Other contributing factors according to Cacioppo can be moving to a new location, divorce, the death of someone significant in a person's life, low self esteem and/or confidence. People who lack self esteem and confidence believe that they are unworthy of attention or regard of other people. This alone can lead to feelings of isolation and chronic loneliness.

According to Kendra Cherry and I have no doubt she is absolutely spot on; - Loneliness can sometimes lead to all sorts of troubles including, depression and suicide, heart disease and stroke, stress, decreased memory/learning loss, antisocial behaviour, poor decision making and even alcohol and drug abuse.

WOW!! and all through Loneliness. makes you think a bit eh? - I feel there are not too many people around who haven't felt lonely at some stage of their lives.

So what can we do about loneliness? When I feel lonely, I go back to the source of my greatest help - the Bible. Through the Bible we can find amazing truths and promises. Promises that blow us away with their honesty and encouragement.

Jesus himself felt lonely - He knew what it was like to be all alone - even his best friends betrayed, disappointed him and left Him.  Of course the ultimate loneliness for Jesus was when he cried out from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus endured absolute separation from God and why? Because he didn't want any of us to know that same ultimate separation.

You know nothing escapes God's attention. He sees the little accomplishments that no one else notices. He notes the things you do to please Him.

He also sees the things we do in private - He sees how we speak to people and how we treat people at work and at school.

He sees our mistakes that wreck our self esteem and blow our confidence to pieces. He sees all! - all of our loneliness, all of the times we are 'left-out of the clique", all of our family foibles and secrets.

Although that doesn't make God the ultimate spectator! Far from it. When the action starts, God's place is right next to you, fighting, protecting, guiding, comforting and encouraging -  YES and WATCHING!!

None of us need ever fight our battles alone and knowing that God has your back, allows us to look loneliness fair in the face, recognise it for what it is, acknowledge that Jesus was there before us, put our hands in His and move onward.

Jesus died to spare us the agony that He experienced and amazingly He still lives today and is so willing to help us solve the problem of our loneliness.

Living in a cut-throat world

It's a cut throat world all right!

If you don't have a 'win-at-all-costs' attitude you can't really survive - I know some would immediately disagree but basically that's so true.

No matter were we are - at sport, in the office, school or even the gym if we aren't operating at peak performance levels, we not really considered a 'player'.

That mindset exits pretty much everywhere - competitiveness and striving to be the BEST at all costs. We see it everywhere - from the soccer field to the board room - the "power suit" and the "high heel brigade" will leave you eating their dust if you don't keep up with the game and 'shoot a few goals' of your own.


Pretty hard playing field when you take a good long look at the players and what you are up against. Their expertise and obvious confidence can leave you speechless.

They never seem to get flustered, always so cool and calm in a crises. They are always playing their "A" game.

So what do we do? Do we look for opportunities to 'tilt the playing field' in our favour - just to even things up a bit of course.

Insider information, rule bending, sucking up to the right and influential people, working all hours of the night and day, not because you have to but just to beat the person ahead of you to the post.

Steroids/drugs in sport, endless hours at the gym - it's all competitive and all fair game. Whatever it takes to be No 1 - that's for me and that's the goal!

If we buy into the win-at-all-costs mindset, anything goes - right? we can and must do what it takes in this cut-throat world.

Well - hate to be the one to say it but No! As Christians none of that is right for us - absolutely none of it.

In Proverbs 11:3 it says "The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them."

"Treacherous" WOW! strong word!! - God looks at the "win-at any/all-cost"as treachery. Treachery at the worst, cheating at the best.

Proverbs 20:7 says. "A righteous man who walks in his integrity; how blessed are his sons after him"

So what God is saying here is that integrity and fairness leaves a legacy - a path, if you like, for your children to follow. Now we all want to leave a legacy so what will yours be? - "integrity" or "it doesn't matter who you walk over as long as you win".

If we look deeper, the Bible is choc-a-block full of references to Godly behaviour, integrity and how to live according to God's will in your life.

God thinks it is far more important to live with these traits rather that winning!

1 Chronicles 29:17 - "I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there."

So our God actually rejoices when He finds integrity in our hearts even if we don't 'win' according to the worlds standards.

Let me say this though - integrity and truthfulness are not just 'good habits' thumped into us by caring Mums and Dads. Long lasting and faithful integrity, fairness and truthfulness can only come from a heart and soul changed permanently by God's Spirit.

It is only through the leading of the His Spirit that we can ever hope to show these traits in our lives permanently

Now nobody is perfect - I am not referring to that, but integrity is a determination of the heart; a heart changed by God to reflect His character.

So where are you on the 'win-at-all-costs' scale? - What are you prepared to do to get that goal, win that contract or come out smelling like a rose?

We all need to take a minute, inhale deeply and see what traits Jesus showed while He was here with us and let them be our yardstick and prop.

Jesus was filled with God's spirit which enabled Him to live a life full of integrity and truthfulness. Our lives need to be filled with the same Spirit, given to us freely by a loving, merciful and truthful God.