The Holy Spirit and the bride, the church, the true Christians say, Come! And let him who is listening say, Come! And let everyone come who is thirsty, who is painfully conscious of his need, of those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, and strengthened; and whoever earnestly desires to do it, let him come, take, appropriate, and drink the water of Life without cost. Revelations 22:17 Amplified Bible
Psalm 25:15-26 PERPETUALLY my focus takes me to the Eternal because He will set me free from the traps laid for me. QUIETLY turn Your eyes to me and be compassionate toward me because I am lonely and persecuted. RAPIDLY my heart beats as troubles build on the horizon. Come relieve me from these threats. SEE my troubles and my misery, and forgive all my sins. TAKE notice of my enemies. See how there are so many of them who hate me and would seek my violent destruction. Watch over my soul, and let me face shame and defeat UNASHAMED because You are my refuge. May honor and strong character keep me safe. VIGILANTLY I wait for You, hoping, trusting. The Voice
“It is not darkness you are going to, for God is Light. It is not lonely, for Christ is with you. It is not unknown country for Christ is there.” Author~ Charles Kingsley
Got A Void Of Loneliness?
Is loneliness pushing and pushing at your soul so hard that you find yourself trying and trying to find an answer to soothe it, to fill the void created by it? You can look and look and try and try to find something to alleviate the soul loneliness. You can take matters in your own hands and try to make a way of escape and still not be able to be rid of it. There is no human remedy for loneliness in this broken world. There is no way to find the missing piece to be rid of loneliness. Finite is broken in this world and in this world where people are listening but not hearting and looking but not really seeing, loneliness is a byproduct of this human inadequacy. We can try to fix it, but it is not fixable. This is what we have and loneliness, the symptom of a greater human dysfunction, is not something we can alleviate. Loneliness makes our soul restless and we look for a remedy and keep trying this and that and whatever we can think of, yet we end up in the same place with a very lonely soul. Nothing will satisfy us in this world, we must get to the place where we leave behind what we want in this world and turn and fully face Jesus. He is our enough. He will fill our thirsty soul, He will end our search, and in Him we will find what we have tried so hard to find in this world and failed to find it. In this darkness of loneliness, Jesus is the Light, He is with us in this place where we feel we don’t belong, He is right here with us. He will never leave us behind.
John 4:13-14 Jesus: Drink this water, and your thirst is quenched only for a moment. You must return to this well again and again. I offer water that will become a wellspring within you that gives life throughout eternity. You will never be thirsty again. The Voice
“You may be lonely, poor, and cold, neglected by the children, forgotten by your friends, yet may have the glad Christmas joy in your heart as Paul had, shut up in prison cells at Rome!” John R. Rice
Our Search Stops With God
Heart friendship is so hard to find in this world. No one really has time for anyone. Everyone is engrossed in their own struggles, trying to find their own way and there is a strong self-focus and selfishness that has arisen because of it. It is a season of time where you walk around a bunch of people, circling around them, chasing them for friendship, pursuing relationship and they look at you, but they don’t really see you. They are not willing to stretch themselves past what they can comfortably manage. We are missing and searching for what we were made for, fellowship with God and each other. We have to stop seeking what we can’t fix. This is a broken world and heart relationships are few and far apart, but God, Who offers us everything He is, He is with us and our search must stop with Him, because He is what our soul longs for. Let your parched soul let in the living water by opening it up to a glimmer of light, speak something you are thankful for and let it begin with Jesus. We always have something to be thankful for. Look for it, speak it and the living water of Jesus will begin to flow into your parched soul.
Psalm 62:5-6 My soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him. He only is my Rock and my Salvation; He is my Defense and my Fortress, I shall not be moved. Amplified Bible
“The more we’re unthankful or complain about things, the dryer we become. Our situation doesn’t improve, and we feel worse and worse. But when we thank the Lord, we’re saved from being unthankful and we take a drink of living water. This water supplies and refreshes us, whatever our outward situation may be. Whenever you feel dry or depressed, you can try thanking the Lord; calling on His name; speaking about Christ to someone; telling someone that Jesus is Lord and that His name is the highest name; singing with your heart to the Lord; or crying out and giving a ringing shout. You’ll drink Christ as the living water and be refreshed and revived in your Christian life, and even overflow rivers of living water to others.”
http://biblesforamerica.org/living-water-6-ways-to-drink-christ/
Put Your Expectations In God’s Hands
Leave behind every expectation that things will change, that your loneliness in this world will ease up. It can’t be fixed by people, this world is broken. People are not relating to one another heart to heart, they are not even finding that relationship with God, everything is surface. In this generation, we have detached from God and from one another and that leaves such a void in the people God created to do life together. We are chasing what is missing. Standing with people and they are talking about going out to dinner and they don’t invite you and you walk away so lonely. You talk to people and they don’t even connect with you, eye to eye, it takes too much time from their busy schedule. You text friends, trying to be a part of their lives, encouraging them and they don’t answer you, they are busy. You, try and try to be a part of people’s lives, you ask and ask, but no one answers, and you sit day after day in a growing loneliness and a restlessness that tells you, you don’t belong here. Can you relate to this? Listen Up: The truth is that we don’t belong here and the truth is that people can’t meet our need, only God can.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Listen, Israel! The Eternal is our True God—He alone. You should love Him, your True God, with all your heart and soul, with every ounce of your strength. The Voice
“Snuggle in God’s arms. When you are hurting, when you feel lonely, left out. Let Him cradle you, comfort you, reassure you of His all-sufficient power and love.” Kay Arthur
God Created Us To Live Heart To Heart
God created us for heart to heart fellowship, friendship, relationship with Him and each other. This is a void that will always ache when it is not filled. We will naturally try to fix it, but in this broken world, it may not be fixable. We have to stop trying and go to the One Who is waiting, Who is wanting our friendship, our fellowship, who does want a heart to heart, vital-vertical relationship with Him. What we seek, can’t be found in this world, it can be found first in Jesus Christ. People are so detached from one another and they stay busy, keep themselves busy because they can’t afford the emotional energy it takes to be in relationship. This world is lonely because its people are broken and detached from one another. No one human being can fix it. Even in an online chat, people have the opportunity to encourage one another, they stay withdrawn, they don’t even answer you when you say hello. That is how bad this detachment from one another has gotten.
John 7:37-38 Now on the final and most important day of the Feast, Jesus stood, and He cried in a loud voice, If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water. Amplified Bible
“Some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude. But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone. Those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect, that they love to get together. Sheep go in flocks, and so do God’s people.” Author~Charles Spurgeon
Listening But Not Really Hearing, Looking But Not Really Seeing
I have looked for relationship, I have changed my life several times trying to position myself to have relationship with others. People are too busy. People are too overwhelmed with what this life season has thrown at them. Most human beings are looking, but not truly seeing each other. Everyone is overwhelmed by the events of this life season and how much our world is rapidly changing and they are trying to emotionally manage so much without God, that they have retracted their soul from each other, because they have nothing left after dealing emotionally with a broken world. Especially Christians. They think they are depending on God, but they have no time for a personal relationship with Him, it is crisis to crisis. The same with people, you only hear from them when calamity suddenly breaks into their life path. Christian lives are filled to the brim, just like everyone else in the world they have taken too much on their plate. They also have a lot to do, a lot of good things that keep them detached from one another. If you asked how many people are lonely, people who week after week sit in the middle of a church, filled with people. I would say that 90 percent would say, yes that they are lonely for heart to heart relationship. We are not connecting heart to heart with God or each other. You know how you can be talking to people and you know that they are not really listening, they don’t hear your heart because they are not engaging their heart with you, and this is where Christianity has fallen too. The worst is when you are talking and they just start up a conversation with someone else, like you were not even talking. Relationships in this generation are surface only, with a lot of us listening and not really hearing, looking but not really seeing and responding.
Isaiah 12:3-6 God has given His people a new surety and confidence, a new sense of purpose, strength, and determination. With joy in each step, you will drink deeply from the springs of salvation. You’ll want to sing out that day, People: Give thanks to the Eternal; call on His name. Spread the news throughout the world of what He has done and how great is His name! Sing praises to the Eternal! Everyone, everywhere should know that God acts in amazing ways. You who live in this God-blessed place, this Zion, shout out and sing for joy! For God is great, and God is here—with us and around us—the Holy One of Israel. The Voice
“If your life is empty, fill it with Christ. You are never left alone when you are alone with God.” Author~Woodrow Kroll
Are We Compassioned Fatigued
What is compassion fatigue? It is a detached love, love in word, but not in deed. It is a love that is surface. It is love where your heart is detached. Yes I love you, no I don’t have time to even take one phone call from you. I am busy. I am shopping, don’t have time to stop to talk to you for a minute, but Yes, I love you and I miss you, but I don’t have time to be in relationship with you, I have errands to run, I am busy. We are showing up, but we are not really there. We are having conversations, but not really listening. This is our world, we are detached from one another. We have no clue about what each other are truly “growing through”. We don’t even know each other because we are so busy. We live in a demanding, over committed world and the enemy keeps us that way, purposefully. People don’t even have time to be hospitable, or even civil to one another. No time to answer a phone call, to text back, to even answer an email when you invite them somewhere. Busyness is our ignore button to compassion fatigue and we shut off our hearts and ignore each other in this generation. We are overlooked daily and invisible to others and our inner restlessness grows, our loneliness takes over our soul. What a feeling it is to talk to someone on the phone and you know that they are checked out, they are not present with you. Or you talk to someone huddled over a computer, looking at things on social media and they look up and then look back down, not even acknowledging you. In this world we stand on the outside of personal relationship, looking in and hoping that someone will notice us, invite us in, talk to us and actually be present, heart to heart with us. This is not what God’s intention was for His people. He created us for relationship with Him and each other. We need to put our “no” on the table of the world and our “YES” on the table of God and His Kingdom and get back to the basics of relating to God and each other.
Matthew 22:35-40 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” New Living Testament
“Friendship needs no words – it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.” Author~Dag Hammarskjold
Broken By Loneliness? Turn And Fully Face God
Heart to heart connection is broken. We can’t change the world, it was a slow fade that brought us to a quick brokenness, but we can change ourselves first and this transformation of our heart will begin bowed at the feet of Jesus in prayer. We can lay it all down, all the heartache, pain, disillusionment, hopelessness, restlessness, disappointment, hurt, loneliness, we can lay it at the foot of the cross. It is time for us to stop trying in our own strength, by our own means, to manage the heart loneliness that burdens our soul, it is time we take it to the only One Who can alleviate it. Lay the loneliness and all its dreadful companionship of enemy torture down at the feet of Jesus and cling to HIM. Why? Because Jesus is the only solution to our growing inner restlessness, to our human condition that was created to need each other, but in this broken world, can’t be satisfied. Only Jesus can mollify us and it is here bowed before Him, silently submitting our expectations to Him, that the brokenness begins to be healed. It begins with us and Him. Lay down the expectations, the dead dreams, the hopelessness, the nagging loneliness of soul, lay it down at the feet of Jesus. Stop trying to fix what you can’t fix. Give it to Jesus. Fully Face God and let Him fill the void in you from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes, let God fill you. Be led by God, not by your inner restlessness. Be led wholly-holy by God in times like these, where the things of our broken humanity are not a quick fix. The fixer is Jesus and we must trust Him because He is our enough. Believe me, I have traveled this road of inner loneliness and found that the answer is in positioning yourself in a vital-vertical relationship with God, letting go of all the world offers and getting back to the basics of a priority for a heart to Heart relationship with God, putting all expectations in Him and learning a new kind of kingdom followship of His Holy Spirit. God fills the need to the brim in that abundant style of giving He has. The Holy Spirit of God, He makes a way to cope within a broken world which human trying can’t make.
Psalm 107:2-6 Let all those redeemed by the Eternal— those rescued from times of deep trouble—join in giving thanks. He has gathered them across the earth, from east and west, from [north and south].Some drifted around in the desert and found no place where they could live. Their bellies growled with hunger; their mouths were dry with thirst; their souls grew weak and weary. In their distress, they called out to the Eternal, and He saved them from their misery. Amplified Bible
“If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning…and ask yourself whether this situation is truly God given. Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain. To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that you want only to be where God is with you. The more deeply you live your spiritual life, the easier it will be to discern the difference between living with God and living without God, and the easier it will be to move away from the places where God is no longer with you.” Author~Henry Nouwen
Pray To The Only One Who Can Fix
Pour your heart out in prayer, instead of trying so hard to be a fixer of broken humanity. The relationships you so desire, begin them by praying for them. Take your hurts, your loneliness, your family let downs to Jesus, ask Him to be the Fixer, leave it with Him and let Him work it out in that way only He can. Prayer brings you into fellowship with God, Who is the greatest companion ever to the lonely of heart. He is always fully present with you, heart to Heart. Fully face God and open up your heart to Him, be in a vital-vertical relationship with HIM first. Talk to God, He is always there for you, always has time for you, always listens, always hears your heart, always knows right where you are at, always meets your need. Talk to God, build the relationship with God first that you so desire with others. God has put that in your heart, the need for close knit community, let Him create it for you. Stop trying to do it yourself, seek God first and pour out to Him every dashed expectation in humanity, let go, leave it with HIM and let Him bring the right relationships, divinely connect you in His way. Lay it down, all of it, the dissatisfaction, discouragement, loneliness, the broken dreams, and the unfulfilled hopes. Lay it down and begin the sweetest, best, most satisfying and soul fulfilling relationship you will ever know. You and Jesus. Let go and let God. Leave it all behind and come to The Well, come to Jesus. Written By KimberlyMac
“Loneliness comes over us sometimes as a sudden tide. It is one of the terms of our humanness, and, in a sense, therefore, incurable. Yet I have found peace in my loneliest times not only through acceptance of the situation, but through making it an offering to God, who can transfigure it into something for the good of others.” Elizabeth Elliott
Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
“Deep within there is a glorious and terrible empty space – loneliness. It is out of sight, pushing us to our best and to our worst. Behind every effort to make a friend – Behind ambition – Behind pride – Behind gossip – Behind memories of your mother’s kitchen – Loneliness. We were created with the space carefully planted in our hearts. God created us with the loneliness that moves the heart to others, the loneliness that moves the heart at last to God. Is it what moves us to become whole.” David Kidd
Revelations 22:1-2 My heavenly guide brought me to the river of pure living waters, shimmering as brilliantly as crystal. It flowed out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle and dividing the street of the holy city. On each bank of the river stood the tree of life, firmly planted, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and producing its sweet crop every month throughout the year. And the soothing leaves that grew on the tree of life provided precious healing for the nations. The Voice
The Worship SpotLIGHT “The Well” is a strong encouragement for all of us to get in a vital-vertical relationship with God and experience the joy and strength of God in all of our life situations. I hope you enjoyed your stay in The Bridegroom’s Café today and I pray your soul was fed by in that Miraculously So way of God. Please share this hope with others by using the social media buttons below. I would love, love to hear from you, so please leave a comment on how this post inspired you to “flesh out” and spend quality time listening to The Bridegroom’s Voice. God bless you MUCH, KimberlyMac