Turning Point

Louis Jordan moved onto his 35-foot sailboat at a marina on the South Carolina coast and spent months making the 50-year-old vessel seaworthy. On January 23, 2015, Jordan sailed his boat into the open ocean. After six days passed with no word, his parents contacted the Coast Guard. Despite nearly two weeks of searching, it was as if Jordan had vanished into thin air—or beneath the surface of the ocean.

            On April 2—66 days after his departure—a 1,000-foot German shipping vessel spotted a man sitting atop what appeared to be a capsized boat about two hundred miles off the coast of North Carolina. Within hours he was rescued.

            It’s hard to imagine anyone surviving such an ordeal, yet aside from a broken shoulder and dehydration, he was in remarkably good shape physically. Spiritually and emotionally, he gave credit to prayer and the Bible: “There’s power in that like nothing else.”[1] Jordan knew to rely on the promises of God’s Word.

            But what could have been going through Jordan’s mind when his sailboat capsized? Imagine the sense of aloneness when you scan the horizon and see nothing but that straight line where the sea meets the sky? Then this ultimate thought: I may live the rest of my life alone. I may die alone on the ocean. Can you imagine?

            The human fear of living and dying alone is a constant theme in literature and film, and for good reason: “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). We are hardwired for relationships, interaction, and love. As much as we crave “alone time,” we reach our limit quickly. Yet being alone happens, if not by choice, then sometimes by circumstance. We may not literally be adrift on the ocean, but we can feel adrift from relationships, purpose, direction, groups. And then we can be tempted to think we’ve been set adrift from God. We need to plan for those feelings of aloneness by remembering: In Christ we are never alone.

Alone: Feeling or Fact?

            There’s a difference between being alone (fact) and feeling alone (feeling). They don’t always happen together. We can be alone without feeling alone, feel alone without being alone, or we can be and feel alone at the same time. Like many biblical characters, we find ourselves alone at various times in our life. Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden, Moses when he fled from Egypt into the wilderness, Joseph in the cistern where his brothers threw him; Daniel in a lion’s den, Daniel’s three friends in a furnace, Jesus in the wilderness and on the cross, Paul in prison...and the list goes on.

            No doubt they felt alone, to a degree. But most of our biblical characters seem to have let feelings of aloneness be a signal to them, and they called out to God. They knew they were not actually alone, regardless of how they felt. God was just a prayer away. They did not allow feelings to conquer their faith.

            What about times when you feel alone despite being surrounded by others? Whether we are actually alone or not, feelings of aloneness can make us question ourselves and God. At those times we need to remember that in Christ we are never alone.

Alone: Feeling or Faith?

            The Christian life is a fact-based, not feeling-based, relationship with God. During times we feel alone, we should remind ourselves of a few things:

• Aloneness was the only thing in the Garden of Eden that God said was “not good.” God wants us to enjoy His company and that of others (Genesis 2:18).
• God is everywhere. David wrote a psalm about the impossibility of escaping God’s presence (Psalm 139). Whether you are a Christian or not, you are never alone—God is wherever you are.
• Christ promised His apostles He would be with them until “the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). God promised His people in the Old and New Testaments that He would never leave or forsake them (Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5).
• Faith is how we dispel feelings of loneliness when they surface in our life.

            We are more likely to feel alone than we are to be alone. Even if both happen simultaneously, we must remember: In Christ, we are never alone.

David Jeremiah is the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church and the founder and host of Turning Point for God. For more information about Dr. Jeremiah or Turning Point, visit www.DavidJeremiah.org.