The Safety of, and in, Aloneness

There is an achievement of safety in aloneness with God, and no other. Melancholy joins with the Spirit and a fusion occurs. A sorrowful bliss takes place; the heart of God is made known that instant.

Before I ever understood it was God that did this I knew an experience of God described as the above—often as a result of being ostracised by my world as a late-teen. Years later I came to more fully know the Lord and I become saved. And still I didn’t know completely what this was all about.

Then I was blindsided one day when my marriage self-destructed before my very eyes. In the space of a few hours my world was turned upside down. This was when I first really learned the blessing of safety in aloneness—the Presence of God in it—serially over the ensuing months, and now years.

I learned to enjoy this communion with God, so much so I fell in love with it, truly.

Calm, Dear Heart

The gospel truly is for the hurting. It’s genuinely not for the prosperous, well not so much.

When Jesus opened the scroll on that first-recorded synagogue-set Sabbath in Luke 4 he read what is central to our faith... “freedom for the prisoners... release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19 [NIV]).

These are words of deliverance.

God is found fundamentally in the hard time, in the time of loss, in the time of numbness. When we run away from ourselves, from others and from God, in our hurt and agonising pain, we’re running from the only source of help—and saving—we truly have.

God is calm. The Spirit comes to vanquish the fear from our very souls—even in the midst of that pain that will not miraculously be taken from us.

A great fact it is about life; the saddening things about it hearkens us back to God and our truest selves. The sadness creates meaning and a datum for life, not that we need dwell on it. But when we can enjoy this time with God—as is seen via mainly hindsight—not afraid of it in our honesty—marvellous things truly happen.

In it we know God.

It’s almost needless to say; we fall in love with God our Saviour all over again!

The Key – BE Alone

The only way this works is to truly be alone, and the only way we’ll generally allow that to happen is via an enforced situation, for none of us is going to put ourselves through any unnecessary pain.

But, when we’re there, i.e. in our pain, let us rest in it and be alone. God will be made known in that time.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.