You may sometimes feel lonely and afraid, wondering if anyone really cares for you; you may feel abandoned to wander about in your heartache, without a sense of acceptance or “place” for your life; you may feel estranged from others, in a place of desperation, a silent scream, without apparent comfort in the world… These are real feelings and I do not discount them, though often such feelings arise from unbelief, or at least from questioning whether God’s love is for you, after all.
Friend, there is an intimate comfort for your mourning; there is heavenly consolation for the grief and emptiness you feel inside. Look again to the cross and attend to God’s passion for you; believe in the miracle of Yeshua’s love for you; by faith see his blood shed for you… He knows your alienation: he was “despised and rejected of men”; he knows the pains of your heart: he was a “man of sorrows acquainted with grief”; he knows the heartache of being forsaken, abandoned, and utterly betrayed. Indeed Yeshua knows your infirmities; he understands how you hurt and calls you to his comfort… Therefore when feelings of loneliness well up within you, go inward to commune with the Spirit. Ask God for his consolation so that you too might console others who are suffering (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Do not lose hope but foresee your blessed future. Focus on the coming day of healing for all the world. Remind yourself again and again that you are never really alone, that nothing can separate you from God’s love, and that God’s Name is “I-am-with-you-always,” “I am your Abba, your Imma, your true home and place of belonging, all your dreams of love will come true, and unimaginable beauty and endless delight await you in the glories of the world to come.”
Whoever has God truly has a companion in all places, both on the street and among people.. Why is this so? It is because such people posses God alone, keeping their gaze fixed upon him, and thus all things reveal God for them…. Such people bear God in all their deeds and in the places they go, and it is God alone who is the author of all they do. – Meister Eckhart (Talks of Instruction)
You will never feel safe as long as you regard the acceptance of who you are as conditional, since you will only be as secure as your own best efforts, a project that will exhaust you in the end. Instead you must know yourself as truly loved by God, just as the “prodigal son” came to know his father’s unconditional love and acceptance despite his many misdeeds (Luke 15:11-32). The incarnation of Jesus means that God “runs to meet and embrace you,” regardless of whatever happened in your life that made you run away from home. And whatever else it may be, sin is the separation from God’s love, but Yeshua made the decision to die for your sins before you were born. Your sin cannot overrule God’s surpassing and personal love for your soul, since God gave up his very life for you to find life.
The Hebrew word for “life” is chayim (חַיִּים), a plural noun that contains two consecutive letter yods (יי) that picture two “hands held together” (the Hebrew word yad [יָד] means “hand”), or the union of our spirit with God’s Spirit. The word itself reveals that there is no life apart from union with God, who extends his hand to you and says, “Live in me” (John 15:4). We live in him by faith, receiving our daily bread as his flesh and our drink as his blood (John 6:53). Yeshua is the Source of all life, and we find nourishment, strength, and fullness of joy in his life. The Lord is our light and our salvation, the Mediator of divine life (Psalm 27:1; John 1:4). As it is written, “Whoever has the Son has the life; but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:12).
The Lord is also called “the God of breath” (Gen. 2:7; Num. 16:22). The Hebrew word for breath is ruach (רוּחַ), a word that means both “spirit” and “wind.” God is as close as your breath and surrounds you like the unseen yet encompassing air. Since God’s name YHVH (יהוה) means “Presence” (Exod. 3:13-14), “Life” (Deut. 30:20), and “Love” (Exod. 34:6-7), he is the Beloved, the “I-am-with-you-always” lover of your soul. So fear not; you are never really alone. Yeshua breathes out to you and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
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