“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well.” (J.I. Packer)

I love when my son rests his head on my shoulder. There is something special that this little person feels safe enough to fall asleep in my arms. He plops himself snugly on my chest and dozes off.

A few months ago, I caught COVID and quarantined away from my wife and son. While I was sick, I had all the free time in the world that I had lacked during the early newborn days, but everything seemed boring and trivial. I missed being with my family.

When I finally tested negative, I was excited to see my son and put him to bed. However, as I was going through our routine, I was in for a surprise: my son had progressed in his head control! Rather than resting his head on my shoulder, he was awake and alert, bobbing his head and peering curiously around his room.

Now, setting developmental milestones aside, imagine if my son thought to himself: “Dad is back! I can’t fall asleep. I need to show him I’m all grown up, independent, and awake.” So, instead of collapsing into my arms, he raises his head and starts looking around, anxiously checking for my approval.

It’s a silly example, but there are parallels to our prayer lives as children of God. We reach the end of the day physically and mentally exhausted. We sense our need to pray but hesitate. Why? Partly because we’re weary but also because our tired prayers don’t feel worthy to bring before God.

This instinct often comes from a sincere place. We want to show reverence to God and imagine that “real” prayer looks a certain way. Yes, we know that prayer is not performance-based, but surely it should be more than these incoherent sentences and scattered ramblings. Right?

No. Just as I am happiest when my son rests his head on my shoulder, our Heavenly Father delights when his children rest in him. Prayer, then, is collapsing into the Father’s arms — through prayer, we cast our burdens onto God and rest in his strong, steadfast embrace.

Rest Your Head

God does not care about the length or eloquence of our prayers. He does not hear us because of our many words but because he is a generous, loving Father. We need not heap up empty phrases, because he knows what we need before we ask him (Mt 6:7-8)

But our Heavenly Father goes a step further than that: he invites us to pray especially when we don’t know what to say. In those moments, he ministers to us through his Spirit. Romans 8:14-16 teaches:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” [16] The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

The passage continues in verse 26:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (ESV)

The Spirit of adoption drives home the reality that God is our Father, and we are his children. And when our words fail, the Spirit himself prays for us, perfectly bringing our needs before God in a way we never could even on our best days.

What does this mean for us? It means weariness should drive us to our Father. On those days when our thoughts are jumbled, and we can barely string together a sentence, we should pray. We should pray when we don’t know what to say. We should pray when there is so much going on, we don’t know how to put it into words.

If you don’t know where to start, simply cry “Father!” Say it with faith and sincerity. Then, be still and let the Spirit apply the weighty truths of Scripture to your heart.

Remember that God welcomes you with open arms despite all your prodigal wanderings (Lk 15). Remember he is the Father of lights who gives good gifts to his children (Jms 1:17-18, Lk 11:11-13). Remember your riches in Christ. In his amazing love, God has made us his children, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). Bask in these truths and let them warm your heart.

Then, pour out your heart to him. It need not follow a prescribed formula. It can be as short as “I’m tired” or as long and rambling as you need. In his short booklet entitled, Enjoy Your Prayer Life, Michael Reeves describes Spirit-led prayer in this way:

The Spirit knows that we’re weak, that we struggle to pray and that we often don’t know what to pray – and his desire is to help us. This means that we don’t need to pretend to be giants in prayer or make resolutions that are out of our league. Since the Spirit knows our weakness, we can be real with our Father, accepting how babyish we are in our faith, and simply stammer out what’s on our hearts. In fact, that’s just the way to grow in our relationship with God. True intimacy is an acquired thing, something that develops – but it only develops with honesty. So if your prayer life is a bit ropey, I suggest starting again by stammering like a child to a Father. Cry for help. Don’t try to be impressive. (28)

Finally, rest in your Father’s care. Bring your anxieties and burdens to God and experience the surpassing peace of knowing he will provide for your every need (Phil 4:6-7, Mt 6:31-32). Don’t stay up late eating the bread of anxious toil. Let the day go, and trust that God gives his beloved sleep (Ps 127:1-2)

Not a Metaphor

This is the last post in a series on metaphors on prayer for the weary Christian. So far, we’ve explored how prayer is like:

1. The sun on a snowy morning – it warms our dull hearts to be happy in God.
2. An empty pail at the ocean – through prayer, God fills our empty hearts so we can pour ourselves out in service to others.
3. Looking up and seeing the sky – it expands our self-centered perspective and humbles us before the majesty and love of God.

In all of these posts, I’ve compared God to something in the natural world. We can easily call to mind the warmth of the sun, the immensity of the ocean, or the expansiveness of the sky. These stark images help shake us awake to God’s greatness and majesty.

But these are only metaphors. God may be like the sun, ocean, or sky in some ways, but he is not those things. But God is a Father. He has always been a Father, loving his only begotten Son in the Spirit for all eternity. And in the Gospel, he has become our Father. What amazing love! It is the most intimate of images, and it is fully true for us in Christ.

I will end with Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ profound comment on the opening words to the Lord’s prayer:

“Do you know that the essence of true prayer is found in two words…’Our Father’? I suggest that if you can say from your heart, whatever your condition, ‘My Father’, in a sense your prayer is already answered.”

Come in your weakness and weariness and pray. And as you remember who he is as your Father, and who you are as his child, you’ll realize you have all you need.

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky”

Morning can be a struggle with dull affections and discouragement, but it’s also a time of hope. It’s a fresh start from the disappointments of the day past. Perhaps, we think, today will be the day I’ll be disciplined and check off all the items on my to-do list. Maybe today I’ll be more patient or make more time for God. Perhaps today will be better.

By afternoon, however, reality sets in. Our initial excitement fades as we realize that today is eerily similar to yesterday. The day is half-gone, and we’re already off track and in a rut. A cloud of restlessness settles over us. Our space begins to feel constraining and claustrophobic.

In these moments, I find it helpful to take a walk and look up at the sky.

There is something about the beauty and expansiveness of the sky that helps with my feelings of internal clutter. It’s as if when I’m inside, trapped in my own thoughts, there is a camera zoomed in at an uncomfortably close angle, but outside it gradually returns to a normal perspective. I can breathe easier and think more clearly.

Looking Up, Becoming Small

When we’re frustrated at ourselves, the world around us shrinks until our shortcomings are the only things in focus. We berate ourselves: Why can’t I change? Why can’t I do anything right? The weight of current and past failures bears down on us. We begin to feel suffocated and trapped. If we’re not careful, these are the moments when we can spiral into temptation or unhealthy coping mechanisms*.

We need help to look away from ourselves. Just as seeing the sky helps us regain perspective when we’re stressed, prayer reminds us that our self-focused frustrations are small in light of the expansive love and wisdom of God.

The Bible often features the sky as a metaphor to describe the majesty and greatness of God. In Psalm 8:3-4, the Psalmist looks to the heavens and meditates with wonder that the almighty Creator cares for tiny specks of dust like us:

[3] When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, [4] what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (ESV)

Psalm 103:10-12 uses the sky to describe the immensity of God’s mercy and forgiveness toward his children:

[10] He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
[11] For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
[12] as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (ESV)

Your Kingdom Come

The next time you feel restless and frustrated, take a deep breath. Resist the temptation to turn to the temporary relief of sin or trivialities. Instead, go outside, take a walk, and look up.

Let the expansiveness and beauty of the sky point you to our big God. See how the sky expands beyond your peripheral vision, stretching to an eternity on either side? That is how far God has separated your sin from you in Christ. See the bright blue of afternoon or the violet hues of evening? They are the handiwork of our God, who created the heavens and the earth, and who cares for us though we are but dust.

From there, take to heart Jesus’ opening to the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come”**. I like to pray my own para-phased version: “It’s not about me, it’s all about you. It’s not about me, it’s all about your kingdom.” My frustrations pale in light of God’s love for me. My shortcomings may detract from my tiny kingdom here on earth, but they cannot hinder the wise plan of my Sovereign God, who has called me his own.

Remembering who God is helps reframe my frustrations into proper perspective. All is not lost. My failures are not the final word. I am still loved by God. I am still a part of his plan.

Walk around and enjoy the fresh air. Then, come back. Make a modest plan for the rest of the evening and then prayerfully carry it out. Remember that it’s never too late to redeem the day, even when it’s gotten off to a poor start.

Our Creator, who made the heavens and whose love is wider than the sky, is with us. We can bring our frustrations to him, release them to his strong grip, and take the next step forward in obedience and faith.

—

See previous posts in the series:

• What is Prayer? – Metaphors for the Weary Christian
• The Sun on a Snowy Morning
• An Empty Pail at the Ocean

Additional Notes:

*John Piper has an insightful quote contrasting the expansiveness of the sky with the puny pleasure of sin:

“Do you know why there are no windows on adult book stores? Or do you know why there are no windows on certain kinds of nightclubs in the city? I suppose your answer would be, “Well, because they don’t want people looking in and getting a free sight.” That is not the only reason. You know why? Because they don’t want people looking out at the sky. You know why? The sky is the enemy of lust. I just ask you to think back on your struggles. The sky is a great power against lust. Pure, lovely, wholesome, powerful, large-hearted things cannot abide the soul of a sexual fantasy at the same time…There is something about bigness, something about beauty that helps battle against the puny, small, cruddy use of the mind to fantasize about sexual things.”

Be wary that when our self-focused frustrations become inflated, so too does the temptation for a quick, sinful fix. Seeing the sky and remembering God bigness puts our small frustrations and the trivial pleasure of sin back into perspective.

**Years ago, I wrote this song about the Lord’s prayer. Prayer reminds us we are small before God and that is the best place we can be.

How can I pour myself out for others when I feel empty myself?

I struggle with this question when I feel burnt-out and unmotivated to love others.

Jesus tells us that one mark of Christian love is we love even when it’s not reciprocated (Lk 6:32). The opposite is often true of me. I can appear loving so long as my own needs and expectations are being met. But when I feel that isn’t happening, my strength and love run dry with alarming quickness.

Instead, I begin to pity myself:

“I try so hard for others. What about my needs?”
“No one understands or appreciates me”
“Why does no one care for me the way I care for them?”

The longer I linger on these thoughts, the more I spiral into bitterness and discontentment, and the less motivated I am to love those God has placed in my life.

Broken Cisterns

What is going on in my heart when I fall into this pattern? I am carrying out my own version of what God condemns Israel for in Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer 2:13)

I am looking to the wrong source to be filled. Usually, I am seeking undue, unrealistic satisfaction and comfort in my human relationships. I am looking to marriage, ministry, or friendships to give the consolation and validation that only God can provide.

I am looking at the wrong source to do the filling. Rather than depending on God for strength, I am relying on myself. I am pridefully trusting in my own abilities to be patient and kind.

Jeremiah’s rebuke reminds me I am no victim, as my self-pitying thoughts would lead me to believe. Rather, I’ve turned from the fountain of living waters to broken cisterns that can carry no water.

The Bountiful Fountain

In Communion with the Triune God, John Owen chooses the image of an overflowing fountain as the central metaphor to describe the Father’s love for his children. He writes:

The love of God is a love of bounty…it is held out as the cause and fountain of some free gift flowing from it. He loves us and sends his Son to die for us – he loves us and blesses us with all spiritual blessings…as the sea communicates its waters to the river by way of bounty out of its own fullness — they return unto it only what they receive from it. It is the love of a spring, of a fountain (118)

Owen reminds us that the Father is the source of all love. It may sound like a simple, elementary truth, but it directly addresses the pattern of burnout I describe above. God alone can fill my emptiness and longing to be loved, and God is the only source who can fill me so I can pour myself out to others. Love originates from God, not us. We love because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:19).

Second, Owen highlights the abundance of God’s love. It is a love of bounty; it is not a slow drip from a leaky faucet, but as explosive as a fire hydrant and as vast and deep as the ocean. To echo the language of Ephesians, God, according to the riches of his grace, has lavished us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3-10)

An Empty Pail at the Ocean

Here is my spin on applying Owen’s fountain metaphor, particularly when I’m struggling to love others: I like to imagine filling an empty pail at the ocean.

In the moment, perceived unmet needs can feel like cavernous channels that require torrential rain and countless gallons of water to fill the void. But this image helps restore proper perspective. My needs are not so dramatic and are nothing compared to the overflowing resources I have in Christ.

How many times could you fill up a pail until the ocean runs dry? An infinite number. That is how sufficient and abundant God’s love is to meet my needs and strengthen me to love others.

His only requirement? To humbly come each day to fill my pail. As Jesus taught his disciples: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” and “give us this day our daily bread” (Jn 7:37, Mt 6:11). Through prayer, God fills our empty hearts and hands with the grace and strength we need for the day.

How might this look practically in our prayer lives?

It begins with last week’s post. We lay aside any dull thoughts of God as distant, impersonal, or irrelevant by meditating on his love for us. Owen gives similar counsel. He exhorts his readers to eschew hard thoughts of God and dwell on the Father’s love:

“Assure yourself, then, there is nothing more acceptable unto the Father than for us to keep up our hearts unto him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus…Exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him… Sit down a little at the fountain, and you will quickly have a further discovery of the sweetness of the streams. ” (127)

Once our hearts are warmed by reflecting on God’s character, we bring our needs to him. We examine our motives and confess where we’ve turned to broken cisterns, either by idolizing the praise of man or by trusting our abilities to love apart from him. We recognize the weight of our sin but also rest in his full forgiveness.

We lift up relational struggles and ask for God’s help to be merciful as he is merciful, rather than responding to provocation.

We refocus and remember that we do not live for the approval of man but to be servants of Christ (Gal 1:10). His validation, recognition, and praise are what matters most, and his love for us is secure in the Gospel.

We ask God for strength to faithfully love those He has placed in our path for the upcoming day.

Then, we go forth to the busyness and chaos of daily life. Circumstances may remain the same, but inwardly we are different. We are filled.

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (Lk 6:32) Jesus calls us beyond the reciprocal love the world has to offer. He calls us to love even our enemies and to expect nothing in return.

It sounds and feels impossible, until we realize who our God is. We can pour ourselves out again and again, because our hearts can turn again and again to our Father, the fountain of living water (Jn 4:13-15, 7:37-38)

Previous posts in this series:

• What is Prayer Like? – Metaphors for the Weary Christian
• The Sun on a Snowy Morning

“I cannot liken it to anything that I know of better than the snow which melts in the sun. You wake up one morning and all the trees are festooned with snowy wreaths, while down below upon the ground the snow lies in a white sheet over everything. Lo, the sun has risen, its beams shed a genial warmth; and in a few hours where is the snow? It has passed away. Had you hired a thousand carts and horses and machines to sweep it away it could not have been more effectually removed. It has passed away. That is what the Lord does in the new creation: his love shines on the soul, his grace renews us, the old things pass away as a matter of course. Where His blessed face beams with grace and truth, as the sun with warmth of light, He dissolves the bands of sin’s long frost, and brings on the spring of grace with newness of buds and flowers.

I first came across this quote from Charles Spurgeon in Rejoicing in Christ by Michael Reeves, and it has stuck with me since. Spurgeon refers more generally to Christ’s work in salvation to make us a new creation, but I think the imagery works just as well to describe his work to renew us day by day (2 Cor 4:16-18, 5:16-18).

Awakening to an Icy Heart:

Each day we awaken with a layer of snow, as it were, over our hearts. Morning has a way of surfacing the anxieties and frustrations of the day before. These thoughts weigh us down and threaten to discourage us before the day has even begun.

Morning can also be when we feel furthest from God. I usually do my devotions in the morning. However, if I’m not vigilant, my heart will drift away from spiritual things as the day goes on. By the next morning, I’ll wake to a feeling of dullness towards God. He’ll seem abstract and distant, separate from the cares and worries of my real life.

Basking in the Warm Sun

In the early days of the pandemic, I’d wake up before work and drive to a nearby park to do my devotions. This began as a way to avoid distraction and escape the feeling of being cooped up. Soon, however, it became just as much about enjoying the outdoors. Before and after reading, I’d walk around, pray, and take in the beauty of early morning: the stillness, the crisp air, the vivid green of the trees and grass, and best of all, the gentle warmth of the sun.

The word I’d use to describe these morning strolls is “basking”. A loose definition for basking is lying (in my case, walking) in the warmth and light of the sun for relaxation; or reveling in and making the most of something pleasing. Basking in the sun provides an apt image for how to revive our anxious hearts and cold affections: our hearts are thawed and rekindled when we bask in the warmth of God’s love for us.

In his exposition of the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Our Father’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones talks about the importance of pausing in prayer to remember who God is. We are tempted to jump straight to supplication. Lloyd-Jones describes our natural instinct in this way:

“Pressed by the urgency of our position, the cares, the anxieties, the troubles, the anguish of mind, the bleeding heart…we are so full of this that, like children, we start speaking at once.”

Instead, Lloyd-Jones counsels us to pause and remember what prayer is and with whom we are speaking. This is a fundamental shift in our perspectives. The chief consolation of prayer is not relief from our circumstances but a restored experiential understanding that God is our Father, who loves us with an unending, steadfast love.

Lloyd Jones concludes:

“Do you know that the essence of true prayer is found in two words…’Our Father’? I suggest that if you can say from your heart, whatever your condition, ‘My Father’, in a sense your prayer is already answered. It is just this realization of our relationship to God that we so sadly lack.”

What a difference it makes when we remember anew that God is our Father. In prayer, we come before the God who gives new mercies every morning (Lam 3:21-33); who has shown the light of the Gospel in our hearts through Christ (2 Cor 4:6); and who despite our coldness, calls us his children and draws us near (1 Jn 3:1).

Our hearts may not thaw all at once, and we need more than cursory reminders of God’s love to calm our fretful hearts. We need to bask in our Father’s love and care, the way we might enjoy the morning sun on an unhurried stroll. Pause. Remember you are coming into the presence of your Father in Heaven. Dwell upon both his nearness and his majesty. Be still and know that his fatherly care covers and eclipses every worry you face. Then, rest in that love.

I find that when I begin times of prayer in this way, God warms my affections, and I slowly but surely experience what Spurgeon describes: Lo, the sun has risen, its beams shed a genial warmth; and in a few hours where is the snow? It has passed away.

This is part 2 of a series on metaphors for prayer. You can find the previous post here.

“Strange as it may seem to you, you start praying by saying nothing; you recollect what you are about to do.”

Martyn Lloyd Jones

As a new father, I’m conscious of my weakness now more than ever. I feel it in the mornings as I wake to face a new day and in the evenings when I lay down my head, exhausted from the day past. And yet, my weakness and weariness do not always lead me to my knees in prayer as they should.

Often they are obstacles when I pray: my thoughts are foggy and jumbled. I struggle to focus and string together coherent sentences. I run out of words too quickly and am easily distracted.

Other times they hinder me from wanting to pray at all. When I’m tired, prayer seems tedious; another checklist item on top of everything else I need to do. It feels more rote than something with real spiritual power.

During times when I am weary but prayerless, I’ve found it helpful to call to mind several metaphors which remind me of what prayer is. This may seem like an odd strategy, but these word pictures help stir my imagination to recollect (to use Lloyd Jones’ term) and remember what I am doing as I bow my head.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring four metaphors for prayer. I’ve divided them by morning and afternoon/evening to roughly correspond with the weaknesses and needs I feel at those particular times of day*.

Morning Metaphors:

• Prayer is like the sun on a snowy morning — it warms our dull hearts to be happy in God and find rest in His love for us.
• Prayer is like bringing an empty pail to the ocean — through prayer, God fills up our empty hearts so we can pour ourselves out in service to others.

Afternoon/Evening Metaphors:

• Prayer is like stepping outside and gazing up at the sky — it expands our self-centered perspective and humbles us before the majesty and love of God.
• Prayer is collapsing into the Father’s arms — through prayer, we cast our sins and burdens onto God and rest in his strong, steadfast embrace.

It goes without saying that applying these metaphors (technically similes but “metaphors” sounds cooler) is not prescriptive; these are merely images which help nudge me towards prayer. Hopefully they can do the same for you.

Most of all, my hope is that delving into these images and bearing them out through Scripture will help me grow in my personal prayer life; to remind myself that prayer is a privilege and so learn to turn to God at every opportunity.

*Tim Keller wrote a helpful article on praying without ceasing which explores this idea of having multiple times of prayer to address the specific needs/struggles of the day.

Imagine two situations with me. First, you’re in a conversation with someone important to you. You’re listening attentively and asking follow-up questions. To an onlooker, the conversation might seem to be going well. But you sense the conversation only continues because you keep it going. If you were to stop contributing, it would falter and sputter to a close. You step away and a few moments later, you see this person talking with someone else. Their conversation has an energy and ease yours lacked. They seem like they could talk for hours.

Second situation: you’re in a circle of friends. There’s laughter all around. You’re part of the group, but at the same time, you feel like an outsider. You feel you have little to contribute, and it wouldn’t make a difference if you were to leave. Your friends would still have a great time. In fact, it might be easier for them to not have to worry about including you.

Now, what if these two situations weren’t once in a while occurrences but seemed to characterize all of your interactions and relationships with others? 

For some of us who are more soft-spoken and introverted, we don’t have to imagine because that’s how we often feel—like we must keep “talking”, literally and figuratively. We must fill conversation to stave off the dreaded silence, which somehow always feels like our fault. We must initiate and maintain friendships to keep them from fading away. Still, despite our best efforts, we feel burdensome and expendable, stuck on the outside looking in.

Then, there’s the added dimension of church ministry. Ministry is difficult enough by itself, but it’s even harder when serving feels like a replay of the situations described above. We watch others establish deep connections with seeming ease while we feel useless. We labor to bring others into a community we’re sometimes not even sure we’re a part of.

Are we really as alone and useless as we feel? And if not, why does it feel like we are—in a visceral way that’s difficult to shake, even when people try to convince us otherwise? More importantly, how can we find the strength to stay in community when all we want is to withdraw?

Grace when Loneliness is Real

I think there is truth to what we feel. Our churches are spiritual communities, but they are also social groups. And with any social group, there are people who fit in better than others. Practically speaking, church life can be boiled down to a series of social interactions—after-church fellowship, shared meals, etc. In general, these interactions tend to favor more extroverted personality types, especially in college and young adult settings.

This isn’t out of ill intent; most church events just happen to take place in large group settings, where more outgoing people thrive. If you enjoy witty banter and spontaneous hangouts, chances are you’ll have an easier time integrating into church life. If you feel uncomfortable in those kinds of settings, at times you’ll feel out of place.

Those with quieter personalities can also struggle to find more meaningful connection. In my experience, being fun in an extroverted sense is often a necessary precursor for depth. The laughter and hanging out help transition relationships from stilted small talk to free-flowing friendship. Without those missing ingredients, conversations often stall out and feel forced, no matter how intentional they might be.

For many introverts, then, loneliness is an inevitable part of participating in church life. Unfortunately, that loneliness will all too often feel like an indictment of our personalities—we’re outsiders because we’re too boring, awkward, or reserved. This will hurt and we’ll wonder if community is more trouble than it’s worth.

We need to be patient with these struggles. While much of our loneliness stems from sin (more on this later), I’ve come to believe much of our loneliness arises from weakness. It results from being introverted people trying to navigate extroverted environments but feeling inadequate. We should do our best to discern and repent of our sin, but we should not beat ourselves up for weakness. Doing so adds an unnecessary burden to an already difficult situation, which only makes us want to withdraw even more.

Instead, our recurring weakness should point us back to the Savior’s grace. Jesus tells us that while people may fail us, he is the most important Person, and he loves us and will never let us go. He reminds us we are created in his image and our personalities are fearfully and wonderfully made. He encourages us that the thorn of unrelenting loneliness can teach us about the power of his grace as we depend upon him.

Perspective when Loneliness is Wrong

While there is some truth to what we feel, we often have a distorted perception of our loneliness. To illustrate this, I’ve created two diagrams. The first captures how loneliness feels. The second depicts what I believe to be a more accurate picture of reality.

Diagram 1: How Loneliness Feels

Diagram 2: A More Realistic Picture

In both diagrams, the green circle represents relationships and ministry effectiveness we want but do not have. For instance, we may want to thrive in group settings or be that sought-after leader who everyone flocks to for advice, but we may not be able to because of our God-given limitations. When we feel overwhelmed by loneliness, all we can see is our exclusion from the green “inner” circle. We feel completely isolated and useless. In the second diagram, the green circle is still there (i.e. what we talked about in the previous section), but it is significantly smaller.

The dark blue circle in Diagram 2 represents the friendships we do have and the ministry contexts in which God has gifted us. The dark blue circle might be smaller than we would like, but it’s real. There are people who know and love us and people who are blessed by us.

Finally, the grey circle represents people we don’t know very well and who, to be honest, we don’t think about very often. They may not care much for us, but we probably don’t care much about them either. If we got to know them, perhaps they would fall in the green circle, or perhaps they would be a part of our blue circle. Until we get to know them, it’s impossible to know.

In my experience, I’ve found that one practical step in combating loneliness is regaining perspective that Diagram 2 is true, not Diagram 1. Diagram 1 is completely deflating. It’s almost impossible to muster the strength to stay when you feel isolated from everyone. While there are still difficulties in Diagram 2, it’s more manageable. We can persevere with God’s help.

So why does Diagram 1 so often feel true? And how can we regain proper perspective? Below, I outline a three-step progression which leads to a distorted view of loneliness.

1. I idolize certain “extroverted” relationships and types of ministry usefulness

If I’m being objective, most of my loneliness comes from feeling inadequate in a small number of relationship and ministry settings. There’s a certain person I want to think well of me or a certain group that I want to feel included in. And because I fall short in those specific relationships, I extrapolate that sense of failure to every relationship.

Likewise, certain ministry settings bring out my insecurities more than others. For example, I’m particularly self-conscious about my reserved personality whenever I’m a camp counselor, since the camp setting is such an extroverted environment. Because I feel limited in specific ministry situations, I conclude I must be useless in every situation.

But the truth is most of the time I’m comfortable not fitting into extroverted settings and would even prefer not to. The inner turbulence I feel is not due to an all-encompassing failure to belong, but because I’ve become overly preoccupied with certain relationships or a certain vision of ministry effectiveness.

To express it in our diagram, the smaller dark green circle represents the actual number of relationships and ministry settings which bother me. The larger light green circle represents the amount of loneliness I feel because I’ve idolized those relationships and ministry settings.

2. I overlook the people who care about me and the ways God has gifted me

Next, I ignore the people who care for me (i.e. I delete the dark blue circle). I take friends for granted because I already know they’ll be there for me. Instead of being grateful, I compare myself against them and become jealous of their successes (i.e. I add them to the green circle).

Similarly, I often take the talents God has given me for granted. I disparage their usefulness and say they don’t matter if I don’t possess the relational gifting I want so badly.

3. I mistake my own indifference towards others as them rejecting me.

Finally, I take the grey circle of people I’m not particularly close to and lump them into the green circle, making the green circle seem enormous. Suddenly, it feels like I don’t belong anywhere. No one cares about me. But that’s not true. I can’t know how people in the grey circle will respond to me, because I haven’t put in any work to get to know them. Our lack of closeness is due in large part to my lack of care and lazy indifference. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I should challenge myself to better love people outside of my comfort zone.

And there it is: how Diagram 2 becomes Diagram 1 in three steps. We must battle for perspective at each step of this progression instead of giving in to cynicism and self-pity. We must resolve to believe God’s promises, give thanks for his provision, and grow in costly love for others. We must obey God and trust he’ll take care of us for whatever loneliness remains.

Loneliness can be crushing. It’s so tempting to want to give up when every interaction feels like a stinging reminder of how we don’t quite belong. It is difficult to remain hopeful when we’ve battled loneliness our whole lives, only to watch it return over and over again. Sometime grace is realizing we’re wrong. We’re not as alone as we feel. Rather, idolatry, jealousy, and our own indifference have clouded our sight of God’s goodness in our lives. We may not have everything we want, but God has given us exactly what we need, and he is at work shaping our relationships and ministries.

Loneliness is a complex, tangled mess of weakness and sin, but God gives us strength to stay through all our messiness. I pray you’ve found some practical help in this article, whether you’re a reserved person battling loneliness, or someone learning to better love your introverted brothers and sisters in Christ.