a reading from man the dwelling place of
God by aw Tozer the Saints must walk
alone most of the world's great souls
have been lonely loneliness seems to be
one price the Saint must pay for his
saintliness in the morning of the world
or should we say in that strange
darkness that came soon after the dawn
of man's creation that pious soul Enoch
walked with God and was not for God took
him and while it is not stated in so
many words a fair inference is that
Enoch walked the path quite apart from
his contemporaries another lonely man
was Noah who of all the antediluvian
found grace in the sight of God and
every shred of evidence points to the
alumnus of his life even while
surrounded by his people again Abraham
had Sarah and lots as well as many
servants and herdsmen but who can read
his story and the a past Allah comment
upon it without sensing instantly that
he was a man quote whose soul was alike
a star and dwelt apart unquote as far as
we know
not one word did God ever speak to him
in the company of men facedown he
communed with God and the innate dignity
of the man forbade that he assumed this
posture in the presence of others how
sweet and solemn was the scene that
night of the sacrifice when he saw the
lamps of the fire moving between the
pieces of offering there alone with a
horror of great darkness upon him he
heard the voice of God and knew that he
was a man marked for divine favor Moses
also was a man apart while he had
attached to the court of Pharaoh he took
long walks alone and during one of these
walks while far removed from the crowds
he saw an Egyptian and a Hebrew fighting
and came to the rescue of his countrymen
after the results and break with Egypt
he dwelt in almost complete seclusion in
the desert
there while he watched his sheep alone
the wonder of the burning bush appeared
to him and later on the peak of Sinai he
crouched alone to gaze with fascinated
awe at the presence partly hidden partly
disclosed within the cloud and fire the
prophets of pre-christian times
different widely from each other but one
mark they bore in common was their
enforced to loneliness they loved their
people and glory that the religion of
the father's but their loyalty to the
God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and their
zeal for the welfare of the natives with
Israel drove them away from the crowd
and into long periods of heaviness quote
I am become a stranger unto my brethren
and an alien unto my mothers children
unquote cried one and unwittingly spoke
for all the rest most revealing of all
is the sight of that one of whom Moses
and all the prophets did write treading
his lonely way to the cross his deep
loneliness unrelieved by the presence of
the multitudes his midnight and an
olives brow the star is dimmed and
lately shown his midnight in the garden
now the suffering Savior prays alone
tis midnight and from all removed the
Savior wrestles loan with fears even the
disciple whom he loved
it's not his master's grief and tears
william beats happen he died alone in
the darkness hidden from the sight of
mortal man and no one saw him when he
arose triumphant and walked out of the
tomb though many saw him afterward and
bore witness to what they saw there are
some things too sacred for any eye but
gods to look upon the curiosity the
clamor the well meant but blundering
effort to help can only hinder the
waiting soul and make unlikely if not
impossible the communication of the
secret message of God to the worshipping
heart sometimes we react by a kind of
religious reflex and repeat dutifully
the proper words and phrases even though
they fail to express our real feelings
and lack the authenticity of
personal experience right now with such
a time a certain conventional loyalty
may lead some who here this unfamiliar
truth expressed for the first time to
say brightly quote oh I am never lonely
Christ said I will never leave you nor
forsake you and lo I am with You alway
how can I be lonely when Jesus is with
me unquote now I do not want to reflect
on the sincerity of any Christian soul
but this stock testimony is too neat to
be real it is obviously what the speaker
thinks should be true rather than what
he has proved to be true by the test of
experience this cheerful denial of
loneliness proves only that the speaker
has never walked with God without the
support and encouragement afforded him
by society the sense of companionship
which he mistakenly attributes to the
presence of Christ may and probably does
arise from the presence of friendly
people always remember you cannot carry
a cross in company the one man was
surrounded by a vast crowd his cross is
his alone and his carrying of it marks
him as a man apart society has turned
against him otherwise he would have no
cross no one is a friend to the man with
a cross quote they all forsook him and
fled unquote the pain of loneliness
arises from the constitution of our
nature God made us for each other the
desire for human companionship is
completely natural and right the
loneliness of the Christian results from
his walk with God in an ungodly world a
walk that must often take him away from
the fellowship of good Christians as
well as from that of the unregenerate
world his god-given instincts cry out
for companionship with others of his
kind others who can understand his
longings his aspirations his absorption
of the love of Christ and because within
his circle of friends there are so few
who share his inner experiences he is
forced to walk alone the unsatisfied
longings of the
for human understanding caused them to
cry out in their complaint and even our
Lord Himself suffered in the same way
the man who has passed on into the
divine presence in actual inner
experience will not find many who
understand him a certain amount of
social fellowship will of course be his
as he mingles with religious persons in
the regular activities of the church but
true spiritual fellowship will be hard
to find but he should not expect things
to be otherwise after all he is a
stranger in a pilgrim and the journey he
takes is not on his feet but in his
heart he walked with God in the garden
of his own soul and who but God can walk
there with him he is of another spirit
than the multitudes that tread the
courts of the Lord's house he has seen
that of which they have only heard and
he walks among them somewhat as acaryas
walk after his return from the altar
when the people whispered quote he has
seen a vision unquote the truly
spiritual man is indeed something of an
oddity he lives not for himself but to
promote the interest of another he seeks
to persuade people to give all to his
Lord and asks no portion or share for
himself he delights not to be honored
but to see his safety glorified in the
eyes of men his joy is to see his Lord
promoted and himself neglected he finds
few who care to talk about that which is
the supreme object of his interest so he
is often silent and preoccupied in the
midst of noisy religious shoptalk for
this he earns the reputation of being
dull and over serious so he is avoided
and the gulf between him and society
widens he searches for friends upon
whose garment she can detect the smell
of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the
ivory palaces and finding few or none he
like mary of old keeps these things in
his heart it is it's very loneliness I
throws him back upon God quote when my
father and my mother forsake me then the
Lord will take me up unquote
inability to find human companionship
drives him to seek in God what he can
find out where else he learns in inner
solitude when he could not have learned
in the crowd that Christ is all in all
that he is made unto wisdom
righteousness sanctification and
redemption that in him we have and
possess life's Summum bonum two things
remain to be said one that the lonely
man of whom we speak is not a holy man
nor is he the holier than thou austere
Saint so bitterly satirized in popular
literature he is likely to feel that he
is the least of all men and he's sure to
blame himself for his very loneliness he
wants to share his feelings with others
and to open his heart to some
like-minded soul who will understand him
but the spiritual climate around him
does not encourage it so he remains
silent and tells his grief to God alone
the second thing is that the one we st.
is not the withdrawing man who hardens
himself against human suffering and
spends his days contemplating the
heavens just the opposite is true his
loneliness makes him sympathetic to the
approach of the brokenhearted and the
fallen and the sin bruised because he is
detached from the world he is all the
more able to help it meister eckhart
taught his followers that if they should
find themselves in prayer as it were
caught up to the third heaven and
happened to remember that a poor widow
needed food they should break off the
prayer instantly and go care for the
widow quote God will not suffer you to
lose anything by it unquote he told them
quote you can take up again in prayer
where you left off and the Lord will
make it up to you unquote this is
typical of the great mystics of masters
of the interior life from Paul to the
present day the weakness of so many
modern Christians is that they feel too
much at home in the world in their
efforts to achieve restful adjustment to
unregenerate society they have lost
their pilgrim character and become an
essential part of the very moral order
against which they are said to protest
the world recognizes them and accepts
them for what they are and this is the
saddest thing that can be said about
them they are not lonely but neither are
they Saints