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REMEMBER that if you feel lonely it is because you have a great undeveloped capacity within you that is calling for expression. Therefore do not be sad but rejoice. Do not dwell upon the negative aspect of this undeveloped capacity and feel sorry for yourself, but instead look for a way to make use of it. Your loneliness may now seem to be a liability, but you can turn it into an asset that will bring you much joy, success, and happiness.
Think of your loneliness as an empty boat that you are rowing among many struggling people in the water who are reaching out to you for help. You are sad because you are alone in the boat. Why not share your boat with those who need your help? Your boat represents your capacity to love people.
You have a big heart capable of holding much love. This is capacity, but capacity must be filled with something. A big grain elevator is good, but it should be full of grain. An electric generator is good, but it should not stand idle.
God has placed within you a great yearning to appropriate and use more of His love, His power, His life. Realize that the loneliness that you feel is a soul hunger for more of God's love. Because this soul hunger comes from God it is a blessing. You can promote the process of appropriating more of God's love by giving thanks to Him for His love even before you feel it. Bless your loneliness and thank Him for giving you such a great capacity for receiving and giving out His love.
You may have thought that you must first receive love from other persons before you can love them, but remember that God has already given you His love in abundance and therefore you have an abundance to give. "We love, because he first loved us." Begin today to radiate the love God has given you and you will start the circuit of giving and receiving, and as a result you will experience more love and happiness-than you ever dream could be crowded into your life.
Realize that it is really God that you are yearning for and not mere personal friendship. When you love God you will not want for friends. Therefore open your soul with thanksgiving to the realization that God is truly closer to you "than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." But you must begin expressing the God qualities that are already in you if you would get their benefits.
Remember that Jesus Christ said, "Lo, I am with you always." God acting through His perfect Son, the Christ, is with us always. How can anyone be lonely when he realizes that the Christ of God is with him always?
When we seek first for the kingdom of God then all things needful will be added to our store of good things. It might be stated in this way: "Seek first the kingdom of God and a host of friends will be added."
Many persons crave human friendship, praying that others may be friendly, when their greatest need is to express the love and friendship that is already within their hearts.
Loneliness cannot be overcome by getting something; it must be remedied by giving something. The world is searching for men who have positive faith in God's living presence, who have living faith in His omnipresent love and power. Such persons are magnets that draw to them many souls who are seeking for God. Those who have not yet strengthened their faith in God feel that they must find God through some personality. A person like you could be of great help to many of these by helping them find God for themselves. Your association with such persons would be a true remedy for your loneliness.
You can be of great service to God and mankind by showing many who are of uncertain faith the way to find fellowship with God within themselves. Thus you can develop a new appreciation of friendship and never again know the negative side of loneliness. You will then realize that your loneliness was only an unsatisfied hunger or need for expression and not a human wail for coddling, flattery, pity, and personal attention. God in you is the answer to all your needs: not God in the other fellow.
The old saying is "The only way to have a friend is to be one." This is one way of saying, "Use the friendly powers that God has given you and you will find a response to them in other people." Do not bottle up your friendly feelings and wait for someone to come along and uncork the bottle. Loneliness is friendship in reverse.
There may be someone who is lonely; in fact there are doubtless many who are lonely in your vicinity, waiting for someone to come and cheer them up. How can you and they get together to have a mutual cheering up if each sits back and waits for someone else to start? I suggest that you fill yourself so full of God's lo
The lonely heart is a big, loving heart locked up in a mental prison where it cannot express itself. All the wonderful energy, opportunities, and possibilities are turned earthward toward the self instead of heavenward toward God. As soon as love is turned toward God its mighty power begins to unfold and expand, transforming one's whole life and all one's associations.
