Jeremiah 31:3-14 How to Cure Loneliness April 13, 2008
A couple of years ago, an ad in a Kansas newspaper read, "I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes without comment for $10.00." Now this sounds like a hoax, doesn't it? But the person was serious. Did anybody call? You bet. It wasn't long before this individual was receiving 10 to 20 calls a day. The pain of loneliness was so sharp that some were willing to try anything for a half hour of companionship.
This morning, I am continuing a sermon series on grief and loneliness. We saw last week that Christ has promised to be with us always so that we are never really alone. We also began to talk about the difference between a healthy process of grief and an unhealthy spirit of grief that can put us into bondage. Today I want to go on with those ideas to emphasize that loneliness can find a cure. God promises us in Jeremiah 31:13, “I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow.” This is a promise from God. If you want to find a cure for loneliness and grief, first you must be willing to go through the process of grief, but secondly you must resist a spirit of grief. Let’s take a look.
This passage in Jeremiah is from 586 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian Army. Many people died in the war. Their homes and possessions were destroyed. The people left alive were taken away into slavery to Babylon, near the present day city of Baghdad in Iraq. I was talking last week with a woman whose family was from East Germany and she told me when World War II ended in 1945, the incoming Russians told her family to pack twenty pounds of belongings per person and to leave their homes. They were told that they had lost the war and now nothing belonged to them any longer. Can you imagine such loss? Family and friends dead in the war. All you ever worked for is taken away. Many people have experienced such loss and many people still suffer this way today as war and tragedy rage. In the Old Testament, the Israelites stayed in exile in Babylon for many years and it seemed that they would never go home again. But God promised through His prophet Jeremiah that they would be comforted. God promised them that they were not alone and their sorrow would turn to joy. God fulfilled that promise and the people did go home again.
Loneliness is not really about being alone. Loneliness is connected to grief due to some crisis or trauma. The people of Israel had suffered a great crisis as their city was destroyed and now they felt loneliness and grief. The same is true for us. Often loneliness comes from the loss of a loved one, maybe a divorce, a job that is failing, a dream or goal that is never going to come true. When something happens like this, we realize that life is never going to be the same way that it once was or the way we had hoped it would be. Things have changed and we are thrust into a difficult place. It is not that we are alone. Loneliness is a crisis of life when we realize that life has changed and is not as we thought it was. And this brings us to grief.
Jeremiah 31 speaks of mourning and sorrow. There is a proper time for mourning, weeping, sorrow, and grief. When we have suffered a loss and life has changed on us, then it is natural, necessary, and healthy to grieve. Notice, Jeremiah 31:13 says that the mourning will turn to joy after the sorrow. There is a proper timing, a process to the promises of God. The people had to spend time by the waters of Babylon where they wept says Psalm 137. First comes sorrow. Then joy can come. Now listen. A person who refuses to be sad, refuses to think about the loss, is not facing reality. Many people, especially men, find it hard to grieve. After the death of a loved one, they will plunge into their work, stay busy, and do anything so as not to think about it. They appear strong but inside they are harming themselves and they can become stuck in that place. It is healthy to grieve what we have lost and that enables us to move forward. In a couple of weeks, Linda Guthrie is going to talk with you in the worship hour about that healthy process of grief. For now, you need to know that in the promise of God, if you want to find a cure to loneliness, you must go through the process of grief.
However, we do not want to fall into a spirit of grief. While a process of grief is healthy and needed, a spirit of despair is not. When we feel a spirit of grief taking over, then we must resist. If not resisted, this spirit of grief will take over my life. It is not healing but is destructive. It is not a positive process but this spirit of grief is of the devil. How do we resist this spirit of despair?
When Jesus began his ministry, he went to a synagogue and read from Isaiah 61. The gospels only give part of the passage but the full passage form Isaiah says, “The Lord has anointed me to preach god news to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, to comfort those who mourn and to provide for those who grieve, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” A garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
I heard of a woman who had lost her son in Iraq. It was naturally hard on everyone in the family. Everyone properly was going through a process of grief and healing. But one day, as this mother was alone and folding her laundry, she said that she felt something wrap itself around her. It felt deeply gloomy and sad. A spirit of despair. She felt she would sink into a bottomless pit from which she would never return. But then God reminded her of all the rest of her family—her husband, other children, grandchildren who still needed her. She remembered this verse from Isaiah that God promised to wrap her in a garment of praise. She jumped up from the sofa, wrapped one of the towels around herself like a garment and seized that promise from God. She praised God for the time she had had with her son, praised God for all that she still had, praised God that she would see her son again in Heaven. She wrapped herself in a garment of praise and this evil spirit of despair moved away from her. Listen. There are times when a deep spirit of grief comes upon us and it will carry us into major long term problems unless we aggressively confront it. We must literally jump up from our chair or bed and wrap God’s promises around us and pray to God for deliverance. We should memorize scripture promises like this one from Jeremiah 31 and pray those verses over and over in our minds.
Can we trust these promises of God to help us? Hebrews 6:17-19 speaks of God’s promises to his people. We are told that it is impossible for God to lie and that if we flee to take hold of God’s promised hope, then we will be encouraged. Verse 19 finishes by saying that “we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” You know, a ship’s anchor keeps it secure during a storm. Keeps it from floating away and dashing against the rocks. As we read and memorize the scripture promises of God, then we have an anchor that keeps us from destruction during the storms of life. We will all have storms. We will suffer terrible storms. But God offers us this anchor. God will turn our sorrow into new joy.
How can we find a cure for our loneliness and grief? First, we need to go through a healthy process of grief. It is a healing process for us. Secondly, we need to strongly resist any spirit of grief. We can do that actively by getting up, praising God, memorizing scripture promises and holding onto them as to an anchor.
Do you have that anchor in your life? It is a promise that you must take into your heart. And if you feel that deep spirit of despair washing over you, then jump up, wrap yourself in the promises of God. Pray over and over, “God, I know that you will turn my sorrow into joy.” Memorize this verse from Jeremiah 31:13. In your sorrow, do not let go of that anchor. Do not cut the rope in your anger. Hold on. Hold on. And most importantly, God will hold onto you. Amen.