Inspiration

NEVER ALONE

By Connie Arnold

A man we know spent a short time in prison, and for his part in a disturbance in the TV room, he was slapped into solitary confinement. It is supposed to be a place of extreme punishment, and he verified that it is. There is no TV, no radio, no phone, no visitors, no window, not even another inmate to talk to. Cut off from the outside, the prisoner in D-block can’t see it, but the world is still going on without him. He is alone.

Loneliness is punishing many people in today’s world.

The origin of being lonely was in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose to side with wrong against right. They had been told they would die for disobedience. They could have thought, “Maybe God wasn’t serious. We’re not hurting anywhere. What’s dying?”

“So, the Lord sent them out of the Garden of Eden…” (Genesis 3:23 CEV). Out of the Garden, no longer to walk with Him in the cool of the evening; gone was the face-to-face fellowship. Man had gone from blessed to broken.

Later, after Cain kills his brother, Abel, the Lord confronts Cain about his sin. “From now on, you’ll spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place” (Genesis 4:12 CEV). We hear Cain’s cry of anguish, “The punishment is too hard! You’re making me leave my home and live far from you” (Genesis 12:13-14 CEV). Although we don’t hear words of repentance from Cain, he still wants to stay where God is.

God’s heart was stabbed with the loss of intimate fellowship with his creation.

But He had a plan before the foundation of the earth, because he knew the weakness of man and the influence of Satan is a lethal combination. God’s first promise to man was a promise of a way back to Him:  

Adam’s third son, Seth, had a son named Enosh. We can see them seated around their campfires at night, passing on the oral history of their family. The most-loved and most-told story is of a perfect time when their great grandparents walked with God in the Garden of Eden. No death, no pain, no fear intruded in that time. No defense needed against animals gone wild. Their ancestors didn’t always feel this aloneness, but history also brought the promise of renewed fellowship.

Understanding the Fall, and the Promise, brought conviction and a spiritual hunger to a new generation.

So “About this time people started worshiping in the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26 CEV). “God is a Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship him according to the truth” (John 4:24 CEV).

The Lord never left his creation alone. Although Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden and blocked from returning, God did not abandon them. He was protecting them from themselves. The Lord said, “These people now know the difference between right and wrong, just as we do. But they must not be allowed to eat fruit from the tree that lets them live forever.” (Genesis 3:22 CEV).

Echoes from this oral history have become the printed Word.

Alone, we do not have to be lonely. 

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.” (John 14:16). With the psalmist we can give praise that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear;” (Psalm 46:1 KJV).

Many years ago a song writer penned these words: “No, never alone, no, never alone, He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone…”. The author of those words is unknown, but back in the time of Enosh, when people began calling on the name of the Lord, “No, Never Alone” could have been an ancient chant that brought comfort in their worship times.