Maybe you live alone, or have times where you’re the only one in your household. Maybe your spouse or roommate is essential and working longer hours or you are just missing your friends and your normal social activities. Or maybe you’re a single parent and the kids are with their other parent at times. Here are a few ways to be our spiritually healthiest selves and keep our eyes on the Lord during social distancing.
Name Your Emotions
While going through this difficult and uncomfortable season, some of us may be alone with the quiet and our thoughts and emotions for the first time in a long time. It is helpful to recognize and name these feelings—loneliness, sadness, confusion, frustration, emptiness, anxiety or fear.
Once these have been identified, we can take them to the Lord to see what He says about them and ask Him to bring His peace, comfort, and healing.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (Romans 8:35)
Prayer: Heavenly Father, please turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted (Psalm 25:16). Thank you that because you are the God of hope, you fill me with all joy and peace as I believe so that I may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).
Take Your Thoughts Captive
God can use this time to continue to transform us by the renewing of our mind. When lies or dark thoughts come into our minds, that can start a spiral into a bad place. Immediately take those thoughts captive to the mind of Christ and see what His truth has to say.
That can mean asking, “Lord, what do you have to say about __(thought) ___.” His Word, found in the Bible, is the unfailing standard we can compare our thoughts to and we can always see what the light of truth has to say about any potential lies that we think.
For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I have been struggling with thoughts of ____________. Please tell me what you think about these thoughts and show me your truth. Show me what your Word has to say about this.
Pursue the Lord with Your Whole Heart
Ask the Lord to help you use this time to run after Him and fall more in love with Him than ever before.
During this season, it’s of course okay and normal to miss people. That means we have valuable relationships and those are good things.
But we can use this time to ask God to show Himself to be enough for us. Make your goal to be so in love with Jesus that people pale in comparison.
Ask Him to help you be content with His presence and to fill you with His peace. When this may be especially difficult, turn on a praise and worship song or read a psalm of praise to the Lord, like Psalm 145.
So, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)
Prayer: Lord, help me to be satisfied with you. I want to fall more in love with you. Help me to desire to spend time with you and to love you with my whole heart.
Fight Loneliness
When we are alone, there are many lies that can begin to surface. Thankfully, the truth of God’s Word allows us to replace lies with His truth.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to truly believe what You say about me and hear Your voice over the voices of my own thoughts and all other people.
Lie: I am alone.
He says: He cares.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
Lie: I am I unloved.
He says: You are loved.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)
Lie: I am forgotten.
He says: I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5)
Aren’t five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. Indeed, the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6-7)
Prayer: Lord, I ask you to help me to receive your love. Help me to understand who You say I am and what it means when you call me your son or your daughter.
An amazing resource to reference in times when we need to embrace what the Lord says about us is this list of truths about our identity in Christ: Identity in Christ Card
Reach Out
If you are struggling at times with feeling alone, chances are you know someone who is also feeling this way. Look for ways to encourage or serve others who may be feeling isolated or have needs, even from a distance. Taking the time to check on someone with a call, text or setting up a Zoom call or Netflix Party can help quench that lonely or unloved feeling someone else has. It will hopefully make both you and the other person feel better.
The Apostle Paul, while isolated and imprisoned, reminds us, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)
We can’t do this in our own flesh, but the Holy Spirit will empower us to serve others and to live in His rest, peace and presence during this season.
