Loneliness, Aloneness, or Solitude

"Many people cannot distinguish between loneliness, aloneness, and solitude, confusing them all as being detrimental to the human spirit.  Solitude, however, is an aloneness that is, or can be creative.  Solitude brings self-discovery.  It allows the mind to untangle itself.  Solitude is to let the mind and emotions drain away, free from the demands of others.  Solitude is not loneliness and need not be a crippler.  It need not lead to despair.  The secret of having times of solitude is in understanding that this is not a process for ill but an opportunity for God to show Himself as perhaps He cannot do when the landscape becomes too crowded."[1]

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[1] Carol Kaptains notes for singles only NTM conference 2006

The Blessing of Times of Solitude

“Let them who cannot be alone beware of community.  He will only do harm to himself and to the community…But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.  Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship.”   - D. Bonhoeffer

Solitude brings us into a situation where we sit before the God who knows everything about us. (Our habitual sins, our thought life, the idols of our heart.) We quiet our hearts. We clear our minds. We present ourselves. We may try at first to be someone we are not, but if we will remain in his presence consistently He will begin to show us who we really are.

Potential Glory - Part One

A story is told of a young single missionary who lived in a simple rented apartment. The owner of the apartment was often difficult to relate with. Sometimes the owner would be very demanding, would not make repairs when needed, or would raise the rent unexpectedly. It was difficult for the young missionary, but she asked for God's help to forgive and not become bitter.

Living Life With An Eye On Heaven

What was the most popular song in your country in 1990? Who was the wealthiest person in the world in 1995? Who won the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 2000? Who won the men’s Olympic gold medal in the marathon in 2004? Who is Secretary General of the United Nations?

Don’t worry, if you didn’t know the answers to these questions. It’s not a test to see how intelligent we are, but it could be telling us something else. It could mean that the things that the world says are most important may not really be.  Money, power, success, beauty, and fame. They are definitely part of our world, but could it be that we’ve believed a lie.

The Foolishness of God

In the years after the life of Christ the early Christians were few in number, but powerful in the Spirit. They lived lives that were different from the Roman society that surrounded them. They were generous, humble, servant-hearted, peaceful, and selfless. To many they appeared as fools, but this foolishness of God was used to change their world. In five centuries Christianity became the predominant religion in the Roman Empire, and now 2000 years later Christianity can be found worldwide.

Who Am I?

Who are you? You may answer this by what type of job you have, by what your name is, by what type of ministry that you do, by what education you have, or what ethnic group you belong to. Others of us may answer based on others' opinions of us. Sometimes their words will be to good to be true and build up our pride, or be too critical and we begin to believe that we are failures. If that is all we hear, then oftentimes we begin to believe it. It gets even worse when Satan’s voice joins in. You hypocrite! You are not worthy to leads others, look at that sin in your life, you are so fake, you'll never be as good as. . . As we hear this, we begin to believe it and live like it is the truth. We live defeated, faithless lives when God has something so much more for us. We begin to pay such attention to our opinion and others' opinions of us that we begin to live like those who have no God.

In Search of Contentment

Eight years ago, Hajnal Ban decided she was tired of being what she considered short. The five-foot-one Australian woman had been made fun of most of her life, and she was convinced her height was the sole reason she wasn't being taken seriously in the professional world. But what do you do about something as seemingly set-in-stone as your height?

Ban found a solution in Russia—albeit a painful one. According to an article in the Times of London, Russian doctors agreed to "break both her legs in four places and stretch them slowly for 1mm every day for nine months." After all the breaking and stretching, Ban then wore plaster casts for three additional months to make the changes permanent. The whole process cost her $40,000.