All the Lonely People

What did the Beatles know about loneliness? Everywhere they went, people flooded from all over just to get the chance to be near them. But their hit song "All the Lonely People" shows that they understood loneliness. They knew what it meant to long something more, to be noticed, to be needed, and yet to spend day after day doing the same, unfulfilling thing.

Chances are that even in the biggest crowd imaginable...there are lonely people. I have been there. Surrounded by hundreds of people, focused on my assigned tasks, doing my best to be unnoticed...only wishing that I wasn't so lonely. If I have felt that way, lonely in spite of serving God in a crowded church, I can only believe that millions of others walk around daily just wishing that someone would care about them.

As a follower of Jesus, I have been charged with the task of engaging people around me. I admit that I don't always do that. Often when I am in the public arena I am more like a hunter in the wild. I am searching out the thing I have gone out to find and after targeting it I bring my kill home. But the thousands of lonely people are right there. Blocking my view from my target. I must purposely wade through them as if I were pushing my way through the thick underbrush.

Lord, please make my eyes open to those who are hurting. Help me to see others through Your eyes. Eyes that are focused less on a single solitary trophy and more on the mass of humanity living in loneliness all around me. Give me the heart to make an impact in my community for You.

The Father McKenzies of the world can sit in their churches waiting all day long for someone to come to them who needs to be saved. The truth is that very few people ever do that without somebody first coming to them. Stop writing a sermon that no one will hear and go out into the wild and bring Jesus to all the lonely people.

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