Never Alone

Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:7-8 ESV). Our reading today comes from one of my favorite passages. Moses has been told by the Lord that he will not accompany the people he has led for forty years into the Promised Land. Joshua would be their leader for the next phase of the nation’s establishment in Canaan. I can only imagine that he felt disappointed and alone. Perhaps he felt the Lord had abandoned him at a critical moment. Yet, he comes to this incredible conclusion that the Lord could never abandon him. He passes this same unshakeable belief on to Joshua for the journey that lay before him. In May, 1960, Roy Orbison recorded one of the great rock and roll classics entitled, "Only the Lonely." It went to the top of the charts immediately and ultimately won a Grammy. It is #232 of the top 500 songs of all time. It struck a chord with many people then and still does today. Two of the recurring lines of lyrics are: "Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight;” and, “Only the lonely know the heartaches I've been through." It spoke to people who felt they had been abandoned by the one they loved. Maybe you have been abandoned; perhaps it was by your parents, your spouse, or your children. You may even feel that you have been abandoned by God Himself. There are many people who feel estranged from God. They feel alienated from Him. Even if they have everything they want in life, they may still face loneliness. Some people are surrounded by others and still feel the weight of loneliness. As his UCLA football team suffered through a poor season in the early 1970s, head coach Pepper Rodgers came under intense criticism and pressure from alumni and fans. Things got so bad, he remembers with a smile, that friends became hard to find. “My dog was my only true friend,” Rodgers says of that year. “I told my wife that every man needs at least two good friends—and she bought me another dog.” There is only one cure for this feeling. It is the presence of Christ in your life. When Moses made his last trip up into the mountains height, he was comforted that it would never be a journey he would make alone. Throughout the years of wandering God had proven to him that he would never leave him or forsake him. Whether it was the cloud by day or the fire by night, God was always with him. We should take comfort that God does the same for us. He will not leave us or forsake us. We do not face life alone!