Adam had never been with any other human being when God said, “It is not good for a man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) Adam was the only human being there was, the one and only one!

Adam didn’t feel lonely because he was living in the perfect presence of God. He was moving around and doing life at the presence of God. But God said, “It is not good for a man to be alone.”

Remember, Adam had never known that being the only human being is something to cry over because he had no idea how it felt like to have one other human being besides him. All he knew was himself, God and God’s creations. That is why we don’t see Adam asking God something like, “Well, God, it seems like something is not right. I am the only human being here. I think I need someone else other than You because I kinda feel lonely.”

No, Adam didn’t say that because he didn’t have any clue how loneliness feels like. For Adam to feel lonely, he had to have some kind of life experience with other human beings but Adam only knew life with God who is the Source of everything for Adam.

Loneliness is one of those emotional sicknesses we the fallen people experience, but not the perfect Adam. There was no emotional or mental or physical or spiritual sickness before the fall. Just health, wealth and happiness! My! Can you even imagine what that life is like? I can’t. Anyways, let me move on to the next point.

Loneliness is one of a spiritual depravities of the fallen human beings. After the fall, we are left with a soul which has an empty space, a space I tend to call, “only-for-God-space.”  This space, my dear, will only be filled fully with God’s presence.

When we try to fill “only-for-God-space” with “things,” we feel lonely. We may live and work around many people but we feel like empty! We feel like nobody cares about us. In reality, we may have many people who love us and care about us but we feel lonely because those “stuffs” won’t fill that “only-for-God space.”

And when we try to cure ourselves from the emotional sickness of “loneliness” by marrying someone, it is like trying to cure ourselves from a broken leg by running a marathon. Do you see that?

When one decides to marry to get rid of loneliness, they are pretty much setting themselves up for a serious disappointment because they expect the spouse to fill that “only-for-God-space.” That is the most devastating expectation because no one can fill that space except God.

Yes, if one feels lonely as a single person and decides to marry to be free from loneliness, he/she will be the loneliest married person ever. They were better off being single than married because in marriage they have someone very close to them but that someone falls short to successfully meet their expectations. And that phenomenon can throw one into a serious depression.

Marriage has never been designed to cure loneliness or anything. If anything, it is designed to PREVENT one from getting entangled in a sexually immoral lifestyle (1 Corinthians 7:1-2).  There are many biblical purposes and reasons God designed marriage for but God never designed marriage to cure anything. It is Gary Thomas, the author of “Sacred Marriage,” who said, “God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy.” How true that is!

As we run to God for all our needs knowing that God is the Source of our lives, we get cured and purified through the process.  This purifying job is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does His amazing job in us, helping us fall in love with Christ, when we avail ourselves to Him through our daily devotion (prayer, Bible reading/studying and meditation) and worshiping God with others. ///