When No One's Around

"My soul finds rest in God alone; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation; with him as my stronghold, I shall not be overcome." - Psalm 62:1-2

Sometimes we can be surrounded by friends and having a great time, but there are also times when it feels like everyone has abandoned us. Those people who we thought we'd always be close to start to reveal other sides of their personalities, so it feels like we don't know them anymore and we might not even know ourselves. The Lord says in the book of Jeremiah that we should never put our trust in men, but it's hard when people let us down. It's hard when we start to see ourselves how we think others see us, and this gives our egos a major beating. We doubt ourselves and become isolated and sad. However, if all we have in the world are our friends, there would be a reason to get upset, but we have so much more than that. The Psalmist calls God His rock because no matter who went in and out of his life, no matter what people did or said to him, God was the mainstay. More importantly, he didn't allow his self-esteem to be composed of what others said or thought. His self-esteem only depended on what God thought of him.

For each of us, our self-esteem needs to come directly from God and never from what others think of us, because others will always let us down. We're human beings whose emotions and thoughts go back and forth like the waves, yet God is a rock. He is a stronghold and if He tells us that we were created in His image and we are important to Him, that doesn't change. Jesus had His closest friends abandon Him… they weren't there for Him at all when He needed them, but Jesus didn't get bitter and kept on depending only on what
God thought of Him. We should always keep this in mind when it comes to negative attitudes or comments from others, especially when the others are the people we consider our closest friends.

Today's Prayer:
Father in Heaven, when all others fail us, You are our rock. When others abandon us, You are our constant companion. Help us to always depend on You and only You. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.