From Julie:
My friend “Eric” is single, and he admitted on more than one occasion that being alone is one of the hardest “crosses” for him to bear since the break up of his marriage over a year ago. As a man, he likes taking care of a woman. He misses physical intimacy, being the protector, provider, and the confidante, but God has not given him the go-ahead to get involved in another relationship. How or when it might happen, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that it’s ever so hard being patient through the loneliness.
Listening to a man like Eric, created in God’s image, it got me wondering how Jesus felt about being alone. Did He get lonely? Did He ever feel the emptiness and ache of not having a woman to protect, provide for, and to have physical intimacy with? We easily dismiss it in our minds saying, “No! He was above all that. He didn’t need a relationship. He had His Father.”
But Jesus was and still is fully man (Luke 24:39). What did His Father (and ours) say? “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him (Gen. 2:18).”
I read a fascinating book awhile back by Frank Viola, “From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God.” In this book, he pointed to a beautiful parallel between the “First Adam” and the “Second Adam.” Restating in my own words, the First Adam was alone in a Garden when God put him into a deep sleep so that He might take a suitable helper, a woman, out of his side. From this union would come a multitude of physical offspring.
The Second Adam (1 Cor. 15:22, 45) prayed alone in a Garden just before He was put into a sleep for three days. After that, a “woman” was taken out of His side—a Bride and a Church—who would be a suitable helper for Him. Out of this union would come a multitude of spiritual offspring.
So we see that even Jesus had to wait a long time in a state of “incompleteness” for His Bride to be introduced to Him. And I believe the Bible teaches that the relationship with His betrothed Bride will not be “consummated” until the onset of His future Millennial Kingdom, when He and She meet face to face for the first time to begin the “Wedding Feast (Luke 12:36).”
Jesus has been waiting in great anticipation for at least 6,000 years to claim His Bride. I believe the empty place God puts in our hearts when we are single is not separate from the experience of Christ, but a witness to it. We can use this longing and loneliness to feel Jesus’ longing for His own Bride, whom He bought at a price on the cross. Someday He will lavish His love, provision, protection, and intimacy upon His Bride, and all the ache and loneliness will go away for good.