John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

I am going to be as honest with you as I can be. I do not know when it happened, I just know that I am “born again”. I do not know the moment I was born of water, when I took my first breath it was just something I did without knowing what had just happened to me. I can honestly say being born of the spirit wasn’t all that different. I just took that first breath without knowing what was happening.

What I do remember is that I spent decades of sinning between God revealing Himself to me and the first time He spoke to me. That only happened after I repented of the life I had lived.

Was that the moment of rebirth? I don’t know.

When Adam and Eve allowed sin into the world, they were told in detail what was about to happen because of their disobedience. Consequences. They became spiritually dead, cast out and separated from God.

Nothing was said about any further communication between God and Adam and Eve. They birthed Cain, Abel and Seth. God spoke to Cain. I do not recall any conversations with the others. Maybe I am wrong. I can look that up. I don’t have to rely on my memory, I have His Word.

I have His Word. That is the most profound comment I can make about being born again.

I do not know the truth without it. 

Deuteronomy 6:6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

Matthew 13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.

Luke 8:15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I don’t know when that happened either but I know it is true.

Psalm 25:16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

There was a time when I could be in a room with hundreds of people and I felt alone. It wasn’t a matter of not knowing some of the people in attendance, it was the absence of connection on the most intimate level. If we don’t have someone we can open up to with the deepest parts of ourselves, we are alone, even in a crowd.

Loneliness is an affliction of the soul.

Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

God recognized the issues of loneliness and set the stage to accomplish an end to loneliness.

So what went wrong?

The simple answer is Satan coming along and whispering in Eve’s ear, “What you have isn’t enough.” Believing the lie led to sin and thus the issue of loneliness expanded into the realm of want which made need seem small and insignificant. 

Sin does that, it will not let its victim rest. It causes the victim to want more and more and more, never truly being satisfied. That is what sin does. In the end, it wears out its victim, until they are totally consumed.

There is something to say about people who come together only because they are lonely. The divorce rate in America is high because empty people cannot fill one another.

David’s prayer is earnest and honest. “Turn to me and be gracious to me.” He is asking God to fill the void in his heart.

I’ve been married now for eighteen years, my second marriage, having been a widower. My wife’s fiance died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm. Then we turned to God and prayed the exact same prayer.

“Show me your will for my life.”

God answered both of our prayers with each other. God is good, God is merciful, God knows how best to bring together proper helpmates.

But she is not the One I was talking about when I said “I am not alone.”