Bible verses for loneliness, for the evenings that are too quiet
Fifteen verses for being by yourself, for being left, and for being lonely in a room full of people. With a short prayer to write for each.
Loneliness is not one thing, which is why general advice about it rarely lands. There is the plain quiet of a flat where nobody else is coming home. There is the loneliness that arrives after someone leaves, which is grief wearing different clothes. And there is the strangest kind, the loneliness of being surrounded, in a family or a church or an office, and knowing that none of these people actually know you.
The verses below are quoted word for word from the World English Bible, and they are grouped by those three situations rather than by book. The notes say what each verse claims and, more usefully, what it does not. Most of them make one promise, which is company. Almost none of them promise that the circumstances will change soon.
These verses are not a replacement for people, and if the loneliness has been heavy for months, or you have stopped eating or sleeping, they are not a replacement for a doctor or a crisis line either. Read the group that matches tonight and leave the rest.
When you are simply by yourself
This is the ordinary version: a new city, a job where you speak to nobody, a Sunday afternoon with nothing in it, the hour after work when you would normally tell someone how the day went. Nothing has gone wrong. There is just no one there.
Scripture does not treat that as a small thing to be talked out of. The first verse here is a complaint, and it is in the Bible, which means the complaint is allowed.
Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.
Psalm 25:16 · WEB
Desolate is the word David uses about himself. He does not work up to it or apologise for it. If you can only manage one sentence tonight, this is a usable one.
Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?
Psalm 139:7 · WEB
A question, not a statement. The psalmist is turning the problem over: there is no room he could walk into that God is not already in.
If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.
Psalm 139:9-10 · WEB
The furthest place he can imagine, and the hand is still there. Distance is the thing loneliness measures, so this is the answer in its own terms.
Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5 · WEB
The promise is quoted inside a passage about money and contentment, which is an odd place to find it. That is rather the point: it holds on ordinary days, not only in crises.
teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Matthew 28:20 · WEB
The last line of Matthew, said to a small group who were about to be scattered. Always, and to the end of the age, are both longer than this evening.
A prayer to write
It is quiet here again and I do not like it. I am not asking you to fix my circumstances tonight. I am asking you to be in the room, the way you said you would be, and to let me notice.
When someone has left
A death, a divorce, a friend who stopped replying, a child who no longer calls, a parent who was never really there. This loneliness has a name attached to it, and the ache is specific: not company in general, but that person.
These verses do not argue that God is a substitute for the person. They say that being left is not the same as being alone, and they say it to people who had genuinely been abandoned.
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.
Psalm 27:10 · WEB
The worst case, stated plainly: the two people who are supposed to stay. The verse does not deny that they can go. It says what happens next.
I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
John 14:18 · WEB
Jesus said this to his friends on the night before he died, when leaving them was exactly what he was about to do. Orphans is a strong word to choose, and he chose it.
Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them, for the LORD your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 · WEB
Spoken to a whole people at the border of a country, right after they had lost the only leader they had known. Goes with you is the phrase to sit on.
Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isaiah 41:10 · WEB
Four promises in one verse, and three of them are about being held up rather than cheered up. Loneliness usually needs the holding first.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 · WEB
Paul makes a list of everything that might get between you and God's love and then rules out the whole category. Note that death is the first item, and the people you have lost are not in the list.
A prayer to write
I keep reaching for them and they are not there. I am not going to pretend that you being with me is the same as them being here. But do not let me face this part alone. Take me up, since they cannot.
When you are lonely in a room full of people
This is the version people are most embarrassed about, because from the outside it looks like nothing. There is a marriage in it, or a family table, or a church foyer where everyone knows your name and none of it reaches you.
The verses here are about being known rather than being surrounded, and the last two say something the others do not: that loneliness is meant to end in people, and that it usually ends slowly, by showing up.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You have held my right hand.
Psalm 73:23 · WEB
The psalmist has just finished admitting he was bitter and ignorant. Nevertheless is doing the work in this verse. The hand was held the whole time he felt nothing.
The LORD, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17 · WEB
Rejoice over you with singing is not a line about tolerating you. Read it slowly when the feeling is that nobody would notice if you were not there.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and flame will not scorch you.
Isaiah 43:2 · WEB
With you, through it, three times over. Not around the water and not instead of the fire.
God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.
Psalm 68:6 · WEB
Sets the lonely in families. A plan that involves other people, which means it is slower than a verse and worth praying for by name.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:25 · WEB
Written to people who had drifted out of the habit of turning up. It is the least comfortable verse on this page and often the most practical one.
A prayer to write
I am surrounded and I am still lonely, and I am tired of explaining that to people. You know me anyway. Set me in a family. Give me one person to be honest with, and make me brave enough to go first.
Write the lonely prayers down, and date them
Loneliness distorts time. A quiet fortnight feels like a year, and the months when something did shift are forgotten almost immediately, which is why it is so easy to believe that nothing has ever changed and nothing ever will. A dated record is the plain correction to that.
Prayed keeps the record for you. Write the prayer as you would say it, and the app matches verses like the ones on this page to what you wrote, so you are not hunting for a reference at eleven at night. Each prayer comes back to you at three days, a week, a month and a year, which means the Tuesday you thought you could not stand is placed back in front of you later, with the date on it and whatever happened since. Nothing you write leaves your phone, and writing is free.
Start with tonight. One honest sentence, the date, and the name of the person you wish were here. That is a record, and in a year it will be evidence.
Write the prayer. Prayed finds the verses.
Prayed is a private prayer journal for iPhone. Write what you're praying for and it matches three verses from the same Bible quoted above, on your phone, then brings the prayer back to you at three days, a week, a month and a year so you see what came of it. No account, no server. Writing is free forever.
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