Loneliness isn't an easy thing to deal with when it strikes. When we're alone, it seems as though there are no answers, no solutions. But actually, nothing … could be further from the truth.

Whether you live in China surrounded by 1.3 billion other people, or the Pitcairn Islands (in the Pacific), surrounded by just 44 other people, you can feel lonely. We can be desperately lonely in a crowd yet be delivered from loneliness by just one other person.

Today, if it's okay with you, we're going to continue looking at the whole question of loneliness.

I'd like you to meet the first of two people who can help you with loneliness, without you ever having to pick up the phone or open the front door. We'll meet the second one in tomorrow's program.

Today, we're going to meet the first one. Someone you've known all your life, someone who's with you constantly, every minute of the day – that someone … is you!

The problem with loneliness, it's not so much in being alone, we all want to be alone (sometimes). The problem is feeling alone. The problem is feeling that terrible sense that I'm not connected in a meaningful way with another person. It's painful, you can get angry, you can get distressed, you sense this loss. And the other thing about loneliness is that often, it's accompanied by a sense of powerlessness. We end up in a passive state.

I remember ten years ago being single again. One minute, I was surrounded by a family – you go out, you go out with your family, go out with your wife. The next minute, not only is there the pain of a broken relationship, but you see all of these other people in relationships. I truly hated seeing couples together; their enjoyment seemed to hurt me. You know, you see a man and a woman walking hand in hand down the street. And I'd just been through what I'd just been through and it was painful seeing them enjoy themselves. You feel so powerless when you feel lonely.

I felt like a second-class citizen, I felt like a failure. It's like it wasn't okay for me to be alone. It's a state that I felt I couldn't change. Have you ever felt like that … "I'm the only one?"

I'll let you into a secret, we all do that sometimes. We're not Robinson Caruso. Everybody at some stage in their life feels devalued because they're lonely. We feel rejected because we're lonely. Part of the loneliness trap says, "I can't function unless I have other people around me."

Well in part that's true; we certainly all need to have meaningful relationships with other people. But the idea of "I can't function without other people," misses something. It misses an opportunity – an important opportunity.

When we go home, you know at the end of the day or (I used to do this when I was going through my lonely stage where I was on my own) at the end of church, you know I'd go home on a Sunday and all these other people went home with their husbands or their wives or their children. And I went home alone.

When we go home, whether we go home to a family or whether we go home alone, you and I are home in our space, maybe people there, maybe not. Whether there are people there or not, it can be a lonely place. Well for me there were no people there at the time. And what I discovered in that place was to my surprise … I enjoyed my own company.

Now that might seem trivial and trite to you. But in my life where I'd been a busy business person and working long hours and working hard and having people around me all the time. Here I was, at age 36, alone for the first time (in a very long time). All of a sudden, I had time and space to figure out, "Berni, you enjoy your own company."

The first thing I had was time to think, time just to sit at nights and let the imagination roam across the hills. Time to dream, time to hope, time to contemplate the day, time to plan for tomorrow. What an incredible gift! And even though we all do that to some extent, you know something, when you're on your own (particularly when you feel lonely), it's somehow sharper, somehow it's more important to be able to do that. It's so evident in a lonely place that time to think and imagine and dream and hope and contemplate is a wonderful gift.

And it was in the middle of that … that I learned to turn the TV off. It was still. It was quiet. And in that place I discovered I liked myself.

It's one of the biggest gifts I ever received out of that time of loneliness. And you know this is a habit that has never left me. Today, I'm wonderfully, happily married to the most beautiful, lovely women on the planet and have a wonderful family. Yet, I still draw away into my own space – into that quiet peace to enjoy me, to spend time with me, to discover who I am, to think and dream and hope.

We are created in the image of God. And God looks at us and He delights in us. So why shouldn't we delight in ourselves? Why shouldn't we like ourselves?

The second thing that … that period of loneliness gave me was time and space to do things I had never had time and space to do in the past. I discovered I really loved walking. I've always played the piano but I'd never had time and I relearned the playing of piano. I love to read, I love cooking. Some people say, "Well, it's not worth cooking for one". What they're really saying is, "I am not worth it, I'm not worth cooking for". Yes you are!

The third thing was that I decided I liked my own company. And the step that precedes that – I liked me. It doesn't mean I can't improve. It doesn't mean that there aren't some things that I'd change. But basically, in that time alone, I decided I like me. That brings some serious healing. I realised I wasn't a second-class citizen. I realised the real joy of discovering me.

Now, there was another inseparable part in that healing process … another person that we'll talk about tomorrow, when I introduce you to the second person, who can help you and me in a period of loneliness, without ever picking up the phone or opening the front door.

Loneliness … absolutely, we need to get connected meaningfully with other people. But a time of loneliness is a huge opportunity to connect meaningfully with ourselves.

Have you ever been travelling through a lonely patch? Maybe, you're travelling through one now. Go look in the mirror. You are a beautiful person. You are so wonderfully hand-carved by God. You have some abilities and talents and humour in you that other people don't have. And sometimes God takes us through times of loneliness to help us to discover that.

It's no substitute for relationships with other people; it's no substitute for having family and friends around. But you know what I think? I think for us to really enjoy our relationships with other people, to really connect with other people, first – we need to connect with ourselves.

If God is God, if God made you and me the way we are, if God delights in who you are and who I am, isn't that a valid thing that we should delight in who we are? Isn't it a wonderful thing to have time and space to enjoy our own company? To think, to go and do things and develop skills and develop talents that sometimes we never realised we had?

I learned to play the piano when I was a young boy and I'd almost forgotten, and I relearned that in that time of loneliness. And it's such a wonderful blessing.

You are made by God … go on take the opportunities He gives you to discover yourself.