Loneliness Stinks.

Loneliness Stinks.

Maybe you’ve experienced that feeling that you get when you walk into a room and don’t recognize ANYONE! Panic, awkwardness, and fear. What if someone sees me just wandering around alone? What if I don’t see anyone I know? What if I just show up and leave without anyone talking to me?

It seems like we have a fear of being left alone, left out, excluded and isolated. I think we fear this loneliness because it makes us feel like something is wrong with us or with everyone else…or both!

Yesterday, we talked at Rewired about how this fear of finding friends impacts:

• ·        What clothes we wear
• ·        How we act the way we do
• ·        Why we care so much about how we look to others
• ·        Why commercials that tell us “everyone else is getting this” has such an impact on us…

…we don’t want to be left out.

The deal is, though, that our wants for friendship and community come out of a desire for good things! In Genesis 2:18, at the start of our story, God decided that it was “not good for the man to be alone” (matching the community that goes on even in God’s very nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!), and made Eve, bringing community to humanity!

We know that this community didn’t last forever, though, as Cain (Adam and Eve’s son) killed Abel (their other son), and so, made the first person that was ever alone and isolated, Cain. From here, the rivalry and exclusion between people started. We started gossiping, being jealous, being greedy, being selfish, etc. towards others, and started isolating them.

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BUT, as usual, God stepped in to do something about it. He gave us the law and the prophets (the Old Testament), which all point towards two commands: 1) Love God, 2) Love Other People.  As 1 John 3:10-14 states, if you are really someone who loves God, you’ll love those around you.

Beyond that, Jesus, even while suffering and dying on a piece of wood outside of the city, saw out of the corner of his eye his mom and one of his followers, John. Both people, because of Jesus’ death, would have been left alone, but showing the type of care he has for those people excluded and alone, Jesus says with one of his last statements, “Woman, here is your son,” and then to John, “Here is your mother.” SO cool, right!?

Besides the fact that if there is anyone at your school or your church event or your sports team that is fully following Jesus, you can be confident you won’t always be left alone (how cool that no matter where you go across this world, there will likely be a church of Christians that will invite you in and be like your family?!), besides this, Jesus also tells you something personally. He tells us this in the last words of the book of Matthew:

“And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Now THAT is a promise that can help us put away our fears!

For all you commenters out there, let me know: 1) What is the strangest conversation-starter you can use to include someone who is hanging out alone? 2) What would an ice chunk say to the glacier it broke off of as it floats away? 3) How can you/did you practice community and friendship at the Amazing Race on Wednesday?

Thanks all, have a splendid week!

For Him,
-Brandon