It’s
kind of funny that we live in such a streamlined society where everybody is
connected to everybody, and yet for the most part, we are utterly and
completely alone. Even conversations at
tables in restaurants these days are neglected in favor of checking your
Facebook status or email or texts or Twitter.
I’ve sat and watched two people sit together for dinner and never even
look at one another, their attentions fully given to whatever handheld device
they own at the time. It’s never been
more hazardous than now to walk down the street for fear of any number of
passersby running right into you because they’re looking down at their phone
instead of where they are walking.
This
plague, though commonplace in mainstream society, has unfortunately permeated
our Christian lives, as well. Some of us
may live in extremely populated areas, but for some reason we feel nothing but
loneliness and isolation from those around us who share the most amazing gift
of all time—Jesus!
I
recently traveled to Harare, Zimbabwe, to speak at an Easter conference, and I
was overwhelmed with the words so many of the women there spoke to me. Had they not been speaking Shona, the native
language of most of Zimbabwe, the words they were saying would have been
exactly the same words I’ve heard over and over again here in America: “I’m so
lonely.”
It’s
not that they are alone. Few of us are
ever alone, but the pain of loneliness is rampant among Christians.
How
very sad that is.
So
I began to ask myself why that is the case.
Why are members of an eternal family, truly those who are now the bride
of Christ, suffering from such a condition?
I mean, I can almost understand how unbelievers might feel lonely. After all, what do they share with others but
a constant desire to figure out how to be happy or content or joyful? We, however, have been given the key to such
things, and we share that key with millions of other people, many of whom live
right in our neighborhoods. If not
there, at least there are those with whom we attend church or bible study.
Why
are so many of us, all over the world, still so lonely?
I’m
convinced that it’s not loneliness that has plagued our existences, but
isolation. Most of us have a tendency to
isolate ourselves, either in our sadness or our sin. We might reveal some things, but for the most
part, we live under the misapprehension that our suffering or our sin is
somehow more extreme or more dire than anyone else’s. Either that or we delude ourselves into
thinking that we don’t want to burden anyone else with our problems, so we keep
them to ourselves, simmering just beneath the surface of the smiles we paste on
in public.
Consequently,
many of us who have reason for the most joy experience pain that is both
unnecessary and unwarranted, which is just the way Satan wants it. If he can convince us of this lie, then what
we should be presenting to the unsaved world—peace and joy that surpasses all
understanding—is buried beneath a mountain of misery that lives inside of our
heads.
This
is precisely why we are to be who God intended His children to be, and that is
relational. We are to belong to a body
of believers, not so that we fill a square in the account journal of our
sanctification, but so that we can build one another up, hold one another accountable,
and fellowship together. We need our
brothers and sisters and we need to seek them out. Living inside of our own heads is exactly
what Satan wants because there is no relationship there.
My
heart hurt for the women of Zimbabwe, just like my heart hurts for every woman
I meet who suffers from this plague. It
hurt so much that the focus of my work with Love Everlasting Ministries has
streamlined and is now going to be finding ways to break the barriers of
isolation, primarily through discipleship and relational connection between
women all over the world. This is a
plague that should not be, and all of us must do what we can to extinguish it
however we can.
What
can you do to either break out of this isolation or help others do so? I pray that all of us seriously consider the
ramifications of a body of believers who segregate themselves from every other
part of the body in horrible isolation.
Move toward relationship with your brothers and sisters. After all, heaven isn’t going to be a lonely
place. God meant for us to seek
relationship with each other and the beauty that comes with that while we are here
on earth.
Put on then, as God’s
chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and
patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another,
forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must
forgive. And above all these put on
love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony….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. (Colossians 3:12-16)
