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Loneliness

Mark Dunagan
10/08/17 - Sunday Morning

Loneliness

“Celebrities don’t blush anymore when news breaks that they’re pregnant outside of marriage. Using recreational drugs doesn’t have the stigma it once had in Hollywood. Divorce? Arrests?… But there’s one admission that people are loathe to make, whether they’re a star on television or someone who fixes televisions. It’s just too embarrassing. It penetrates too deeply to the core of who they are. And when writer Marla Paul reluctantly confessed it in a newspaper column, she was secretly hoping no one would read it. Her admission: she was lonely”… Marla wrote, ‘It seems as if every woman’s friendship quota has been filled and she is no longer accepting new applicants… It’s easy enough to fill up the day with work and family.  But no matter how much I enjoy my job and love my husband and child, they are not enough’” (God’s Outrageous Claims, Lee Strobel, pp. 141-142).

Crowded Loneliness

Other writers have observed the same problem happening in America. There are more and more people, and yet it seems there are more and more lonely people. Ralph Keyes, in his book We the Lonely People, says that above all else Americans value mobility, privacy, and convenience. These three values make developing a sense of community almost impossible. In his book A Nation of Strangers, Vance Packard argued that the mobility of American society contributed to social isolation and loneliness. Kerby Anderson wrote, “The baby boom generation is headed for a crisis of loneliness. The reasons are simple: demographics and social isolation. More boomers are living alone than in previous generations, and those living with another person will still feel the nagging pangs of loneliness”.

 

Not Good to Be Alone: Genesis 2:18

“Dr. James Lynch, in The Broken Heart, cites statistics showing that adults without deep relationships have a death rate that’s twice as high as those who enjoy regular caring interaction with others. Ironically, we live in a culture in which many people scrupulously monitor their cholesterol intake and calorie consumption but at the same time blithely ignore their relationship life” (Strobel, pp. 144-145).

Human Friends are Not Enough

We saw this in the above quote from the writer who said that children and husband were not enough. We should definitely appreciate the people in our lives, especially our spouses and family, and yet the reality is that they cannot meet all the needs of our soul. In order to be able to reach out and love people as we should or practice “neighbor love”, we must first have a relationship with God (Matthew 22:37-39).

• Because when we move towards God, open up our hearts and lives to Him, as a result our self-centeredness begins to shrink and at the same time our compassion for others becomes enlarged (Philippians 2:3-5).
• “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
• “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38).
• Not only can a relationship with God fill our emotional, relational, and spiritual needs, but it can equally give us the energy, motivation, and desire to reach out to others.
• In addition, a relationship with God changes my motivation for wanting to have friendships. “I started out as an atheist who was in compassion deficit. I viewed other people primarily as tools to be used in my own professional and social advancement” (Strobel, p. 192).
• Jesus warned us about a similar danger than can happen even among supposed religious and God-fearing people: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your payment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14).

The reason I mention this is because in seeking friendships or in seeking to build them with others we are going to face some discouragement, and if we don’t love others like God loves them, we will probably give up. “When people don’t reciprocate, when they fail to express gratitude, when they take advantage of your generosity, when nobody seems to care that doing something kind for others is eating up your time, energy, and resources, you’re going to start getting cynical and wondering why you’re bothering” (Strobel, p. 193). If we are depending solely upon our own wisdom and power we will run out of energy, but if we are constantly plugged into God, then we will not get discouraged or give up when it comes to building strong and deep friendships, even when various attempts fail.

Different Kinds of Friends

• “A man of many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

“Here the writer is contrasting our numerous surface-level relationships with our fewer but closer friendships, and he’s warning us that quantity doesn’t equal quality… Our lives are full of these relationships. Studies show that the average person can have several hundred of these acquaintances… we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that they are more significant  than they really are, because these fragile friendships inevitably fracture under stress” (Strobel, pp. 148,147).

What Is Uniting You

Or what is the basis of the friendship? “The quality of a friendship is nearly always determined by the quality of that which unites us. That means that if our common bond is an activity, sport, or business venture, surface-level affinity will probably result. But if the common bond consists of deeply felt values, there’s at least the possibility of much closer bonding” (Strobel, p. 148).  

Comes to Ruin

Obviously the Bible is not against friendship, in Proverbs 18:24 we are being cautioned:

• A multitude of surface-level relationships can fail when we encounter hard times.
• Another caution would be that to gain many friends, some people are tempted to compromise their principles and thus such friendships could result in a negative influence upon their lives, similar to 1 Corinthians 15:33. Remember, Jesus warned about the dangerous situation in which everyone speaks well of us (Luke 6:26).

David and Jonathan

• “Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself” (1 Kings 18:1).

Knowing the character of David and Jonathan, I believe we can safely assume that what knit the soul of David to Jonathan was that they had much in common at a deep level. Jonathan definitely admired David’s courage, but especially his faith in God (1 Samuel 17:36).

“So take a moment to run through your mental database or relationships. In each instance ask yourself, ‘What’s our common ground? If you took away the activity we share, would our relationship wither? Or do we have the potential of going much deeper, because we share common values? And if you’re looking for a new relationship in hopes of sinking deep roots, try looking among those who have the same core beliefs” (Strobel, p. 149).

The Cost

There is a cost to being friends with God (Luke 9:23-24), and human friendships come with a price as well. The price tag will include:

• Being available. If I want deep friendships when I must be willing to give up some of my privacy and time.

“Some people are like medieval castles. Their high walls keep them safe from being hurt. They protect themselves emotionally by permitting no exchange of feelings with others. No one can enter. They are secure from attack. However, inspection of the occupant finds him or her lonely, rattling around the castle alone. The castle-dweller is a self-made prisoner. He or she needs to feel loved by someone, but the walls are so high that it is difficult to reach out or for anyone else to reach in” (How Do You Say, ‘I Love You’, Judson Swihart, pp. 46-47).

• Being honest and open. It is hard to develop close friendships if we want to remain guarded and very private about our own lives.
• The willingness to enter uncomfortable situations (Romans 12:15). What gets in the way of deep friendships is often the desire to stay in our homes, safe and secure, “unbloodied by conflict but also untouched by the transforming grace of deep and abiding friendships” (Strobel, p. 161).
• “To put it bluntly, you have a choice. God has given you the desire and capacity to enter into community with others and thereby drive a stake through the loneliness that would otherwise darken your life. It’s scary, it’s risky, it’s time-consuming, it’s messy, it’s frustrating. And it’s worth it” (Strobel, p. 161).

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net