We aren’t alone
“Alone as I sit and watch the trees. Won’t you tell me if I scream will they bend down and listen to me?” This is how the song, Only The Trees, by Hootie and the Blowfish begins. Sadly, the song ends with this line, “And no one is listening to me, not even the trees”. Have you ever felt this way? Loneliness. We live in a lonely world.
A few years back, I read a study that indicated 90% of the men who had participated in the survey, said they felt as if they didn’t have one true friend. Loneliness does not discriminate, affecting all classes, races and sexes.
One of the main ways loneliness is created is through the isolating way we approach community. We isolate those who don’t look like we look, live like we live, have the same education or financial status as us, and so on. And, church, we aren’t that much different from the world in this respect. We isolate based on doctrines, income, race, age demographics, high church versus low church, and the list could go on.
As followers of Jesus, we need to learn to see the issues caused in this world by loneliness and how they are affecting our friends and neighbors. But more importantly than just seeing these issues, we need to do what we can to help eliminate loneliness.
At the beginning of time, God made this statement, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone…” (Genesis 2.18). This statement remains true today.
Although God has assured us that He is always with us and will never forsake us, it’s always reassuring to see Him in a physical sense via the hands, feet, hugs and conversations others offer to us.
We can begin our mission of eliminating loneliness by doing what we can to see people within our church communities on Sunday’s who might need a friend. Before you sit down, look around your meeting space and find someone who is sitting alone and ask them to sit with you. No one should ever sit alone in church.
Think about those in your church community and within your neighborhood you could begin reaching out to today: a young mother. A fresh out of college, first time job holder who is away from home for the first time. The elderly. Often, they have lost a spouse and family members live in other states, and they feel as if they have no one. Do you see them? Empty-nesters. People who are single.
Invite people over for dinner. Take them to lunch after church. Invite them to your small group. Invite them to share Thanksgiving dinner with you.
God values each one of us. We must value each other. And one of the best ways we can value others is by making sure they aren’t lonely.
And when we make sure that others aren’t alone, we are also assuring that we aren’t alone. Offering company to another also creates company for ourselves.
Joey Haynes is a follower of Jesus, married way out of his league, has two of the coolest children in the universe and is blessed to work with an amazing community of believers known as The Church at Rome.