I can totally understand the fears of loneliness and I think it’s one of Americas largest problems, even people with lots of friends and a loving family still often feel alone and isolated from others. How do you deal with loneliness? Do you just go out and meet a bunch of people, keep the radio or TV on, become “everybody’s friend” so you’ll never be alone with your own thoughts? If it’s the fear of being alone that drives you to meet people, you won’t even be able to make good friends. Here, let me explain.
All of us are alone in the sense that we’re the only person on our body and no matter how many friends you have or close relatives, when push comes to shove, you’re alone with just yourself and your thoughts. When your life on earth is over, you’re going stand before God alone. 2 Cor. 5:10, “we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to what hath he done, whether good or bad.” So, one of the first steps to being loneliness is knowing that no matter how close you get to another person(s), you’ll always be an entity unto yourself and they can become a part of your life, but they can’t become a part of you. Even your closest friends or companion doesn’t know your innermost thoughts. “What a man knoweth the things of a man except the spirit of that man which is within him?” 1 Cor. 2:11.
How’s this helping you? Well, once you realize this, you’ll know that you’ll be spending the rest of your life and eternity with you. That means you’d better put some time and effort in becoming the person you WANT to spend time with and be the kind of person whose own company you enjoy. Nothing on earth is more uncomfortable than not liking yourself. It’s awful and an awful feeling to be alone and be alone with your own thoughts when they’re the kind you don’t respect. If you can’t stand yourself, you’re divided against yourself. If you don’t become the kind of person you like and respect, you’ll never be very able to get along with other people. In fact, you won’t even be able to get along with God. If you can’t love yourself, how do think you could ever anyone else? I’m not talking about loving the old you, the one that’s corrupt and deceptive, no, but love the new person who’ve created in Jesus Christ. The OLD you are what caused you all different kinds of problems but the new you are recreated in the image of God.
When you don’t really like the kind of person you are, you try to get more out of your friendships than they can provide. You look to your friends to provide the happiness, satisfaction and meaning in life that only can come from the inside when you’re at peace with God. That fact is, these other people can’t do it, no human being can do that for you and when you expect them to do that, you end up “smothering” them. You do what’s called “overkill” and so, before long, they drop you and move on to some one else and you end up lonely again all because you we’re trying to avoid loneliness. There’s a strong tendency when you’re trying desperately to avoid loneliness, drop your integrity in effort to make “friends”. You might start doing things you probably never thought you would do in order to fulfill your loneliness and that’s how you can begin to slowly lose out on God and as a person. Dropping your integrity or otherwise compromising your standards will always ultimately backfire on you and then you’re left with even slimmer chances of finding that meaningful relationship that could add to your happiness.
This is why so many “popular” people are empty and frustrated inside. They know a lot of people and they become different things to those different people, but none of those relationships are held together by mutual admiration and respect. In fact, sometimes popular people can’t even stand some of the people they hang around and that’s what leads many of them to feeling even more lonely.
Part 2 coming soon!
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