They say London is the loneliest city in Europe. Studies suggest over 30% of Londoners feel lonely in what is the third largest city in Europe. And it’s not hard to see why. Anne Hathaway once said:
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“Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.”
We all crave relationship. We all crave intimacy and want to be connected to someone or something other than ourselves. Throughout school, I craved friendship. I was bullied a lot, and I was incredibly lonely. I spent most of my lunch-times alone in a corner of the playground or trying to make friends with some of the cool kids. In the end I was drawn to music. The music department at my school was a place where I was accepted, where I made connections and friendships with people, and that connection and friendship shaped who I am now.
Loneliness is what happens when our body is telling us to get connected. John Cacioppo, Ph.D, Professor at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, likened the feeling of loneliness with feelings like hunger, pain and thirst. It motivates us to find relationship and connection.
Our desire to know and be known is a fundamental part of the human condition, and when we don’t have that level of intimacy, it’s no wonder we feel lonely. This longing for a deeper connection is no surprise, we were created in the image of a relational God. The Bible gives us a picture of a God who is in relationship. The three persons of God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; or the trinity as they are collectively known, are in such close and perfect relationship that they are one.
The Greeks first described this connectedness as “Perichoresis”, which Alister McGrath defined as:
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“… [it] allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a ‘community of being,’ in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them.”
This relational God created us to have relationship. We were created both for relationship with each other, and with God. Through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit we are able to have relationship with God the Father. To know and be known.
We were not designed to be lonely, in the same way that we were not designed to be hungry or thirsty, we were created for relationship.
The life and death of Jesus make a relationship with God possible. Because God is a perfect God, and our sins make us imperfect, God could not have true relationship with us. God is a just God so sin needed to be dealt with, but he is also the very definition of love, so he decided to deal with it himself. Jesus came to Earth and God became man, one of us. He went through everything we go through to identify with us. Through puberty, rejection, abuse, temptation, persecution. He was beaten, betrayed and ultimately executed for a crime he did not commit. He went through the deepest of human suffering and died in our place, but not only that he rose from the dead, allowing us to rise with him if we accept what he did for us. 1 Peter 2 says:
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“This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.He never did one thing wrong,Not once said anything amiss.
They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.”
“He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it…”
Whatever we go through, Jesus has been there. The God who suffered on the cross to purchase our freedom suffers alongside us. He is with you whatever you are going through, you are not alone.
I’m not saying that this relationship with God replaces our need for human connection, we were created for both. But with God we have someone who is with us wherever we are, and will never leave us or forsake us. However you are feeling today, whether you are lonely or quite the opposite. God wants to know you, and wants to be known by you as well. Reach out to him. Because you are not alone.
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