When we're going through a lonely patch in life, the most common response, is introspection. We withdraw into ourselves and have a pity party about how terrible things are. Well, as it turns out, that's absolutely the worst thing you can do, because it just makes things worse. What we really want, is something that makes things better, right?!
Loneliness – that deep hurt inside, that rises out of the painful realisation that we're not connecting with other people. And a key part of that downward spiral of loneliness is a sense of powerlessness, a sense that we're not good enough, or worthy enough, or important enough to do anything about it.
That's why this week we're looking at dealing with loneliness. I really believe that if God is God, He doesn't want us to be lonely. If you've missed any of these programs this week on loneliness, I'll let you know at the end of the program how you can listen to them again online. You know when we're lonely the last thing we think we can do is to help other people, but amazingly reaching out turns out to be very much a part of the solution.
Go and stand in the local shopping centre and just watch for five or ten minutes, you see people rushing around, doing stuff and not connecting. Now my local shopping centre is a really large, new, flash shopping centre. And you almost never see people stop and recognise each other and connect. A century ago and more, communities had like the village square, you know that green patch and the houses were all around the village square and families connected. That's been replaced by the shopping centre, the shopping mall. The connection and community have been replaced by lots of lonely people wandering around aimlessly, in and out of shops.
Here's a tough reality … the world is not going to stop and help you or me just because we're lonely. Let me say that again – the world, the way it is today, is just not going to stop and help you and me because we feel lonely. It's true in many families, it's true even in many churches, not all but in many. That's painful but it's not our fault, it's not your fault, it's not about you or me, it's just the way the world is.
Probably, this is not what you want to hear if you happen to be feeling lonely and powerless right now. But the fact is that Social Darwinism is alive and well. It is a jungle out there and it's all about the survival of the fittest. It's not that people are horrible; it's not that people don't want to help; it's not that everyone is nasty; it's just not a neighbourly kind of world anymore. People are too busy.
Great, so now what? If I'm lonely in a world where everybody's too busy to stop and connect with me, what's going to happen to me now? With loneliness, with a sense of being desperately alone and not connected with people, comes a sense of helplessness – I can't do this; I can't change this; I'm no good; no one's going to want me. Now that's understandable but it should be temporary. Unfortunately, the further people go down that downward spiral of loneliness, it sets in and becomes permanent. Some people just plan on being perpetual victims for the rest of their lives.
Maybe you are walking through loneliness right now? Maybe someone that you know is walking through loneliness right now? And this sounds particularly tough. It is, it has to be. Here's the rub, maybe being the victim would've worked thirty or forty years ago. But it's not going to work today. No one has got time. Bottom line, wallowing won't work and that's a good thing.
It's a good thing because if you're someone that's lonely, one of the biggest needs that you have is to get over self-pity; is to get over that sense of powerlessness; is to get over this reality that "I can't do anything and it won't work". What you need is to reach out. Maybe you know someone who is lonely and who feels powerless, they need to take this step and reach out. They need to connect.
If you're lonely you have this deep need but how, how do you do that when everyone is just too busy? Comes back to something we were talking about the other day – loneliness gives us a time and a space to discover who we are, what we enjoy, what we're good at. Maybe that's basketball or maybe you're like me and you're vertically challenged and you'll never be any good at basketball. Maybe your gift is sitting down and talking to people and making them feel better, drinking coffee. Maybe you've got a coffee ministry coming up, maybe your gift is serving.
We don't discover these things until we've had time and space in a period of loneliness to explore them. I truly believe that's true. It was true in my life. I had some things I was good at but I never really had time to develop them and to nurture them and to come to grips with them. Me, I discovered in that time that I was good at story telling. So, in the period of loneliness we have time to discover our gifts and what we're good at. And we can now go and take those gifts and add value to someone.
Busy people don't notice victims. Busy people do notice other people who add value, that's one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is lonely people need to develop their self-esteem and they can do that by adding value. I don't know about you, but it seems to me, like those two things are made for each other. When Berni was lonely and single again ten years ago, God was doing stuff in my life so I ended up going to a church. It was a little church in a place called Oyster Bay, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, in Australia.
There were only about 30-35 people in this church and I went along all broken and lonely and not knowing whether anyone would ever think anything of me again. And I discovered they only had one piano player. Well, I can play the piano and so I practiced and practiced and practiced and I ended up playing the piano during the services. And people noticed that I seemed to be good with words and so I was asked to lead worship. And so the pastor of the church asked me to preach. I'd been a Christian for five minutes and this guy said to me, "Hey Berni, why don't you get up and preach one Sunday?"
All of a sudden, I discovered I could contribute to other people's lives using my gifts. Have you noticed I'm still doing that? Right now, I'm doing the thing that I discovered when I was lonely. Isn't God fantastic, isn't God just wonderful? And that was great for me; I needed to have a sense that I could add value to other people's lives. Wallowing won't work, adding value will.
Jesus was just a crummy carpenter. He was misunderstood, misinterpreted, mistreated. He often went to lonely places to pray, but that loneliness didn't debilitate Him; that loneliness didn't stop Him from doing what God had called Him to do. That's the picture, that's the model!
Are you in a world that's too busy to notice that you're lonely? Well get up, take up your cross and follow Jesus – not to be served, not to be the victim – but to serve. And as you take the gifts that God has given you and you serve other people with those gifts, you're going to bless your socks off. You're going to do things in your heart and your soul and your spirit that you never dreamed that you could possibly do, because God is a God of grace.
You get up and follow Him and watch out what God does with that.
