I’ve been hanging around with a lot of desperate people lately.
I don’t mean desperate as in your mama telling you not to act like you’re desperate.
I mean people who are desperate for resolution, for relationship, revelation, belonging, purpose, and fulfillment. This desperation takes on different shapes pending how desperately the owner is attempting to cover it. At the end of the day, I think it most often looks like loneliness.
Of course, most of us aren’t answering the question of How’s everything been going? With the response, Ya know, it’s been really lonely lately. Nah. That sounds desperate.
But the more people I spend time with, the louder I’m hearing the hurt. The more I’m feeling that even in a room full of people or sitting with the board of directors, there’s still a void.
People retreat. We begin to listen to the lies of isolation that tell us we’re not enough. Not worthy. Not smart enough. Good enough. Strong enough.
It feels like we’re just nobodies stuck on this carousel going nowhere. No one really sees, or if they do, don’t really care to step into our mess. So we find ourselves on a different carousel – isolation. Yall, I’ve been around long enough to know that this is the devil’s playground. He loves when he can cut us off from the truth and feed us his version of things.
When we are so desperate for a fix, just five minutes of normalcy or acceptance, we’ll listen to just about anything. And in this vulnerable place, we are quick to believe the lies we already kinda believed about ourselves anyway. We keep spinning around and around, carrying on like we don’t matter. Like we can’t change or be any more than we are in this moment.
Just a nobody.
Luke 5:16 says “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Whew! I read that and thought about all of times I have to remove myself in order to get alone with God. I can’t hear Him over the noise of school drop off, groceries, work, texting, and toddlers. I literally choose the lonely places in order to rid myself of all the distractions that get in the way of praying.
Maybe you’ve found yourself in a lonely place. James reminds us that when we come near to God, He will come near to us. Before the miracle. Before we clean ourselves up. Before we know the answers.
It’s as simple and as hard as saying, I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to be alone. God, come alongside me. Ask Him to draw near to you, even if you’re unsure what that might look like in your life. Even if you’re afraid it will isolate you even more.
Or maybe you’re on the other side and want to know how to be there for the lonely, unfulfilled.
You can tell the people in front of you that they are somebody. Yall remember those kid president videos? He advocated for us to make everybody feel like a somebody. Lots of times, we just need to be reminded.
John 15:15-17 says “ I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.”
Listen, somebody needs you. Yeah, your kids and all that. But somebody needs you in particular to invite them to coffee. To ask them hard questions. To invite them in. Somebody needs you to remind them that they are not just some body.
Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made. That thing that you so desperately wanted to change about yourself? God made you that way on purpose. Each of us makes up a different part of the body of believers. I know I’m not good at a lot of things, but there are other things that I can do to be of service in the body. I will serve where I have been placed for today. All the while knowing this place may change tomorrow.
You are the exact sum of the body that was broken for you. That desperate, lonely place you feel can only be filled by the Savior. You can keep trying new hobbies, buying new things, taking more trips, and getting more likes on social media, but those things will only mask the loneliness for so long. You can keep saying you’re fine and crying yourself to sleep because you can’t fix the things around you. You can make all the excuses and keep running. But in case no one has told you before, you’re not a nobody.
And that’s because there’ no body in the grave.
Yall, let’s encourage one another. Support the people around you. If you need support, God has a way of putting the right people around you. Be strong and courageous. You are somebody and God can use you to help somebody else.
Let’s desperately run after Jesus this week and trust that He will fill the loneliness within us to remind us that He made us somebody.
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
1 Peter 4:8-11 “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
Proverbs 14:30 “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”
Ephesians 5:29-30 “After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.”
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
Salty but Sweet 