What do I think of human loneliness as a Christian?
Blaise Pascal (famous French philosopher and mathematician) is often quoted for saying inside each and every one of us is a "God-shaped" void or vacuum which is reserved for Him or only He can fill. In the same category as our universal sense of loneliness or alienation, are longings for home, for love, for significance, for permanence (oft called transcendence in philosophy) and for awe and beauty. It is so strange that this is really an innate thing, like some common experience built in our communal "DNA" or memory.
It's also strange that in our clearest and even happiest moments in the midst of friends and loved ones, we are acutely aware still of our need for a significant other, more significant than a lover, spouse, friend, family and even one identical to ourselves. Why is this so? I find that desires in their most raw forms all point to our need for a personal, loving Father God who knows and actively cares for and identifies with us in His Son and communes with His by His Spirit. [I will not explain this statement here, except it is part of His Triune nature] Most desires are good if fulfilled by the right object. The truest and most satisfying object of all our desires in sum and in parts is God Himself: our desires are perfectly matched by and in Him and Him alone. And the desire for fellowship, for communion and for deep belonging is fundamental to our sense of loneliness.
Where does my loneliness point? Will it be met in all its needs? A few of my friends are remarkably sociable creatures. It's great, honestly. But I know that still, all the best of us fail in providing for each other what only God Himself can do. I cannot replace my need for God with a significant other no matter how good he or she is. It is a universal experience again, and that's why romantic idealistic characters can never find that someone in movies. It's a funny experience most of the time because most people just get on with it and know and accept that a good marriage or friendship or relationship is as good as it gets. It's good when we DON'T take the relationship too seriously or exhaustively - I must qualify here - in the sense that we cannot place such a burden on the significant other to provide for ALL that we need. We can't, we don't want to, it breaks the other person and belittles the good that is already in them. A stable, faithful partner is good enough. But still, why this loneliness still, what good can it achieve?
As a Christian, I believe in something hideous called SIN. It is a personal betrayal of God our Father and Creator and Judge, the falling short of the perfect, the twisting of something good into something evil, and the essence of human pride against the goodness and trustworthiness of God. Sin is both against God and against others, usually, but always against God. One of the effects of sin is the separation of humankind with our natural owner or Creator or "husband" [if humankind is female-like] - God: it alienates us from His goodness and righteousness. And we live in it, we feel it, we sense it in loneliness and other cousins of this desire. It reflects a deep defect within us, for which we yearn an answer, a peacemaker.
God promises the deepest of reconciliation and communion with Himself, beginning with forgiveness, and all this freely through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus on our behalf for the sake of our sin. "He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2Cor 5:21). The Bible has so many wonderful images on the relationship the Christian has with God, as his Children (Romans 8:9-11), as people with access to a glorious God (Romans 5:1-2), at peace with God (Romans 5:6-11), and so on. In Him, I truly find what I had been looking for and still long for, not perfectly yet, but fully realised in the future. It's true that though I may sense loneliness, I know it's a residue of the past, no longer a death-hold on my being or behaviour. I have great freedom now and confidence, knowing and tasting the love of God for us in Jesus, to serve and love others. By no means am I doing it right, anyone around me can tell that, but I know that it is a sure process. In Him the Christian is never alone, even if they are outwardly so in the world's eyes.
***
Ecclesiastes 3:11 "[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."
Psalm 43:5 "Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise Him,
my Saviour and my God."
No comments:
Post a Comment