During the height of one of the lockdowns this past year, a student of mine from California entered the online class I had opened while I was still muted and invisible. An older lady with a pleasant yet slightly mournful countenance, she began talking with one of the other students about how she cannot wait for our weekly sessions together – not knowing that I was hearing everything. My heart broke for her when I realized that she saw the class as the one glimmer of hope and human connection in a world now enforcing loneliness and social distancing. All I wanted to do was simply reach out and give her a hug to try to comfort her in some small way.
As an online lecturer since even before the outbreak of COVID-19, I have noticed the human need for companionship among my students become ever more apparent and acute as the dreary months have dragged on. Loneliness, to put it bluntly, is a little foretaste of hell. God’s very first observation about our humanity summed up the horror of it all: “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Indeed, this was the very first thing in the whole world that he declared to be not good!
In the western culture, a twisted version of individualism and the destruction of family and social connections had already taken a bitter toll on the human psyche before we heard the phrase “social distancing” for the first time. However, even in cultures where being physically alone is almost impossible, the gnawing pain of loneliness within us can be a silent killer of the human soul. God created us for meaningful human connections, and we naturally wilt and wither away in their absence.
Loneliness and the fear of being alone are often directly connected to other issues in our lives – from various forms of addictive behavior to the trail of broken relationships that many of us leave behind in our search for companionship. The pain of unfulfilled longings can lead us to view ourselves as unlovable and unworthy of human contact. Those who claim to actually enjoy being completely alone may simply have reached a point of amputating that part of their consciousness in order to stop the pain.
Logically, the pain of loneliness could be solved by simply having meaningful contact with other human beings. However, our hearts will ultimately remain empty if contact is not made within the context of our even more important relationship with God. The true balance is found in rejoicing in his supreme role as our father, while realizing that he longs for us to live in community with loving siblings (Psalm 22:22; Hebrews 2:12; Romans 8:29) and that he loves to set “the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6).
Now, how can we see the heart of God at work today in this area of our lives? After all, the strictest forms of enforced social distancing prevent people from reaching out for true human connection. In the past year, I have become convinced that there is something profoundly evil about this enforced loneliness and that its dangers likely outweigh any benefits by far. Nonetheless, God has allowed human companionship to become scarcer precisely when its importance has become more obvious.
We find a partial answer to the dilemma in the story of Gideon. Outnumbered and perhaps feeling a bit alone, Gideon likely could not believe it when God asked him to reduce his ranks even further – all the way down to three hundred (Judges 7:1-22). God knew exactly which soldiers he wanted to place around him during the battle. The others may not have been made of the material that Gideon would be able to rely on, and might have ended up weakening his own resolve or even betraying him.
We are also at war today, and while we may wish that we had more comrades surrounding us, we should remember two facts. First, God created us with the need for companionship and he will tenderly care for us. Second, it may be that many of the people that he is removing from our lives are not supposed to fight alongside us in the battles ahead. Ultimately, he knows better than we do which companions we truly need in our lives, and he can judge their character in ways beyond our abilities.
Pain accompanies the loneliness in our hearts, and shame often prevents us from simply admitting that we feel alone. Even if we overcome that obstacle, fear can keep us from trusting God to supply all our emotional needs for companionship. And yet, I can see him watching over us, guiding us closer together even in times of social distancing, and singing over us a song that we will hear in full only in heaven:
I've been waiting to watch you realizeAnd I've been waiting to show you the thread of grace
That ran through all your pain…
And I've been waiting to see you tremble as you're embraced
By a world saturated with my love
I've been waiting for the day when at last I get to say
My child, you are finally home…
Every tear you cried dried in the palm of my hand
Every lonely hour was by my side
Every loved one lost, every river crossed
Every moment, every hour was pointing to this day…
Indeed, the famous verse about him singing over us is found in a context that tells of how he will gather his people together after a time of trouble (Zephaniah 3:14-20)!
This post goes out to all who are lonely in these dark days of social distancing. He sees you, he knows your need, and he has not forgotten your pain. Somehow, may he send one of his faithful servants to simply hug you in a way that will alleviate the pain and remind you of the promise of the eternal embrace of his everlasting arms.
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