"Community" Abuse - Why you still feel alone in a room full of people

The search for community seems to be a growing trend over this past decade. We see it in things like Twitter and Facebook. Social media sells us a false sense of being connected to other people. I know that I desire to have relationships in my life. If I update my status and someone likes it, it can make me feel like someone cares about me. Maybe they think I‘m funny or simply remember that I am still alive. I can have 1000 Facebook friends, get 100 likes on a picture or share a story that others comment on, but I can still feel alone.

 

I can be married for twenty years and still feel alone. I can be a mother of four and still feel alone. I can go to church and surround myself with people and still feel alone. I can even give Jesus my whole life and still feel alone. So why have I been taught by well-meaning people that the reason I feel alone is because I am looking to others for my fulfillment and that I need to just give it to God and He will make me not feel that way? He alone will satisfy and everything I need is in Christ.

 

While I do believe I have everything I need in Christ alone, I find one gigantic flaw in current messages about loneliness. I can still feel alone with Jesus as my fulfillment. I am not talking about joy or contentment. I am talking about a genuine feeling of disconnectedness; a feeling of being alone even when you are surrounded by a room full of people.

 

Nothing makes me cringe more than the message, “You need to be in community together.” It seems to be a good message at first, but when we start to use it as a quick fix to feeling connected or being known we leave people feeling empty. I have sat and talked with many people who feel alone and have even wrestled with this myself over the last few years. It seems we are often quick to blame the lonely for not trying to get more involved or getting themselves into a small group where they can have “community.”

 

But God doesn’t want us to just "be in community with one another.” Jesus didn’t come to earth, live a sinless but tempted life and die a brutal death for us to sit in a living room together and rehash what the pastor said on Sunday morning. He did all that because of who He is, a loving Father who would do anything to be reconciled to His children and have a relationship with them. But that is not all. He also wants His children to be reconciled one to another. That is why He says if you don’t love your brother you don’t love Him. If we are not willing to forgive our brother or sister, than He will not forgive us. The two cannot be divorced.  It is through this that we can experience true intimacy like Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

The problem with teaching that says, “You only need Jesus” is it doesn’t take into consideration that God Himself looked at Adam and said it is “not good” for man to be alone. So was God not there? Was Adam not in relationship with God? Not if you read the text. So, there must be more to the story of being alone than just having Jesus to fulfill us. We are meant to be one with God. When we hear this we think of “me, myself, and God,” but that is not what He had in mind. He had something far greater in mind; all of His people in community with Him through reconciliation.

 

But, too often we want to jump right into to calling something community and it is void of any reconciliation. Have you ever been asked to be in a community group and when you got there you weren’t accepted? Maybe you experienced judgment, pride, or even hatred towards you or others in the group. People might have pretended to get along and exchanged pleasantries but there was no depth. There were no real relationships. There was no intimacy. No one called each other during the week and when someone didn’t show up instead of reaching out to the missing person assumptions were made about them. This is how we can still feel alone when we are desperately in love with Jesus, in a room full of people involved in a “community” group.

 

It is also not about forcing yourself to be in a community group with people who think differently than you. The very definition of community is a group of people who share common values or beliefs. It is so much bigger than just “being in community.” It is about being reconciled so intimately with one another that we are interwoven together ONLY by Him. Just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, we are to be like that. - ONE!

 

This is the community we desire deep inside of us. This is the community we were created to be in. It is not easy especially with those who hurt us or make assumptions about us. However, if we allow Him to show us how to give grace and mercy like we have received, forgive like we were forgiven, and love like we are loved it is possible to enter a life group, community group, small group, home group or church and not feel alone. But it starts with reconciliation; not just to the Father, but to one another.