This is an emergency public service announcement. [Insert obnoxious beeping noise here.]
Nobody has it all together. I repeat, NOBODY HAS IT ALL TOGETHER.
The jig is up. The secret’s out. It’s not just you. You’re not the only one who is a walking disaster. EVERYBODY is a walking disaster.
I have had several dear friends come to me very recently (and many others previously), their hearts breaking, their worlds collapsing and nobody knows. (I think the only reason they tell me is because I’m a bigger mess than they are.)
They have nobody to talk to, no support system to lean on, nobody they can be real with or open up to. They’ve been betrayed by dear friends and now they don’t trust anyone with their real selves. And behind the confident facades they present, they are so lonely.
When my sisters and I were growing up, whenever we went anywhere without my folks (the movies, the mall, the bathroom), Mom would always say, “Stay together!”
Safety in numbers. Keep each other out of trouble. Don’t let each other get distracted.
And I think sometimes God looks at His children, all walled off, closed up, bluffing perfection, maintaining distance and calls to us, “Stay together!”
We were created for community. And yet we’re lonely. All of us. Everybody’s lonely. And we’re not safe.
In Genesis 1 and 2, we get the description of God’s creation of the world. Let there be light, let there be stars, let there be land, let there be sea, let there be animals of all kinds, etc. And every single time He created something new He said, “It is good.”
Then He creates Adam, gives him his first job naming the animals, but none of them would work as a partner. The very first problem in the Bible, the very first ‘not good’ thing in the world God created, in His own words, is man being alone (Genesis 2:18).
Secular studies agree. Psychologists and neuroscientists at the University of Chicago conducted a study showing that ‘lonely people are constantly (and subconsciously) guarding against social threats.’ So already-lonely people try to protect themselves by isolating, which makes them more lonely and creates a downward spiral.
We all learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in high school and college. The first and second needs are physiological (food, water) and safety. Immediately after that is love and belonging, even BEFORE self-esteem and self-actualization. Maslow said we need love of others before we can love ourselves.
But Satan feeds us lies about being alone. And often, we just eat them up without checking the label:
Pride: “I’m independent and that’s a good thing. It means I’m strong and brave. I got my junk together. I don’t need any help.”
Misunderstanding of personality traits: “It’s just my personality. I’m an introvert. I don’t need anyone.”
Excuses: “I’m too busy for friendships. I’m not really good at friendships anyway.”
And biggest of all, fear: “I’ve been hurt by friendships. If I confide in someone, they’ll have more ammo to hurt me and I’ll get stabbed in the back again. They won’t care or understand.”
And for every lie we swallow, we are poisoned just a little more against the community we were made for and so desperately need.
We turn inward and we get crazy. (You know what I mean. When people don’t have anyone to bounce stuff off of, they start to get weird.)
We have no accountability and we get stupid. (See Post-Divorce Brain Damage.)
We have no incoming truth and we get confused.
We have no encouragement and we get insecure.
Make no mistake: Satan wants you disconnected, isolated, ineffective. Think about the predators on all the nature shows. Their first move is to separate their prey from the safety of the herd.
So as my dad always said growing up when we would complain about something, “That’s the problem. What’s the solution?”
First, we must SHOW UP.
Uninvited, at times. We try to be so polite: I don’t want to get in their business. If they need help, they’ll ask.
No, they won’t. At least, I didn’t. Because I was also being polite and not wanting to put anybody out or be too needy. So I just said I was fine.
But my friend, Hannah, didn’t buy it. Still trying to be like her in proactively loving others. (See Obnoxious love.)
Secondly, we must BE REAL.
It’s very normal to try to impress someone you meet for the first time (or in an ongoing relationship). But here’s the problem with that: You can’t connect and impress at the same time.
If you impress someone or if someone impresses you, it creates distance. Someone feels less than the other. Connection can’t grow in that soil.
I know I quote this scripture often (Revelation 12:11), but remember, Satan, the one who seeks to isolate us and separate us from the herd to take us out, is overcome by the blood of the Lamb (check!) and the word of the testimony.
We must tell our stories to connect. Not to make it about ourselves or to get a bunch of attention, but to throw out a life preserver marked ME TOO to a soul secretly drowning behind a fake smile.
Thirdly, SHARE FAITH.
It was never meant to be done alone, people. Private, individualized faith is something we made up to not offend our friends who believe differently than we do. And sometimes we even carry it over to those who DO believe what we do.
In Ephesians 6, Paul teaches us about the ‘armor of God.’ When he talks about the shield of faith, he was referring to a shield soldiers used at the time, about three feet wide by five feet tall. It was covered in braided leather and then doused with water so it could extinguish flaming arrows.
But here’s the best part:
Each side of the shield was shaped like a puzzle piece that fit with the shields on either side. When it was necessary, you could lock shields with the soldiers next to you and create a wall of protection. So if your strength started to fail, you are protected by the shields of others standing with you.
The picture takes my breath away.
Sometimes my faith fails. Every once in a while, for different reasons or sometimes no reason at all, I start to question everything. And in those moments, I need to lock my shield with someone else.
There was a moment of absolute moral failure in my life several years ago in my single days when I was pretty sure I had disqualified myself from any future Christian ministry at all. My head knew that forgiveness was just a whisper away. But the weight of the sin was so crushing, I couldn’t even breathe a prayer of repentance.
So I called a friend. Late at night. Begged her to come over and scrape me off the floor. (I was LITERALLY sitting on the hardwood floor in a puddle of tears because I didn’t think I deserved to sit on the couch.)
“Tell me the gospel like I’ve never heard it before,” I begged her. “Tell me how I can KNOW that what I’ve done was on Jesus’ shoulders when He died on the cross.” My faith failed, and her faith shielded me. She spoke the truth over me that night and I was restored, with fresh wonder of my loving Father welcoming home His prodigal.
I was at a Christian conference with some dear friends. One friend in particular was standing in front of me facing the stage while we were all worshiping. It was a powerful song, eyes were closed, hands were raised.
Suddenly my friend turned around, leaned toward me and said, “Is this for real? I mean, is all this real? Or are we all just crazy? I need you to tell me it’s real.”
Her faith had been under steady attack from a family member for a couple of years and it was starting to take its toll. She needed to lean on my faith.
“It’s real. I promise. It’s all real.”
She let out a sigh of relief and nodded. “Okay, good. I might need you to keep telling me that.”
I squeezed her hand and said, “And at some point, I’m gonna need YOU to tell ME that.”
We locked shields and promised to tell each other the truth again and again and again.
Lastly, we must GET PRACTICAL.
There’s a fairly old youtube video called the Battle at Kruger. I think it’s currently one of the top-viewed videos of all time. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you don’t have time right now, I’ll summarize it for you and you can go back and watch it later.
SPOILER ALERT:
There’s this herd of wild water buffalo (I think that’s what they are) and this pack of three or four lions. The lions manage to separate one of the babies from the herd and are getting ready to enjoy the feast.
Now I have always LOVED nature movies. The Planet Earth documentaries are the best. But this is the part I hate. I know, the Circle of Life, blah, blah, blah. I get it, I understand it, I respect it, but I don’t want to WATCH it.
We’ve seen it a million times. The predator(s) pick off the prey, usually the most vulnerable in the pack, and the herd moves on.
But not this time. This is the nature video I’ve been waiting my whole life to see.
The herd comes back. That’s right, THE HERD COMES BACK FOR THEIR OWN. I don’t know how they figured it out, but somehow the buffalo realized there were more of them than there were lions. And if they stuck together, they could take them out.
The massive herd moves toward the few lions, who have yet to really dig into their meal (due to the distraction of a crocodile who tries to steal their dinner). Closer and closer. The buffalo have horns. A few of the big ones charge the lions one at a time and eventually they lose their grip on the baby. Good effort, but it’s probably too late.
Wrong again. The dazed and confused little buffalo struggles to his feet and is ushered back into the herd by several larger buffalo, while a few others chase the lions off.
Let me type this through tears: THIS IS THE CHURCH.
So often, the weak ones get picked off, we shake our heads sadly and move on. Another one bites the dust. That’s so sad.
No more. We must go back. Go back for OUR OWN who have fallen prey to the enemy.
Go back for the addicts, the adulterers, the sick, the divorced, the bankrupt, the arrested, whatever. We cannot let our people go without a fight. The enemy is bluffing. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.
It’s time to take our masks off. It’s time to breathe the fresh air of authenticity instead of wheezing the thin oxygen behind our barriers of self-protection. I know it’s terrifying. I know you’ve been hurt before. And you will be hurt again. Nobody has it all together.
But it’s worth the risk. We need each other. We were created for community.
There is an old Indian proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
We’ve got far to go, my friends. This life is a marathon, not a sprint.
And I say we stay together.
What do YOU say?
