connected loneliness?

It is a weird time to be alive. At a time when we can connect to pretty much anyone at anytime anywhere in the world, many of us still find ourselves feeling isolated and lonely. How can that be? Well, I think if we look a little deeper we might find that in the process of “connecting with others” many of us do so in an attempt to serve our own identities and own needs. After all, marketing slogans like “Have it your way!” “What can brown do for you?” and others focusing on “good old No.1” are very popular and effective. And behind every slogan, is a service to meet our every need. If you have the cash, you can have someone make your bed, do your shopping, walk your dog, heck, you can even pay someone to raise your kids for you… .  We want to be unique, yet we want “mainstream” acceptance and that has gotten a lot of us to this weird place of what we might call “connected loneliness” (see except below from Barna for more on this subject). Strange. Or is it?  I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that we find ourselves empty when at the core the goal was meeting our own needs in the first place. Okay, do you feel beat up yet?  Here’s the deal: God created each of us in a very unique way and knows us each individually.(Psalm 139) And, He calls us to unity and oneness under His name. (Eph. 4) This uniqueness that you possess was given to you so you could serve others in a unique way. Each of us coming together as ONE for the sake of the other (not ourselves) is the kind of connectedness that defeats loneliness.  Be yourself; be who God created you to be; and, in the process, love, serve and lead others.  Thoughts?

~ by Brian Kruckenberg on June 3, 2008.