It’s a strange thing, loneliness. You can be lonely while surrounded by people who love you, say they love you, and who you know love you. It doesn’t actually matter how many people surround you; if you fail to actually connect it’s a moot point.
I guess I learned this from experience. On the Race you hear so much about how you can never get any alone time and you’re surrounded 24/7 by people and you’re constantly in community. Okay, perfect; but, why do I still feel like I’m on my own? With 30 other people on this squad, who I see pretty regularly, and at least 5-6 people I see every day why do I feel like I’m alone?
And why do I keep coping with loneliness in the same old ways I always have? Turning to unhealthy sexual tendencies and isolation to self-medicate has been a habitual thing for years of my life. It comes in waves and seasons, and when I think I’ve beaten it or outgrown it or whatever it just comes back.
Surely on the Race those things wouldn’t find me. I would leave them behind and experience Jesus in a way that would make all the other crap disappear completely.
My experience thus far has proved otherwise. I still walk through seasons of loneliness, and I still run back to those things that comfort me.
I actually don’t have any new spiritual insight on this. I’m still walking through it. Maybe I’m lonely because I seek people’s applause rather than a genuine connection with them. Maybe I’ve glorified sex to the point of idolatry and that’s why I run back to my temptations in times of new ground. I don’t know.
Really all I do know is that I don’t know anything about this. It’s laughable how frustrated I get with myself trying to beat it. Not only do I idolize people’s attention and sex, but I can also tend to idolize growth. And when you idolize growth but keep failing at the same stuff then you feel like there’s nowhere to go and you’re drowning.
I asked Jesus 4 months ago in South Africa to let me truly understand the weight of his grace and the weight of his sacrifice on the cross.
There’s really only one way to understand his grace and that’s to actually experience it for yourself. I’ve heard that his grace covers all, and I understood it on an intellectual level; yet, to truly experience this level of grace and unconditional love means giving up on perfection. It means giving up on your own ambition for growth.
It has forced me to a point where I have to admit that I like to be the center of the universe because that means I’m important. It has forced me to turn my eyes outwards and towards the actual center of the universe, the King of Glory, Jesus. To admit that I actually do not have any inherent value is scary; however, the flip side is that I am loved despite it. I am not loved because I am worthy of love; I am loved because a Father who is love has said that he loves me.
It’s given me freedom to live and fail, and to actually feel unconditional love for myself from the Father and my community.
