Loneliness Is Sometimes a Choice

But now there are many members, but one body.

—1 Corinthians 12:20

It has been said that more people suffer from loneliness than from any other problem. Loneliness is one of the most devastating problems of our time.

Psychologists tell us there are two types of loneliness, and I bet you’ve experienced both. First of all, there is the loneliness of isolation. It comes when we are separated from people we love, either because of distance, because of a defection, or even because of death. Sometimes the loneliness we feel is a loneliness of spirit. It is the sensation that we’re all alone even when we’re in a crowded room, in a church, or even in a marriage.

Whenever we think of loneliness, we think of it as a condition over which we have no control. But some of the loneliness we experience is actually the result of our own choice. Loneliness sometimes results from an attitude that says, “I can make it on my own. I don’t need anyone else.”

Many of us don’t think we need other people. We consider ourselves to be self-sufficient. Paul had a word to the Corinthians about some of them who felt self-sufficient. He writes in 1 Corinthians 12:20, “But now there are many members but one body, for the eye cannot say that a hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ or the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body would seem to be weaker are necessary and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on those we restore more abundant honor.” Now look at verse 26, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

God created you and me in such a way that we need one another in the body of Christ. We desperately need the help and companionship that come from one another.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Living with Loneliness,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.