Moving from Loneliness to Companionship

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
–Genesis 2:18

Imagine you’ve been asked to participate in an experiment. You and the other participants are to stand in a circle and toss a ball back and forth. You’re instructed to make sure everyone has an opportunity to catch and throw the ball. What you don’t know is that everyone else has been instructed never to allow you to have the ball. So as everybody is laughing and tossing the ball, you reach for it, but it never comes your way. How would you feel? Would you continue to ask for the ball, or would you eventually withdraw from the others?

Perhaps this experiment sounds uncomfortably similar to your life. No matter how often you reach out, the ball never seems to be thrown to you. Maybe you feel distant from your family, and your attempts to bridge the gap are not reciprocated. Maybe you feel isolated because of your daily responsibilities or because of a difficulty you’re going through. Maybe you miss the companionship of somebody who left you or passed away.

Though almost everybody deals with loneliness, nobody wants to talk about it. But we have to conquer the mountain of loneliness if we want to experience the blessed life God has for us. The fact is, you and I were created for companionship. After creating Adam, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Was Adam really alone in the garden of Eden? No, he had a relationship with God that wasn’t tainted by sin, and he had a whole zoo of animal companions. But God said that wasn’t enough.

Companionship isn’t a luxury; it is essential for our spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. Even secular science agrees. A recent advisory from the US surgeon general reported that social isolation is associated with an increased risk of disease, anxiety, depression, and dementia. The advisory also made this amazing statement: “Lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”

God created us for companionship, and being deprived of that companionship is like being deprived of oxygen. We need other people.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Moving from Loneliness to Companionship,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2021.

Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community (U.S. Public Health Service, 2023), https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.