BP130
Have any of you ever felt alone? Lonely? Some (maybe many) of you have experienced a loneliness so deep it makes both your body and soul ache with a throbbing pain. You might even have felt all alone in the universe. Invisible to all others. Maybe you have given up on ever being seen by another human being. Or by God.
A few people in this world place their trust only in a dog or cat (or lots of cats) since they feel far removed from people. People are not safe. People have hurt them deeply, repeatedly. So, they build a wall to keep people out and settle for relationships with four-legged animals. A great and tragic separation develops between them, God, and two-legged humans. They have made a choice to not only live alone emotionally but to stiff arm other people and maybe even their Creator. Anger, fear, resistance, even stubborn obstinance are some of the bricks in the wall that rises up impenetrably between them and others.
Those of you who have been around Designer Therapy for Life for a while know that Presence is at the core of this whole website. Presence is what life is all about. It’s why we’re all here in this world instead of not being here. It’s why the universe is here instead of nothing at all. So, in a universe where Presence is the meaning of it all, walls are major obstacles to the reason we even exist. They shut out Presence.
Reduced to its simplest form, life is about being with others or being without others. In relationship or separated. Close to or far away. Known or unknown. Reconciled or alienated. Loved or all alone. Free to move toward others or hidden behind a wall of one’s own construction.
Genesis tells us about the first wall that ever existed.
Adam and Eve sinned against God. Their rebellion rose up as a wall between them and their Creator. Also, God’s wrath against sin and unrighteousness became a barrier between us and our loving Father. So, there was a double wall. Our disobedience and God’s holiness cannot inhabit the same space. They are contradictory. Opposed to one another by nature.
Ephesians 2 describes the terrible separation in hopeless terms. It says that we “were by nature children of wrath.” We were “separated”, “alienated”, “strangers”, “having no hope,” “without God in the world”, “far off”. It also says that we were “dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.”
Ugh. Talk about being alone in the universe. We had no access to God. We pushed Him out of our lives and so lost the ability to practice Presence and loving relationships. A great chasm existed between us and our Maker. We had no ability to build a physical bridge across that yawning chasm. Neither did we want to. As Romans 8 says, we were hostile to God.
But then Christmas came. Better said, then Jesus came. The amazing Advent. The Incarnation. In the fulness of time, at the perfect moment according to God’s wisdom, God the Son was born into our world wearing our skin so we could see Him and touch Him—even His garment as the woman did in Mark 5:27.
Now, in addition to the bad news of our fallen and “dead” status described in Ephesians 2, there is also wonderful hope in that epistle written by Paul. Chapter two says that “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us . . . made us alive together with Christ.” The Father through the Son reconciled us to Himself so that we might “have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens.”
When we were far from God, loving our sin, shielding our souls from the light of life, lost and spiritually blind, the baby came. He who created the world entered it from His habitation in eternity.
In my work as a clinical psychologist, I would say that the number one issue facing men and women is separation. Humans isolate themselves from others due to fear, pain, anger, bitterness, jealousy, conflict, hatred, distrust. They are alienated from God due to sin, self-sufficiency, rebellion, and sometimes simply sheer stubbornness. They are even separated from their own selves because only in Jesus do we know who we are, who we were created to be. If we are alienated from Him, we will not know our own identity or have the power and guidance to become who we were created to be. We will not even have access to our hearts to know what dwells within us. A veil covers our souls.
As I have mentioned in other posts, most mental illness (all mental illness if we look at the impact of the Fall on the human brain) is the result of broken relationships with God, others, and oneself. So, yes, separation is THE issue in psychology, theology, and the world of relationships. Nothing else is more devastating to humanity. Ephesians is correct when it highlights the human condition as being “far off.” We are born into this world “alienated.” We are “strangers” to God, others, and our own self.
How powerful and hopeful, then, is the coming of Jesus. He came to reconcile us to the Father, to re-establish friendship between us and our Maker. He became The Bridge. His birth, life, blood, death, sacrifice, and resurrection made The Way for us to run to the Father.
As last week’s post mentioned, Christmas is about God bringing light into our utter darkness. Today’s post is about Jesus coming to restore our relationship with the Father, other people, and even our own hearts. Our fallen selves are all about separation. Jesus is all about withness, being the door that opens the way for us to approach God.
So, don’t be alone. Don’t settle for dogs and cats. Love those canines and felines, yes, but don’t do life without Jesus as your primary source of Presence. Receiving Him opens the door to loving Him, yourself, and other humans—the Two Great Commandments that summarize the whole Bible.
Work to remove every obstacle that towers up between you and Jesus. Deconstruct any wall that separates you from Him—with His help. Appropriate the amazing access that Jesus has opened for you to God. Ask Him to teach you how to love others so that nothing will come between you and other men and women.
Receive His grace and mercy that wipes away all shame and sin so you will have total freedom to look into your own heart with great sorrow but with amazing hope—loved and forgiven.
Before Jesus came, we were separate, alone, far off. In the wake of His birth, life, death, and resurrection, we can be brought near.
Jesus is our Immanuel–God with us. We will never be alone again if we believe in Him for our life purpose instead of Satan or Santa.
How thankful I am that He came. He could have left us alone.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing ~ Luke 4:18ff
