Current statistics claim the most common household in America is a single person, not a family. Can this really be? Even if such statistics can be manipulated to another result, the declaration is still alarming. It is certainly not the desired social landscape God intended for human culture. The text above makes clear that loneliness is not a welcome precursor for successful living.
God created the family for the prosperity of mankind. It is the finest environment in which to grow adults from infancy. As the designer, He makes clear that any aberration from His design results in great societal failure and the increasing deterioration of people’s well-being. On the other hand, even in a fallen world, the family is a God-given antidote to the rot of loneliness and the destruction of essential disciplines.
God is three persons in one; He is triune. That means He has enjoyed infinite and eternal fellowship. Created in His image, we are made to always be in fellowship. We prosper in relationships with other creatures, human especially, but also animal. We experience a serious disconnect to life itself in the pit of temporary or more permanent solitude. “Solitary confinement is a punishment, not a relief, nor a reward.
We can only flourish in fellowship with others. We must depend on relationships to weather the storms of life, in the same way gladness is made so much deeper when it is a shared experience! Robinson Crusoe’s life, shipwrecked on a supposedly uninhabited island, was enriched greatly in the discovery of a new companion, Man Friday. Tom Hanks was forced to create a far less satisfactory companion out of a lifeless, painted-with-a-smile volleyball in his movie Cast Away. Our natural instinct as human beings, despite the few who in unhealthiness seek to live as recluses, is to relish companionship with our fellows. God did not intend for us to be solitary; but one of the great dreads, when Hell is understood in all of its absolute horrors, is the potential of being alone with no one to help.
How can you push your companions away when their companionship is essential to your happiness and to your physical and spiritual health and prosperity? It is the nature of sin! Satan wants you to be alone, and to be miserable in your loneliness. Joy is the outcome of healed and prospering relationships. This is the very reason that working on those relationships and caring for them is a chief priority of your life. The essential element in prospering relationships is having an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can bind you as one with others in your life and family. He is the only one who can bring you to God the Father, and He is the only one who can unite you with other sinful human beings; for He is the sin-slayer.
This is the very reason we at the Paul Anderson Youth Home desire and continuously work toward providing a family environment for the troubled young men God sends our way. We also seek to strengthen the families from which they come. While they are with us we want to teach them what a family should be and the essential elements to beginning and keeping a successful family, since they are themselves, in many cases, only a few years away from leading one. We are only successful in this ministry when the young men not only graduate our program, but when they navigate life after in a manner that pleases God. We pray that God truly sets them in a family in which they themselves ensure Jesus is Lord.
“And blest the man whose age is cheered by stalwart sons and daughters fair; no enemies by him are feared, no lack of love, no want of care.
(4th verse from the Psalter, Psalm 124, “Unless the Lord Shall Build)
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