Craving Community
People Were Made for Each Other
I don’t know about you, but I have experienced seasons of overwhelming loneliness. It’s the worst.
For me, nothing quite beats moving to a new town right before my freshman year of high school. My friends told me we’d stay close. We had been in each other’s inner circles since third grade. But once the distance between us grew, our friendships shrunk in depth. Texts and phone calls never compare to middle-school hallways, car rides, and sleepovers.
Meanwhile, I knew no one in my new town. I was the new girl, and there was no warm welcome. I felt so alone that I even cried during lunch one day (which made me feel even more pathetic), my hot and fast tears making their great escape before I could hold them back. I was surrounded by people, reminding me just how lonely I was and how I wished I had my friends from back in my hometown. In my new life, my inner circle was empty. There was no circle at all.
When I wanted to forget my loneliness, I discovered a whole new world of connection on the internet. YouTube became my escape, a haven from school, and a place where I found connections and a creative outlet as I fostered a virtual community. Still, my heart craved physical community. Although my group of friends on the internet became wide, it didn’t go deep. I still felt alone because I wanted to do more than “like” photos of my friends. I wanted to take photos with them.
At a church I visited, the youth pastor preached on how God wired us for connection, that we weren’t created to go at life alone. Though it wasn’t my choice, that’s exactly what I was: alone. I wondered, Is God disappointed in me because I don’t have someone to call “friend”?
What was I going to do?
The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. —Genesis 2:20–22
When God created people in His image, He wove within us a craving for community.
We crave community with God and with people who bear His image. We see it in the very beginning, in Genesis. When God created Adam and asked him to name every animal, Adam wasn’t content just hanging out with the monkeys and giraffes. Adam’s heart longed for someone. Without skipping a beat, God put Adam to sleep in the garden shade and gave Adam someone his heart would soon skip a beat for.
Adam couldn’t find what he longed for on his own because it wasn’t there.
Our hearts are hardwired for human connection—image-bearing connection. Connection with God and connection with others, whom He has created in His image. Being made in God’s image means that we are, in essence, little mirrors of Him.
There was no other image bearer in the garden that day. It was just Adam. That’s why Eve represented something much deeper than a romantic lover; she was the physical expression of image-bearing, human connection.
And that, my friend, is a gift from God’s heart. He is a God of community, and, because we are made in His image, we are people who crave community. We were created to love God, to be loved by God, and to experience His love alongside other people.
So, what about me—the girl who cried alone at lunch? What about the girl growing up in a digital world who feels discouraged? She’s not alone in the garden of Eden waiting for the second human to be created—she’s surrounded by billions of humans, unable to connect with one.
God sees you. He knows your loneliness before you do. Even before Adam could bring up his desire from his heart and out of his lips, God saw it wasn’t good for him to be alone. Look what God said before Adam couldn’t find a helper fit for him: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him” (Genesis 2:18).
God knows our desires. He can use loneliness to bring us closer to Him. During my season of overwhelming loneliness, my friendship with God deepened. In the soil of solitude, the God who created the farthest, most desolate part of outer space never left me alone. In your season of loneliness, fall into friendship with our Maker. Trust Him to bring friends who will sharpen you to become more like Himself.
Our craving for community shows us one way we are like Him. Your heart desires friendship because God placed that desire in there. He will be in our circle, always—from now into eternity. Jesus is our friend who doesn’t just walk beside us; His Spirit dwells in us. He is with us, in every sense of the word, now and forever.
