The Lonely Man
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18
We men are funny creatures, often spurning the very provisions God sends to meet the needs of our hearts. We too often choose our loneliness by shutting ourselves off from others, withdrawing into our own cave of isolation, and shutting out those who would help and comfort us. Let’s look at what this story tells us about ourselves, about human contact, and about intimacy.
Here Adam began his life alone, and initially he knew no other possible reality was available. To the other animals God did not need to make such a point — they were and remain creatures of instinct, and not of a cognitive process. But we people think, but our minds are not perfectly tuned instruments and often our thoughts run counter to logic, even against our own best interests. But in the beginning it was not so. Adam in his innocence thought clearly and here we read of the first learned realization of Adam — actually the first learning moment for the entire human race: among all that God had created there was no suitable companion for him.
God caused Adam to sleep, and there is a picture in this of God’s independent activity to provide for our needs. While we sleep He works, and when we are hopelessly unable to help ourselves, God steps into the picture to provide for us, His creation, what we need. We see the loving Creator heart of God in this act, and the first picture of the Redeemer heart of God as well. Not only, we learn, does he love us in our innocence, not only is He moved to meet innocent needs of innocent people, but His love extends to us when we are guilty, and He is the Provider of the means of our salvation as well.
God created woman, and He blessed them both, male and female, and gave them to one another. Women are normally more sociable than men, and they as a gender need very little convincing that they need others. Men, on the other hand, are on the whole much more isolated and withdrawn, but the need is still there deeply embedded within us. God answers the need for loneliness with His presence, but also with the gift of marriage and family.
In our day and age a phenomenon has developed in Western societies that is unseen in history, that a new stage of life has begun in the last sixty years that human society has done without in all the previous millennia. Prior to the mid-way point through the Twentieth Century the vast majority of people left the home of their mother and father and entered into marriage. Very few adults lived by themselves, less than 10%, and those were mostly widows and widowers. But since the 1950’s onward a new stage of life has begun in the West, the stage of being a single adult, living alone. In 1950 9% of American households were people living alone. By 1970 it was 17%, and by 2012 that had become 28%. One in seven Americans live alone, and 50% of adults are unmarried. Statistics are very similar for Western Europe.
What this means is that we are facing an epidemic of loneliness in coming years. We have lived alone and we will die alone. And as computer technology has increased more and more people are losing or failing to develop personal people skills necessary for intimacy and fulfillment. We choose digital means of communication rather than live ones. We humans are made first for God, but second for one another. Prior to this point in time, the vast majority of people went from their family of origin into marriage, from their parents to their marriage relationship, but now our society has invented a period of independence, and even idealized it, as a time when drinking, partying, and brief and meaningless sexual encounters are supposed to be the “best days” of our lives. And some have even chosen artificial, impersonal, digitalized means of sexual experience over true and meaningful intimacy with one special life-long mate.
God met the need of loneliness not with the gift of community only, not with the chance of brief sexual encounters with virtual strangers, not with the possibility of seeing others in good relationships, and not with fame and adulating crowds, but He met this need through marriage and family.
There have always been single adults among us — and we should remember that our Lord was a single adult — and to some God gives the gift of celibacy. Matthew 19:10–12 provides the Lord’s teaching on the matter. It is not everyone’s gift, or even the majority of people. But singleness alone is not a curse, neither need it be unhealthy. Yet even those with the gift of celibacy need community, friendships, and human intimacy. We are not made to be alone — not even alone with God.
Our greatest need as a race is intimacy with God, to know Him and to experience Him, but in this experience He also brings us into intimacy with others. It is interesting that in John 14:23 Christ spoke to the individual’s experience and said that He and the Father with make their home in the individual (“make our home in him” — it is singular in the Greek), so there is a personal, individual experience and relationship we need with God through Christ. But in the next breath Christ also spoke of the community when He said in the plural, “Peace I leave with you (plural)” (John 14:27), and there are experiences we have with God through Christ that we need the community of believers to experience.
This is our great need today — to be in intimate relationship with others, to have a close group of trusted and loving friends, to have those who respect us and love us, and to share our love and respect with them as well. All life is empty and unfulfilling until we have resolved these two matters: our relationship with God through Christ and our relationship with our fellow human beings, especially our spouse, family, and closest friends. Nothing is a suitable substitute for these.
