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SA Ep106 - Lonely, I'm So Lonely... · Seeking Approval Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smilster from the Iliad Baptist Church.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life moves faith.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And faith is not meant to be rushed.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So join me here today on Seeking Approval.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We may have thousands of followers on social media.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have Facebook friends.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have three text groups going on at one time, if not more.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Social media accounts flood our home screen of our phone.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Messages all day.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have FaceTime.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: We can see what somebody is doing on the other side of the world instantly.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can know what an old friend from years ago had for supper just moments ago that we've not seen or spoken to in years.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the latest research says that four out of ten Americans belong to at least one online community.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, among those, about half the people report feeling more lonely than they've ever felt before.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder why we are living in such a time where we're more connected than we've ever been, and yet more people feel more lonely than they've ever been.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The communities that that we're part of, when I say communities, I'm talking about these social media communities and online communities and different things.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: These communities, they can be useful and they can be helpful for certain things.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can learn things, we can laugh about things, keep up with people, talk about hobbies, get advice, and sometimes genuine friendships and even you know, marriages, families are formed from this.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But why why are we so connected yet we have so many that are feeling so lonely?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think because connections and relationship is not the same thing.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God, whenever He created man, He said in ver in Genesis chapter 2, uh verse 18, he said, And and the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not talking about a connection.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is not talking about uh having a cell phone or a screen in between you.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is talking about genuine connection where you can speak and someone listens, where someone else can speak and you listen.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he said in in uh later, whenever he created Eve, that he said, and it was good.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was good that Adam finally had someone.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: He had he had checked all the beasts, the creeping things and the fish and the fowls, and there was no one for Adam to have a true relationship with.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: He could connect with a dog, he could connect with his closest little animal pet friend, but there was no true relationship there.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, he said, Two are better than one, for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to do that through a social media account.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We all need somebody.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a difference in being alone and being lonely.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Luke 5.16 says, and he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's times whenever being alone is a good thing.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I like being alone, like I am today in recording this.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I need some time, especially after Sunday services, to really kind of decompress after what is no doubt on Sundays, it is it is a roller coaster of emotions.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Really, for a pastor, a pastor that loves his church, not just a hireling that's there for the money or you know, you know, there just in in hopes of maybe making a difference in someone's life.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: If if I just want to make a difference in someone's life, I could go be a social worker.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just be a difference in someone's life.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make a difference in someone's eternity.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make a difference in someone's relationship with the God of this universe.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's more than just, I want to make a difference in their life.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when when you when you care and love a group of people that much, Sundays are very uh we could almost say traumatic to your senses.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It it attacks you physically, uh for me anyway, it attacks you mentally, and it attacks you spiritually.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in all those ways, you just come out of Sundays for me and you you just don't know what to think.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's very difficult for me to have discussion right after I I've uh been got out of the pulpit from preaching.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I preach with a little bit more, what you might say, uh vigor and passion than maybe some folks may.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody preaches the same way or has the same style.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's just my style.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that style is physically and mentally and spiritually exhausting.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's times whenever I need to just get by myself and just have some time alone to be able to decompress and and go back through everything and get out of the moment to where I can look back and evaluate how things went and what was said and things of that nature.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's good to be alone, but there's a difference in being alone and being lonely.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can be surrounded by people and still be lonely.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: A crowded church can be lonely for someone.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: A married person can be lonely.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's maybe some of you that are listening to this now that are lonely.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Social media gives us that that kind of contact, those connections with people that you're connected, but it's not, it's you could still be lonely.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you could have all the followers, and there's people out there with millions of followers.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you you talk to them or you or you read interviews about them, and they talk about how lonely they are at times.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Among the people participating in the online communities, only about one in five, about twenty percent of those feel extremely close to the people that are in in that group.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So only about twenty percent of the people say that, you know, I I feel really close to the people that I'm in there, I'm in this group with.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we we get these things, you know, the when when somebody's in a in a in a bad situation in life, you know, you can send all the hard emojis and praying hands you want, but it's different than when you actually slip your arm around them, when you hold their hand, when you can bow your heads together and pray, when you can sit beside them.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why, you know, I I I try my best when folks are in the hospital to to go and see them, when they're in a down part of their life, to go and see them and to sit with them and to be with them.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's just different in those times.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Second John chapter 12 has a very fascinating verse, and it says, How many things uh to write unto you I would not write with paper and ink, but I trust to come unto you and speak face to face.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: John was saying, It's good for me to write this down, and there's so many things I want to write down and tell you.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to use paper and ink.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you face to face.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: The technology of John's day was paper and ink.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, I I want to see you.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you this.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And but we live in this world where we even want we want our church services to come through a screen.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and yeah, we live stream our services.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with live streaming your service.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who need it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have some folks who do watch.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have some folks that are that don't live near our church, but yet they will still come to church with us on Sundays.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I hope that they have a congregation near them, a local congregation, where they can have somebody in person, somebody who can come and pray with them whenever they need it, whenever they can fellowship and be around other believers.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: But but we're living in a time where people are using the screen as their church.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they have to, but because it's just what they want to do.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's just not a good place to be whenever you have those connections but you don't have the true relationship.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of the problem is friendship, true friendship, requires something that that social media has taught us to avoid.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's inconvenience.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because real friendship, it costs something.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time and interrupts our schedule.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes your friends need you when you've got something else planned.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The phone rings at the just the wrong time, if you know what I mean.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you had something going on and just uh sometimes you hear the same story twice.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to drive a distance that you really didn't want to drive.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people deal with that with with church.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I hate that distance has become the problem for most people not going to church anymore.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yet we will drive across town to go to a good restaurant three or four times a week.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We'll drive a long distance to go to work or whatever else it is.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yet when it comes to church, you know, if it's not right in our back door, it's, you know, I don't know if I can really go there or not.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So this friendship, this relationship, it costs something.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that the casual Christian has just doesn't seem to have the time to put into a relationship with God, a relationship with the local church.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, what we'd rather have the screen time church.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'd rather have contact, but not connection.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That we don't rather not have that friendship that way.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 17, 17 says, A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what we're to do whenever we're that close to somebody.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: A church is there to rally around another one, a friend is there to show up when times are bad, and that's why it says he's born in adversity.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we we've we've become afraid of the inconvenience.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've become afraid of being known, like what's really behind what's behind the the screen, you know, what's behind the on the other side of the phone.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I it becomes very hard to create friendships when we're living in an environment, in an age where it's like that.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yet we have these connections, but we don't have true friendships.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the church could be a great answer to the loneliness.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because this isn't, it shouldn't be just another crowd.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be just another social gathering.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: This should be a place where we come together.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter number two, that we uh this is a great way to grow the church.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter number two has it laid out, but it says in Acts chapter two it says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've been you know church my whole life, and I've heard those people that you know that you know kind of harp about having fellowship dinners and things like that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, ah, we need we need to get to church and hear the hear the preaching.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: They continued in the doctrine, which is the preaching and and the the singing of of the hymns, but they also continued in the fellowship.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they continued in the breaking of bread, and they continued in the prayer.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Four things that I'm reading that the church ought to be doing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: They ought to be preaching and teaching, they ought to be fellowshipping, they ought to be having meals together, and they ought to be in prayer together.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doctrine mattered, preaching mattered.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But so did the fellowship and the breaking bread and the prayers that they prayed together.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we live in this time where we're more connected, yet we're seem to be farther apart than we've ever been before.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we need this time together.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We need our church, we need our family, we need that close, those close friendships that you create in those times.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, maybe it's also something about people holding you accountable.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's something else that we don't like.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: That if we get too close to people, then they're gonna, you know, they're gonna expect me to be at church.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've seen that so many times.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now they expect me to be there.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I hate that that becomes an issue.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we we we do kind of expect people to be there.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I would encourage people to do is to lay the phone down and find somebody face to face.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would really encourage you to do is find somebody at the church, talk with them, get to know them, and and and and see if you can't create one of those relationships that way.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I would encourage you even more create a relationship with Christ.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to him daily.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let him listen to you, but more importantly, listen to him and see what he has to say.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Create a relationship with the Word of God.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is one of the most important relationships that we're gonna have on our walking in this world.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And join me, Dr.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together until this grace and peace to you from seeking approval and giving the Baptist Church.