\u2013 why we still long for real community<\/p>\n
Have you ever experienced this?<\/p>\n
You're sitting with your phone in your hand.<\/p>\n
The notifications keep coming.<\/p>\n
Stories scroll past.<\/p>\n
Messages come and go.<\/p>\n
You're connected to hundreds of people.<\/p>\n
And yet it feels quiet inside.<\/p>\n
Maybe you've known that strange feeling:<\/p>\n
That you're surrounded \u2013<\/p>\n
but not really known.<\/p>\n
That you're in contact \u2013<\/p>\n
but not really connected.<\/p>\n
That you can follow everyone's life<\/p>\n
but still miss someone who truly sees yours.<\/p>\n
It's a strange time to be alive.<\/p>\n
Never before have we had so many ways to be connected.<\/p>\n
And yet many people experience a deep loneliness.<\/p>\n
Maybe it's because something in us longs for more than contact.<\/p>\n
We long for community.<\/p>\n
Not just someone who reacts to our posts.<\/p>\n
But someone who is truly near.<\/p>\n
And maybe that longing isn't random.<\/p>\n
Maybe it lies deep in how we were made.<\/p>\n
Made for community<\/p>\n
The Bible says something very simple \u2013 and very deep \u2013 right at the very beginning.<\/p>\n
It is not good for the man to be alone.<\/p>\n
(Genesis 2:18)<\/p>\n
It's the first time in the creation account that God says something is not good.<\/p>\n
Not because the man lacked a task.<\/p>\n
Not because the world around him lacked beauty.<\/p>\n
Not because God was absent.<\/p>\n
But because the man was alone.<\/p>\n
You and I are made for community.<\/p>\n
For relationships.<\/p>\n
For nearness.<\/p>\n
For belonging to someone.<\/p>\n
That doesn't mean it's always wrong to be alone.<\/p>\n
But it does mean that loneliness touches something deep in our nature.<\/p>\n
For we are not designed for isolation.<\/p>\n
We are made for community.<\/p>\n
Loneliness in the digital age<\/p>\n
Maybe that's why loneliness hits so many in our time.<\/p>\n
We're constantly connected \u2013<\/p>\n
but not necessarily known.<\/p>\n
We can share pictures of our lives<\/p>\n
without necessarily sharing our lives.<\/p>\n
We can get likes<\/p>\n
without feeling loved.<\/p>\n
We can be seen<\/p>\n
without being understood.<\/p>\n
That's why so many are left with a strange feeling:<\/p>\n
\"I'm surrounded by people \u2013<\/p>\n
but I still feel alone.\"<\/p>\n
My grandmother's words<\/p>\n
During covid my grandmother was very much alone.<\/p>\n
Like many elderly people, her world grew smaller.<\/p>\n
Fewer visits.<\/p>\n
Fewer people around her.<\/p>\n
More silence in the days.<\/p>\n
But one day she said something that made a deep impression on me.<\/p>\n
She said:<\/p>\n
I'm alone all the time, but never lonely, because God is with me, and I have fellowship with him.<\/p>\n
I've thought a lot about that sentence since.<\/p>\n
Because she didn't deny reality.<\/p>\n
She didn't say it wasn't hard.<\/p>\n
She didn't say she didn't miss people.<\/p>\n
She simply said something even deeper:<\/p>\n
I am alone.<\/p>\n
But I am not abandoned.<\/p>\n
A community that doesn't disappear<\/p>\n
The Bible says it is not good for the man to be alone.<\/p>\n
And the gospel shows us that God does not leave us alone.<\/p>\n
Jesus didn't come only to forgive sin.<\/p>\n
He came to bring us into fellowship with God.<\/p>\n
After the resurrection he says to his disciples:<\/p>\n
And behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.<\/p>\n
(Matthew 28:20)<\/p>\n
Always.<\/p>\n
Also on the quiet days.<\/p>\n
Also on the hard days.<\/p>\n
Also on the days when loneliness presses in.<\/p>\n
That doesn't mean we don't need each other.<\/p>\n
We do.<\/p>\n
But it means that even when people aren't there,<\/p>\n
God has not gone.<\/p>\n
Not just connected \u2013 but home<\/p>\n
Maybe some of what our time is longing for isn't just more connections<\/p>\n
but deeper community.<\/p>\n
Not more notifications.<\/p>\n
Not more followers.<\/p>\n
Not more impressions.<\/p>\n
But a deep experience of:<\/p>\n
I am not alone.<\/p>\n
God is here.<\/p>\n
I have fellowship with him.<\/p>\n
That's not a digital connection.<\/p>\n
It's a living relationship.<\/p>\n
And maybe that's why a person can be physically alone<\/p>\n
and still know peace.<\/p>\n
For community doesn't begin first with people.<\/p>\n
It begins with God.<\/p>\n
One final question<\/p>\n
What if some of the loneliness so many feel today isn't only a social problem<\/p>\n
but also a spiritual longing?<\/p>\n
A longing to belong.<\/p>\n
To be known.<\/p>\n
To be loved without having to perform.<\/p>\n
The Bible begins with this truth:<\/p>\n
It is not good for the man to be alone.<\/p>\n
And the gospel ends with this promise:<\/p>\n
You are not alone. God is with you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why we still long for real community.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fredagsartikler"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2848,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions\/2848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}