We have become the most connected disconnected people in history. Thanks to technology, we are wired to anything and everything worldwide 24/7. The whitewater of social media, all-access information, endless group texts, stores that never close and on-demand entertainment can create the illusion that digital “relationships” are all we need.
However, recent surveys capture the turbulence. 25% of us on a normal day are lonely and depressed, and with the imposition of COVID-19 restrictions, that number has dramatically increased to 44%. The majority of us only have a few friends, find it hard to make new ones and, at most, have only one close friend. We long to belong, yet we are digitally sequestered. We want to be known, but deeply fear the same. Many desperately need a true friend.
In James Taylor’s autobiography, he recalls a broken, desperate time when the promised escape of drugs instead locked him in a prison. Hitting rock bottom, he checked into a rehab hospital. Strung out, depressed and alone, he wrote these words, “I’ve seen sunny days I thought would never end, and I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend” – a key line in a stirring song he would soon call Fire and Rain.
After completing the program, he left to record it and other songs with a studio band his producer recently put together. In particular, the pianist was very moved by James and this new song. So, as an answer to the cries of his heart in Fire and Rain, Carole King wrote You’ve Got a Friend. They each recorded and released her amazing song the same year. The two remain lifelong friends.
Jesus always had such compassion for the lonely, the isolated, the outcast. His friends included a beggar, a leper, a blind man, a woman at a well, a thief on a cross, a prostitute, a tax collector, a child, a widow and a woman issuing blood. What a friend we have in Jesus!
I’m thinking someone you know could really use a friend – a voice of encouragement – a touch of truth – a healing Word of Life. Be like Jesus and reach out your hand and your heart today.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV