Being Alone Ain't Fun

[HKHaugan]

Being Alone Ain't Fun

“If only I could find a way to be accepted wherever I go, be liked, be successful, stay healthy and have enough money to survive, I'd be happy.” Sound familiar? It's the lonely cry of a mind, heart and spirit longing for ultimate answers and 'why?' without an answer is the thumb in the eye. “I deserve a break” is the plea. “Is God mad at me? I try my best.” It leads into the idea of wrath, God's wrath and we need to look at it. But there is man's wrath as well. Let's distinguish between them. There's horizontal, vertical, self and spiritual wrath.

First, there is horizontal wrath which is man's wrath; a personally directed wrath you feel when someone is openly or silently angry with you because you don't think like them, act like them or recognize their presence. It could be based on appearance or social standing or affiliations of one kind or another. It may or not be warranted. It's the 'cold shoulder' attitude founded in self-centeredness. It's capricious; vengeful, vindictive and vicious one minute, then controlled, softened and deliberate in the next. It's based on the need to maintain an image, power and position. Also, you don't want to anger a superior at work so to avoid his wrath you spend a lot of time getting to know what he is like and please him in order to keep your job. The same thing happens in a social setting or in the armed forces or in a gang or a team or at home or a fraternity or sorority and in family relationships. Sometimes wrath is used to get someone to 'shape up or ship out.'

There are built in expectations in each of those settings. There's a constant need to be aware of those expectations so you don't experience rejection. No two settings are alike so you remain on the alert. Alertness magnifies aloneness, separation, alienation and rejection. It raises the questions of why rejection happened and what to do about it. You either justify or rationalize the why's and try to overcome the reasons, the emotions and the results so you can live with it, escape it or get revenge. That moment by moment fear of rejection is wrath.

Second, there is also vertical wrath. It is based on a moral standard and the culture that dictates it. There is a perfection above all of us like that in a job description or value system or religious structure. Meeting that perfection always seems to allude us and it triggers a sense of internal moral guilt. It's the need to be right inside but knowing that you never seem to get it right, you feel 'out of it' so to speak. It's about good, better and best in being a human. There's a right and a wrong, a concern for fairness, being accurate and knowing how to get along with others. I try to be perfect but can't. I've got to admit that I have imperfections in my life even though my intentions are to be good and right and do the best I can in everything. Neither I nor anyone else quite measures up within. At times you feel everybody and every circumstance is against you.

Third, there's also an internal restlessness that occurs when you get what you want but it doesn't satisfy you. There's wrath against self. It's the sense of having failed and being a failure. 'No one seems to understand me' and 'I don't understand myself.' That isn't only when we are youngsters either wondering why our parents demand so much. There's always something or someone out there who demands more than I can give.

If you dig in deeper it's the feeling of isolation that occurs when you sense what you are doing has no purpose, living a rat race in an endless spiral, going nowhere fast and doing great but feeling empty where everything just comes to a dead end. When you say to yourself and even to others, “I could have been a better man” or “I could have done a better job” or “If I just had had another chance I could show them.” You believe you can correct yourself and get back on a 'good foot' with whomever or whatever you were 'on the outs' with. That's just a taste of wrath. It's the aloneness you feel when you are not sure if you are accepted for who you are with the people you live and work among. It's a personal, relational and spiritual unease. Is it always going to be like this? We talk about waking up on the wrong side of bed in regards to how others are reacting. There are a whole lot of why's in everyday life. We need to be perfect yet can't. What is the standard? How do I get it? Is there a perfect person out there somewhere I can follow to get it right inside and out?

Fourth, and this is the inclusive bottom line. The horizontal, vertical and self themes are ultimately spiritual, God's wrath, and the only way to deal with the unease in each is spiritually. What it really is is being isolated from God and the inner aloneness one feels as a result. Genesis 3 states clearly what happened when Adam and Eve chose to live life apart from God. They were separated from God, alone and afraid. Sin was their new companion which made fear and pride, excuse and blame, their new way of life, thus God evicted them from Eden.

Fear is the product of our isolation from God. Unresolved guilt is isolation from God. Excuse and blame become rationalization and self-justification. The inability to solve our basic fear ends in despair and that leads to feeling alone internally which leads to feeling more alone externally. It consumes the heart in trying to overcome it and guilt is what you feel even if you don't know why you feel guilty. You can put on a good front, deny your inner reality but that's what you are feeling. The fear of being alone. That inner fear, guilt, its denial and lonely despair make up the wrath we feel due to choosing to live life alone without God.

Basically wrath is the flip side of God's love through refusal to consider Him, believe in Him, trust Him and reject His acceptance and love. What the world calls acceptance and love are summed up this way: “You give me what I want and I'll give you what you want.”

You can change locations, friends, ideas, jobs and interests but human nature doesn't go away even if you try to accommodate the pressures to conform whatever they may be. And the behavior we choose to satisfy this temporary emptiness is usually immoral behavior or if it is moral it was self-chosen to fit in to some cultural format to find acceptance. Even then the good we do is self-centered to appear and feel good. Fear of rejection within and without is the stimulus. We'll get into this more in the next section. Hang on to this thought, “I will not leave you as orphans...(Jn.14:18).”