Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

by Justin Whitmel Earley

It is how we can be the body of Christ. We build relationships that are strong enough to invite others in.

What do we do about those who stand on the outside? Those who refuse to join in and prefer to talk about how they wish they were invited, even though you have invited them time after time after time? First, again, be gentle with such people.

Second, pray for them.

If friendship had to be perfect, no one would ever try it.

In the West, however, secularism is not an argument, it is a mood.

Anyone who knows relationship knows you cannot disrupt a mood with an argument, you must disrupt it with a presence.

And that the natural end of covenant friendships is invitation, not exclusion.

I was typical for an American. It is totally normal to spend your twenties (or longer) living in a slew of apartments and cities and changing jobs like you change clothes.

One reason that the modern current pulls us toward loneliness is because most of us live with a similar assumption.

Career is the path to a life.

We lived where we lived and worked where we worked because that was where our people were.

Now the question we ask strangers is, “What do you do?” But that’s new. It used to be, “Who is your family?”

But the most powerful lies are half-truths, and the modern current of loneliness tells you that satisfaction in work equals satisfaction in life. It does not. It is necessary but not sufficient.

Becoming more like Jesus necessarily means becoming more like a friend.

Asher’s name reminds me that we find the happiness of God in friendships.

Not everyone can or should move, but everyone can and should put down roots.

Americans. In his writings, Berry makes the argument that we should allow ourselves to be limited and that the good life is not getting rid of all limitations but embracing them.

This denial of geography as a catalyst for friendship is really a denial of who God made us to be.

We would do well to realize that we can’t properly care for our families unless we’re also caring for our friendships.

Hold the importance of schooling high, but do not forget about another extraordinarily important factor: your kids seeing you in close friendship with other believers.

Church can and should be our relational center of gravity.