By Jon Beaty
Our Deep Need for Connection
We were created for connection—isolation is spiritual death.
Humans possess a natural hunger for connection. This becomes starkly evident in solitary confinement used to punish and torture prisoners of war. Isolated prisoners experience hallucinations and severe anxiety within days. The mind, created for companionship, weakens when cut off from meaningful contact. The prisoner succumbs to this mental torture and is easily manipulated by their enemy.
Even without extreme isolation, we know the pain of separation. In our homes, many of us have experienced divorce, or fractured relationships with our siblings or children. Conflicts arise between neighbors who build higher fences and plant taller shrubs to avoid seeing each other. Where social media promises connection, it too often delivers alienation, cyberbullying, and despair. And churches, that should be instruments of relational healing and reconciliation, divide people over meaningless controversies.
Isolation is a device of the devil, who is like a prowling lion separating his prey from the herd, to clench them in his jaws, hook them with his claws, and devour their souls.
Jesus: The Pursuing Shepherd
Jesus' parable of the lost sheep speaks directly to our need for connection and the remedy to isolation:
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?" — Luke 15:4
Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. This parable identifies the Good Shepherd as the Godhead's missionary of reconciliation. From Genesis to Revelation, He initiates God's persistent efforts to restore broken relationships between God and humanity, and among humans themselves.
Without love, Jesus might have rested knowing ninety-nine percent of His creation were safe.
Because of love, Jesus did not abandon the lost.