Loneliness, God, and our Crutches

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Loneliness, God, and our Crutches Christanon 07/08/19 (Mon) 08:22:20 aa7677 No.819667

Some of this will be obvious to you all, but I'm sure some folks here will connect with this. Feel free to skip the preamble and go to the questions below.

_____

It's always been my quest to let God shape me and to become the man He would have me be. Tonight it kinda clicked for me that all the setbacks I've had and most of the real sources of pain in my life* are from some unholy thing taking residence in my mind right where God should be. I realized I can identify many of the struggles in my life by a tic or crutch I used.

Here are some examples:

When I was young I was afraid to make myself vulnerable (I still am), so instead of asking out girls I liked I sat on my hands. My tic was retreating into myself. Puberty + other problems had me in a lot of inner pain and it was unbearable, so I'd repeat in my mind "mercy, mercy, mercy God" all the time. In college I was stressed and lonely, and my crutch was eating rich foods and drinking alcohol. When I've craved intimacy (including nonsexual intimacy) my crutch has been porn and masturbation. When I think about how I possibly embarrassed myself or wronged somebody my tic is a physical tic. When I developed anxiety and I was tormented by doubt and guilt and the thought that I wasn't saved, I didn't have a tic because nothing helped. I did however reassert my faith in spite of my feelings. That's one example I have of relying on God over a crutch.

*Note: I have been blessed not to suffer much personal tragedy so forgive me if my issues seem small.

I think this all has a lot to do with the chemistry of the brain. When something is off (loneliness, fear, hunger, etc.) our brains make us (perhaps via pain) correct it. This video has the basics: https://youtu.be/m7fGPGj2kaY (yes it's TedX but it's fine)

For me the loneliness was a constant in all these things. And along with my crutches, I would further isolate myself when feeling these pains. And that just fed into it. The brightest times in my life were ones where I had fulfilling and steady relationships. The biggest strides I've made were accompanied by less loneliness regardless of how I related to others.

____

So basically what I wanted to discuss was this:

How do we replace our crutches with God?

Can we overcome chronic loneliness through a relationship with Christ?

How do you break yourself out of the cycle of loneliness? How do you connect to people meaningfully?

How do you guys pray in times of pain and/or sinful urges?

Christanon 07/08/19 (Mon) 08:36:50 aa7677 No.819669

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To give my own answer I'd say… prayer is number one. The seasons of my life when I'd felt the least moved to sin and the most ready to do God's will were when I had an almost constant conversation with God throughout my day. It was like a constant acknowledgement of Him and His goodness. Sometimes when it's tough all you can say is the name of Jesus and all you can do is ask for mercy, but that's enough. These days I'm more given to ask for strength.

As for loneliness… I still struggle to feel truly known by others. There are many people I love whom love me back. I have good friends, but none that really know me the way I want to be known. I guess that kind of relationship may just be for God or a spouse. I still have a ways to go with sharing my feelings and making myself vulnerable before others. That's why I'm gushing here anonymously to strangers on the Internet.

Christanon 07/08/19 (Mon) 08:38:41 cfbb0d No.819670

Hi friend, I feel similar things too.

>How do we replace our crutches with God?

I guess I don't really know the full answer to this. But I guess you know the answers too right? Praying, doing acts towards getting closer to him. Maybe reading about stuff, scripture, books etc. I do think about God a lot and he's always on my mind, but it doesn't always help. Sometimes this process is supposed to be long and arduous.

>Can we overcome chronic loneliness through a relationship with Christ?

Yes I definitely think so. When I'm sober and not in a spiral of bad behavior, I do feel lonely at times, but I've felt way way lonelier despite having so called friends and social events and things to do. One thing that frustrated me and brought me to a point where I was so disillusioned with life was that I realized that all my so called friends and family didn't truly care for me. They all had their ulterior motives. When push came to shove they always had their own interests. But when I thought about it more, that's simply the nature of flawed humans. Yet we crave for something more, we long and crave for this pure and selfless love. Someone other than yourself who really cares about you. They really would sacrifice something of theirs to help you or please you and have no agenda behind it. Why do we want something that's so hard if not impossible to find with people? I felt life was useless. We have so many desires that we are unable to get. The biggest thing people have is wishing they could have certain experiences at certain ages. We all know that it is literally impossible to go to the past and do something different. Sometimes it's not even a matter of doing things again, but you may have not even been born in circumstances that you could experience what you want to.

Why do I have all these desires that I long for so much but I can never get? What is the point in life. Anyways after a bit of a journey and finding God, I feel like it's easier for me to get over those desires and be more content just being with myself. I don't feel the need to seek after so called connections with other people all the time. If I do it's to try and share something about God. But their affection isn't really what drives me. It's well, I suppose God. Feeling content with what he has done for me and just learning to be okay and calm that way. I think the grace that God can bestow on us is helping us change to desire the things of the world and worldy experiences less and less. I know I have some experience with that but not everything. I used to think certain things would be really cool to experience, but now I think I can safely say I don't think I'd want certain things anymore, which is good. But definitely far from everything has subsided. I don't know what has changed other than perhaps God's grace acting on me. I suppose we need to simply ask God to bestow his grace on us.

>How do you guys pray in times of pain and/or sinful urges?

It's difficult. I pray and many times to no avail because I end up still falling into sin. I think we just need to persevere and keep praying.

Christanon 07/08/19 (Mon) 17:06:21 e9db00 No.819742

>As for loneliness… I still struggle to feel truly known by others. There are many people I love whom love me back. I have good friends, but none that really know me the way I want to be known. I guess that kind of relationship may just be for God or a spouse. I still have a ways to go with sharing my feelings and making myself vulnerable before others. That's why I'm gushing here anonymously to strangers on the Internet.

I feel this feel anon, I struggle as well, you are not alone. My theory is that we're more melancholic and were brought up in relative comfort all our lives, I believe this of myself at least. This makes the spiritual life so hard for us to get used to, we're too reliant on worldly comforts and ourselves instead of on God.

>*Note: I have been blessed not to suffer much personal tragedy so forgive me if my issues seem small.

I think this attitude towards sharing our struggles holds us back. I get uneasy sharing my emotions and personal things with people too, but let's not compare our crosses with others, we have to stop feeling bad for ourselves and acknowledge our own weakness in order to rely on God. Easier said than done of course.

Christanon 07/09/19 (Tue) 06:45:38 aa7677 No.819851

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>>819670

>Feeling content with what he has done for me and just learning to be okay and calm that way. I think the grace that God can bestow on us is helping us change to desire the things of the world and worldy experiences less and less.

I agree. In my experience this has also accompanied the converse– a sharpening of Godly desires. Unfortunately these call for even more patience and longsuffering since they can't be sated as easily by worldly crutches. But I feel a burning hope at the core of each of my desires where before I felt a pit.

>>819742

>My theory is that we're more melancholic and were brought up in relative comfort all our lives

It's true I've never wanted for anything. It even frightens me sometimes how greatly my life has been blessed.

I'm a very frugal and practical person and I am contemptuous of luxuries and wanton spending (except my pet luxuries like food and drink). I have wondered if God is leading me to a more ascetic lifestyle. I fasted for the first time this year during Lent and it was a transformative experience for me.