The Comfort of Isolation

I read this book by Judah Smith (the simplest author who writes about Jesus in such an uncomplicated way) called “Love Like Jesus Reaching Others With Passion and Purpose.” First of all, it’s Monday and I bought it on Saturday night. Yeah, it’s that good. It was basically challenging Christians (or world changers if that is what you believe you are) to step out of our comfort zones and reach people like Jesus did.

I wanted to emphasize on one specific chapter that I struggled with my entire freshman year, probably in high school without realizing it, and still continue to struggle with. It’s about isolation. My definition of isolation goes like this: separation from others, because of trust issues, differences in beliefs or personalities; quarantine. You remove yourself and disconnect yourself from the world around you. You are now in your own world, living in unreality.

Growing up I’ve always been a very outgoing, friendly person and my goal was to be a friend to everyone. If you don’t believe me, there is proof of it written in my journals from my childhood. I remember in middle school I would purposely seek out those at lunch that were sitting by themselves and I never sat at the same table with the same people twice in a row. I wasn’t a part of a particular group or clique, I was just a sprinkle of every group. One of my favorite memories that still means the most to me till this day was in the sixth grade, we played this game where we described a classmate and everyone had to guess who it was. One of my favorite people in the world whom I have no idea where she is now, her name was Madison and we were hilarious I am just saying, anyways besides the point, she goes up to the front of the class and starts describing this person. She said, “This person is really pretty, she is so funny, she is really smart, she cares about everyone, she’s everyone’s friend, and everyone loves her.” All of my classmates shouted my name at the same time and I remember kind of holding back tears because I was so surprised. That was when I realized how much my life had an impact on people, and that I could be known for so much more than my athletic abilities and that I could spin the basketball on all of my fingers including my pinky (pretty cool ik).

Sixth grade me with some friends lol

Also sixth grade me with my teammates

I still think back to that day at random times and wonder if I have left that kind of impact every year after that one. There is no telling what type of impact I could have had, good or bad, since I was 11. The older I started to get, the smaller my circle got, the more I stayed with whom I was most comfortable with, and I truly believed it was a good thing. I used to always say to people, it’s better to have four quarters than one hundred pennies, but like why am I comparing people’s lives and value to one cent?? Or even twenty-five cents?? And you know what’s better than four quarters? Thousands of quarters, millions of quarters, call it what you want, but why do we limit our influence to what we are comfortable with? The people who we are most alike and have the same interests as us are who we resort to.

The challenge Judah Smith gives in his book is to spread the fact that Jesus helps us conquer sin and this is the good news that we can’t keep to ourselves. Our love and humility along with the righteousness we are called in Christ can be a powerful source of hope for people trapped by sin. One thing I have learned from this is: discipleship finds its greatest expression in reaching and loving people. We see examples of this in Scripture in Luke 5 when Jesus asked Peter to launch out into the deep water and catch some fish. Even though Peter had fished all night and caught nothing, he took Jesus at his word and obeyed. As soon as Peter let down his net to catch fish, he caught so many fish that his nets started to break and he had to get help from his partners. Then Jesus called Peter, James, and John to start catching people instead of fish: “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.”

This leads to my next point in the challenge of constancy (going off on a rabbit trail but I feel it’s important). So here is a true story.

Summer of 2015 I was in Lynchburg and my coach at Liberty was obsessed with fishing and hunting. So, naturally, he took the city girl to a random lake pond thing and made me go fishing. I hadn’t fished since I was way younger so I didn’t know what I was even doing, but I remember how excited I was when I got my first fish. After catching a couple fish I was getting pretty confident and then my line (or whatever it is called) pulled really hard and I remember Coach Green having to help me reel this bad boy in because I swore I thought I had just caught a lake shark (I made that up) but seriously it was so heavy. As we pulled it out, a massive ball of seaweed was wrapped around my hook. I was so disappointed and kind of wanted to be done with the whole fishing thing.

Have you ever invited people to church or finally spoke about Jesus to a classmate that you knew God was bugging you to talk to only to have them deny it? I think this has been God’s call for me: How do you respond when you have fished all day and night and your net is empty? What do you do when your ministry, business, school, or home life doesn’t seem to be making a difference in anyone’s life?

KEEP THE LINE IN THE WATER.

One thing I learned from my coach at my old school is, he was a great fisherman and great fishermen face discouragement at times, but they conquer it. Similarly, you will experience seasons when your net is empty, but they won’t last long. The key to responding properly during these times is not to allow discouragement to determine your response.

The purpose of this story isn’t fish- it’s people (no offense to fish I mean I love to eat those things). When we get saved, God pulls us out of a pit of sin and darkness and begins to wash us with His Word. We feel so good that we want to go spend all of our time with other people who have been pulled out of their pits as well. It is easy to forget that we were pulled out of a pit so that we would help others out of the same desperate situation.

Proverbs 18:1 tells us why we are given to isolation. It says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire.” Isolation is centered in self. (Please note that if anything is ever bolded, italicized, and underlined, its pretty important, alright?) We find ourselves isolated because we enjoy the comfort it provides us. To go beyond our comfort zone or to make new friends is risky and challenging. Therefore, many people choose the path of least resistance- isolation.

For most of us, the isolation we are talking about is not sitting at home huddled next to our computer, only catching glimpses of the outside world (although I’ve been there LOL). However, that spirit can sneak up on us and affect our friendships, attitudes, and daily schedules.

I have discovered how fulfilling life is when I spend it for others. I think I’ve started to encounter breakthrough in this category. I am not saying to live life constantly trying to please others and make everyone happy, because trust me I’ve tried to do that before. One of my assistant coaches at Liberty told me she had a vision of me trying to hold up all these people so they wouldn’t drown, and in the process, I was under them drowning. I am saying, don’t have a personal agenda where you are constantly thinking of where you need to be, blowing people off based off of your emotions, and being in a rush to do nothing!! I promise it can be done. I will post a picture of my schedule for one of the days this week (which we are in post season so this is the most free time we have all year) and it’s full of meetings, classes, practices, everywhere I need to be at what time, but yet I never feel like I am in a rush for anything. I am well beyond the first person to everything, typically the last one to leave, and yet I still make time for others. My friends tease me because I have no sense of time when I am hanging out with others, because to me in that moment, nothing else matters but my attention to that person. It is something that means the most to me, so I try to reciprocate that to others.

Real life schedule: this Thursday (Yes I chose the busiest day of my week so you'd all feel the pain)

I always make sure to ask the person if they have somewhere to be, because Lord knows I will talk for 8 hours straight with someone, which I feel should be awarded in a world record book. With all of that being said, this is not how I have always been. It is something that is not easy for me, because it is easiest for me to revert back to myself or to what I’m comfortable with.

I remember this past summer how lonely I felt, because I had spent the entire year before that in isolation without realizing it, and I prayed every day for godly friends and that God would surround me with people. That’s when I realized, how can you make friends in your room? You have to get up, and go out, even if it’s scary. Go to the invite (not if it’s like a drug party alright, I don’t know if that’s a thing, but that’s not the message I’m sending out here). It is so scary for me to make friends now days because I really do feel as if I am so different from everyone else, but I have started to realize, the one thing that is the same in every person is, we all want to be known and loved by someone. I am the best at loving and knowing others, but they’ll never know the love I have to give if I never step out in boldness and open up to others.

Making friends isn’t as hard as you think. My teammates at Liberty used to make fun of me because my saying was, “Me too!!” Meaning, I could relate and connect to every person somehow and someway. I always ask others questions about themselves, and I find one thing we have in common, then shout, “Me too!” All of my teammates would laugh every time and then convince the person I met that I was weird, so they shouldn’t be proud of being able to relate to me. I really believe we all can relate in some way or another. For starters, we are all humans, you know, despite what some people are saying out there lol (it’s ok, I used to think I was a Dragon Ball Z character and not a real human). Second, we are all sinners, you know, we all make wrong decisions. The best part I think that we can all relate to is, we are all loved and desired by our Creator. How cool? But, if the person you are trying to relate to doesn’t realize these three things (it happens) I promise there is some way you can relate. Some of the most influential people in my life are not athletes, in fact, they believe a double dribble doesn’t exist, it’s real. But how cool is it that we connected on something, one thing, maybe over a book we both liked, and because of it, I have grown tremendously in my faith and who knows how many people that person will impact through me, because they showed me Jesus and now I am showing Jesus to others. That type of stuff gives me the chills. What if on one day when you are in line at Starbucks, you put your phone in your pocket, and look around to see who is in the same room as you. Observe those around you, not stalk them or creep on them, ok, but just see God’s creation around you. Ask God, who in here needs a friend or a kind word in this moment? At Liberty I was known as the Starbucks girl to this one guy who always witnessed me buying a drink for the person standing behind me in line. If you ever see me in line at Starbucks, I’d strongly advise you get behind me, good chances. I just think it’s so amazing how simple it is to spend $5 on a person and now they are more willing to open themselves up to me and tell me their story. People are so easy, but I get it, it’s because we all want to feel loved and known. To be cared for.

This leads me to the challenge of caring about the seemingly insignificant.

There’s this story about this little boy who rescued starfish. A man was walking along the beach one day when he saw thousands of starfish on the shore, washed up by the tide. Then he noticed a young boy throwing starfish back into the sea, one by one. The man approached the young boy, who seemed so determined, and asked, “Young man, do you see that there are thousands of starfish? You can’t possible save them all. What does it matter?”

The little boy looked at the starfish in his hand and replied, “Yes, but it matters to this one!”

I have a personal story of my younger sister and she does things like this all the time. An example would be with all of our stuffed animals. We had Webkinz, Build-a-bears, Barbies, and little toys EVERY WHERE. Whenever it was bed time or it was really cold in the room, she would get EVERY single stuffed animal and toy in her bed to make sure they were under the covers, so they were comfortable and not cold. If you can imagine this in your mind, imagine a twin sized bed full of hundreds of stuffed animals of all sizes and mini Polly pockets lined up with their head on the pillow and the rest of their five inch bodies on the bed beside my sister. Even though these stuffed animals will never realize the intense nurturing care that was given to them by my little sister, she cared, even about things that seemed insignificant to our parents.

Example of my sister making sure her stuffed animals got nap time in with our golden retriever, Bear, so they weren't lonely.

My sister surrounded by orphans in Mexico, showing them love with her attention and laughter.

The way Jesus operates is different from how the world operates. To Jesus, the way up is down- the way to significance is insignificance. Good shepherds are willing to leave the ninety-nine sheep to go after one individual lamb. The one individual is always important to God. Small acts of kindness are big to the person receiving them.

In the Christian world, doing big events to reach people is vogue and makes headlines. But before you hold a rally to see your entire campus saved, why not start with loving one friend? Before you try to feed all the homeless people in your city (I tried this with Kels and significantly failed LOL), why not start by feeding one? (Which we ended up spending 4 hours of our night just to feed one and it is one of the most meaningful memories we have in our friendship). Before you move to Africa to start an orphanage, tend to the needs of the people around you. If you don’t launch out a little and touch the life of your neighbor, will you really be ready for the big event?

The reason God sets us apart isn’t so that we will become isolated. He sets us apart so that we will have strong, healthy nets that are able to pull other people out of the depths of sin.

Prayer written in book:

A prayerful place

“God, forgive me for isolating myself. Continue to purify me so that I will live free from the destructive effects of sin. I am so thankful that You rescued me from the pit of sin. Send me back to rescue those who haven’t found the freedom that You have given me. Keep my heart compassionate so that I don’t easily forget about others. Don’t let my purity be a religious show, but cleanse my life so that I may be a vessel used by You to reach people.”