When Loneliness Has Become Your Normal

When Vivek Murthy became the U. S. Surgeon General,

he started traveling the country, asking Americans what was

hurting them most. He expected to hear about the opioid crisis.

He expected to hear about chronic and access to care. What

he kept hearing, however, in big cities and small towns, on

college campuses, where thousands of students walk past

each other every day, was something he hadn't fully

prepared for. People were lonely. College students told him they

were surrounded by thousands of people and felt like no one

truly knew them. Hospital patients told him they had no

one to pick them up when they were discharged. He heard it

everywhere he went, from people whose lives from the outside

looked pretty full. So in May of 2023, he issued a Surgeon

General's advisory declaring loneliness a national public

health epidemic. One in two American adults, he reported,

were experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. The toll

on the body, he said, was comparable to smoking 15

cigarettes a day. And then he said something in a speech at

UCLA that nobody expected. We'll come back to him. We'll come

back to him. We'll come back to him. We'll come back to what he

said. But

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. If

loneliness has stopped feeling like a phase and started feeling

like you're normal, I want to give you something to do with it.

I'll tell you my own experience with this. When I was younger, I

went through times of real loneliness. And looking back, it

was almost always when I was already tired or already feeling

low. The two fed each other. What finally moved it wasn't

waiting for the right people to show up. It was the day I

decided to reach out and do something for someone else. When

I turned towards serving, the loneliness loosened its grip and

often lifted. I didn't expect that to be the cure. But again

and again, it was. Now, some loneliness, I know, is temporary.

You move to a new city. Or the kids grow up and the house

empties out. And for a stretch of months, you don't have the

people you used to have. But there's another kind that sets

in and The friendships you assumed you'd have by now never

quite formed. The marriage you're in feels more like two

roommates sharing a calendar. You go through whole days where

the longest conversation you have is with a cashier. You can

be surrounded by people and still go unknown. And after

enough time, you stop expecting it to be any different. That's

the loneliness this devotion is for. The kind that's become the

climate you live in every day. When you've been there a while,

here's what I don't want you to miss. This is allowed to be a

prayer. And you don't have to clean it up or pretend you're

fine before you bring it to God. Listen to how David prayed in

Psalm 25, 16. Turn to me and have mercy, for I am and in deep

distress. And that's it. No tidy theology, no silver lining. Just

a man telling God how plainly he is alone and hurting and asking

God to turn toward him. And notice the prayer made it into

scripture. God didn't edit it out because it made David sound

like he wasn't trusting God enough. He welcomes it. When you

pray your loneliness out in the open, it doesn't mean you're

lacking faith. You're praying to a God who turns toward the alone

instead of away from them. He sees you right now and he's not

put off by how long you've felt this way. Now let me get real

practical. You can pray and still need to do something about

it. God often wants us to pair our prayer with action. Two

things. First, take one small reconnection step this week. It

doesn't have to be anything grand. Send the text you've been

meaning to send. Or reply to the person who reached out a month

ago. Loneliness whispers to you that everyone's fine without you.

And that lie shrinks your world until you stop trying. One small

move pushes back. And second, and this is the one I had to

learn for myself, find someone to serve. When you're lonely,

every instinct says to turn inward and wait to be sought out.

But I want you to do the opposite. Bring a meal or check

on the neighbor who's worse off than you. Serving pulls you out

of your own head and back into contact with people. And it

tends to do for your loneliness what staring at it never will.

What Vivek Murthy said at UCLA was this. He knew what

loneliness felt like from a personal experience. When his

first term as Surgeon General ended in 2017, he said he felt

profoundly lonely. He had thrown himself into the job at the

expense of his friendships. When it ended, those friendships were

no longer there the way they had been. He said, I was lonely and

also ashamed. I believed it was my fault. He was embarrassed to

call his friends because he had neglected them for two and a

half years. It took his wife noticing that he was withdrawing

more and more before he finally reached back out. He also said

that he had struggled with loneliness as a child and had

never told his parents because he thought something was

fundamentally wrong with him. thing about loneliness. It hides.

It convinces the person feeling it that they are the only one

and that everyone else is managing fine.

That's a prayer God welcomes from the Surgeon General of the

United States and from anyone else who goes to bed tonight

feeling the same way.

Now, you won't fix years of loneliness in an afternoon, but

you can take the first step out of it. And don't take it alone.

Father, you see the ones listening for whom loneliness

has become ordinary, who have almost stopped believing that it

could be different. Thank you that you turn toward the alone

the way you turn toward David and that no prayer is too bare,

too raw, too difficult to bring to you. Meet them in it right

now and remind them that they are fully known by you. Give

them the courage to take one small step toward others this

week and let them feel your nearness as they do. In Jesus'

name, amen. If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an

encouragement to you, would you take a minute and leave a rating

and review? It helps more people find these devotions and it only

takes a moment. And I'd be so grateful. Thanks for joining me

on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, even when

loneliness has become your normal, you are seen by a God

who turns toward you, and one small step toward others is

never a step you take alone. Come back next time for more

encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until

then, God bless and have a great day.