Get Your Head Out Of Your App - Pt. 3 - Alone Together Series

I. Introduction

I stated that we are designed/created to connect. There’s a great deal of research which indicates that we are made for relationships, and when we lack healthy relationships we naturally flounder. We seek relationships from the moment we are born and begin to cry to attract attention. We can't escape the need to connect. The technological advancements that we have enjoyed even in last few years promises connection. We even evaluate and are judged by how connected we are by how many "friends" we have on social media. The average person, in 2017, has 338 friends on Facebook.

Limitations on brain capacity and free time mean humans can nurture no more than about 150 true friendships on social media, just as in real life, the study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science says. We have on average five intimate friends, 15 best friends, 50 good friends, 150 friends, 500 acquaintances and 1,500 people we recognize on sight.

"The 150 layer is the important one: this defines the people you have real reciprocated relationships with, those where you feel obligations and would willingly do favors."

In fact, a new study suggests that fewer than three percent of friends can be relied on in a crisis. It was revealed that for all the social media "friends" a person will turn to just four for help.

Despite the many ways humans can connect digitally, the percentage of Americans who report feeling lonely has increased greatly, growing from 11% to 20% in the 1970s and 80s, to 35% in 2010, according to AARP.

Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in.

So, here we are more connected than ever and yet so many of us are feeling alone together!

I want to talk to you about getting our head out of our app and investing time in real friendships. The the truth is we need each other!

I want to read a familiar passage to you. However, this passage isn't a familiar text for friendship. If you were here last week you would have probably thought I would have read this then since the only place we ever seem to hear this passage is at a wedding. We fast forward to Ecc. 4:12 - where it says a threefold cord can not be easily broken. However, we miss the guts of the account if we don't read it in relationship to friends!

TEXT: Ecclesiastes 4:7-12

Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun: There is one alone, without companion: He has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, Nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, “For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?” This also is vanity and a grave misfortune. Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way to nothingness: a solitary person, completely alone—no children, no family, no friends—yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, “Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?” More smoke. A bad business. It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there’s no one to help, tough! Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night. By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.

This incredible passage outlines for us the reason we so desperately need to be genuinely connected.

It confronts the fact that if not careful, then we will give our life to things that don't/won't matter. The writer calls this vanity and a grave misfortune. A person is not rich if they don't have someone to share those gained riches with!

The writer then goes on to show us all the things that are provided with and lost without friendships.

Here is the list:

Success

Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor.

Who do you have in your life that is lifting you up? Making your dreams come to pass? Who will work to make you successful? There are so many that will work to destroy you but who works to make you better!