...be affirmed

We are each physically brought into this world alone and equally leave in the same manner but God understands that our life on earth should be lived in communion with others. God is a God of relationship – being made in His image, God like man requires connection with His creation and it’s important that we experience the same.

So, isn’t finding time and space to be truly alone somewhat of a paradox if we believe in God?

We can each be alone with God but never deserted – even if we have deserted God.

Often in our crowded lives and minds, the desire to be alone can be overwhelming – however on reading the quote below I began to wonder how much of who we are would exist in the silence of being alone?

“We don’t exist unless there is someone who can see us existing”

Is our existence for the sake of God and for others whom our lives interact with? To be created to be alone, what meaning would that have? What sense of existence would we each have? And why exist at all?

The word "existence" comes from the Latin word existere meaning "to appear", if we were only to appear to ourselves how, what or who could affirm that for us?

Our existence and identity is affirmed by others around us. So, I wonder how much our individual existence is a reflection of our social environment (others seeing our existence) vs. the natural and unique character God created us to be.

Existing as a part of others lives can sometimes feel frustrating, limiting, suffocating – as an employee within an organisation or maybe as a family member. So much of our existence is shaped by those around us, reflecting how others want us to appear or to be.

Existing outside of these conventions would require real confidence or maybe a real lack of wisdom to exist just as we wanted, come what may. Perhaps that is how the itinerant and dispossessed feel. A lack of existence – not seen or heard and outside of social convention.

For some inner energy comes from people being around them and others maybe need to spend time alone. In either scenario we can be sure that we are never truly alone or created to be - as we exist for and with God, our creator.

So use your existence today to encourage and share yourself and all that you have been created to be with those God has placed in your life – as Paul’s in Acts 20: 31, 36-38. You can only gather others around you by giving yourself away to them.