Does it ever feel sometimes like you’re all alone?
Pastor and best-selling author, Max Lucado shared in an interview with Charisma Media how today’s world can be a lonely, cold place for many, especially children. However, It is by knowing Jesus in a deep and meaningful way that we can help combat this epidemic for ourselves as adults, and for children alike.
“The challenge of parenting today is more intense than it was when I was raising my daughters,” Lucado says. “There’s a unique set of circumstances that are making it difficult for parents to parent, as well as children to grow up with a sense of peace about them.”
Lucado has been writing children’s books for 25 years now. However, unlike previous generations, he sees how the topic of loneliness must be addressed to children and parents now more than ever.
“There are statistics that are just mind-boggling right now,” Lucado says. “I read one the other day that showed young people born since 1996 are facing unprecedented levels of anxiety and loneliness and depression.”
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Lucado points out that in our technology, social media-driven age, children and young adults are having less in-person contact with others. However, phones and laptops are not substitutes for being around other people.
“…the result is we have a population of just lonely kids,” says Lucado. “One of the things that we parents, we grandparents, we aunts and uncles, big sister, big brother, what we need to do is to articulate for our children this promise that though you feel alone, you’re not alone.”
Lucado points out that parents need to speak the truth of God’s Word over their children so that they can experience true freedom.
“Jesus said, ‘You shall know the truth and then the truth shall set you free.’ But you’ve got to know the truth first,” Lucado says.
It is expected that all of us will experience loneliness at some point in time. We all will feel inadequate, seeking after the approval of others. Lucado admits that’s something he even struggles with from time to time. However, it is by seeing that God is with us at all times that we can find fulfillment.
“He revealed to me that I still continue to base my confidence upon the applause and approval of people, which is disastrous because you cannot control the applause and approval of people. So, I needed that reminder and I confessed it to Jesus, and the next day, I was fine. I was back to normal…it was a wonderful gift on His part,” says Lucado.
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Both parents and kids need to know that we cannot draw true love and joy from a phone screen or even the approval of others. All these efforts will waste away, and it is only by coming into a true relationship with Christ that loneliness and depression can be torn down.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
