Living an Abundant Life

[Darris McNeely] How's your life working? Do you have good relationships? Messy relationships? Or none at all?

One clear reality of life today is the growing isolation and distance from meaningful relationships. We are slowly being isolated from one another. Men who watch television now spend seven hours in front of the TV for every one hour they spend hanging out with somebody outside their home according to an article that I read in the Atlantic magazine. Female pet owners spend more quality time with their pets than with their own species. But it hasn't always been like this.

I have vivid memories of my youth. In the summer days when my mother would load my sister and myself in the car, we would drive through the country to visit her family. Three of her brothers lived on the same road next to each other. Her father lived with one of the brothers and that house would be our destination. A visit would last several hours. My sister and I would ride the pony, explore the barn, and roam through the fields. My uncles would pop in to see us and the day would usually conclude with a meal. On the drive home, I was asleep in the back seat. Today this sort of thing is called a family reunion, but mom would just call that a visit. No need to put it on the calendar. No need to wait for a birthday or an anniversary or a holiday. We just spent time together.

It's what people did. But those times changed when my uncles had to leave the farming life and migrate to factory jobs. The visits were fewer and they were harder to organize. The world was changing into a more mobile culture where people moved to their jobs and increased national wealth and opportunity made us all less dependent on the family structure. Relationships were no less important than they were when I was a kid. But in this new world, quality time with the family was no longer the default. It could only be achieved with concerted effort.

I left home at age 19 and my time with the extended family essentially ended. Cousins scattered and raised their own families. I moved frequently and it was all I could do to keep up with my own parents. Well, today the world has gone through another massive change. The rise of the digital culture makes it easier to insulate ourselves in a home filled with big screens, little screens, medium screens and devices all tethered together by a strong wireless connection. Within the family, we can more easily communicate room to room via text than with personal interaction. We read a lot today about anxiety and depression. Since the days of COVID and the lockdowns, nothing has been the same. Disagreements over politics and ideology too often turn into violence and murder. And we have to navigate new ways today to be human.

You know people permanently impacted by such isolation. Perhaps your life has suffered directly by what happened. That article that I mentioned in the Atlantic, it highlighted results from a survey called the American Time Use Survey. It's a government questionnaire that asks a large sample of Americans how much time they spend doing just about everything including sleeping and working, grooming themselves, playing with their pets, going to parties.

The latest surveys that show America's social calendar is bare. Bare. In recent years, the amount of time spent socializing by Americans has been cut in half. Every age group is impacted. The steepest drop though is among those aged 15 to 24. It's a staggering statistic and I think it can provide an explanation for the increased social adjustment problems that we have around us. Look at your personal world. Ask yourself, what's happening? Is it healthy? And above all, does it best serve our reaching God's purpose for our lives to be made in His image?

Notice two principles from Scripture about the kind of life that God wants us to have.

In the book of John 10, verse 10, Jesus said, "The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly." Here Jesus makes a common sense statement about everyday life.

His presence in the flesh had a very large spiritual purpose to redeem mankind, but there was also a practical element to Him coming as well. It was to live a full life, a life with meaning, a life with purpose. Christ worked, likely with His father as a carpenter. When it came to His ministry, He pursued it relentlessly with purpose.

He recruited His disciples, lived with them, taught them, showed them what a spiritual life was like. He showed them by example how to pray, to have empathy for those that were hungry and had sickness. He showed genuine interest in people as He dined with them, walked with them, and showed them the way of the kingdom.

His short life was full of people, events, and memories. The gospel accounts are those eyewitness details of a life well-lived in and around people. When we look at what the apostle Paul commented on, he too had something to say about a well-lived life. "'Physical training is good,' he writes, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.'"

In the Roman world of Paul's time, they had adopted the Greek passion for athletics.What Paul was doing in this verse was explaining that the daily exercise of the body does have benefit. He uses this fact to point us to the larger truth that building spiritual muscle really has eternal benefits. This one verse of Paul's packs a powerful teaching known today by anyone who analyzes human behavior. And that is daily physical and spiritual activity both pay dividends.

Something as simple as just going out of the house, taking a daily walk around your neighborhood, getting some fresh air can do as much for most people as many, many hours working out in a gym.

Reading a portion of the Bible, focusing on God and some aspect of His purpose, that creates a pattern of positive emotions in your life. Both can ward off anxiety, depression, and other debilitating mental and physical problems which are part of our time. These two verses of the Bible wisdom reveal life as God intended. That's activity, engagement, and meaning. A key catalyst in this equation is getting with people and socializing. The American Time Youth Survey has three indicators that illustrate the trend towards social isolation today in our lives.

The first one I've already mentioned is that men watch television now for seven hours in front of the TV and for every seven they spend, there's only one hour they spend hanging out with someone outside their home. The typical female pet owner, spending more time, actively engaged with her pet, than she spends in face-to-face contact with friends of her own.

This one likely has many other interpretations I know. I'm sure many males would reflect on this as well. But pet ownership has impacted all sorts of relationships in recent years. Since the early 2000s, the amount of time that Americans say they spend helping or caring for people outside their immediate family has declined by more than a third. All these are indicators of major shifts in how our relationships have altered in recent years. We all have our digital life and many of us have pets and our awareness of people beyond our family has narrowed.

I don't think we need to ditch our smartphones, ignore the pets, but if, if we can lift our eyes from our screens and get a perspective on the value of human interaction, then we can break out of the insulated lives that we have made. We can do better. Much has been written about the connection between our mental health and our actual physical health. The stress of bottled up emotions, especially anger, the inability to forgive, and a hopeless outlook toward life are all well-known factors in heart disease.

God created our bodies with a marvelous immune system that constantly fights against invasion from bacterial and viral agents as well as against cancerous cells that are produced in our bodies. Stress and negative emotions seem to suppress the ability of the body's immune system to respond to these threats, making us more vulnerable to disease.

From the beginning, God gave us a principle about our relationships.He said, "It is not good that man should be alone." The study, it proves Scripture to be true. We are social beings and we need connection to others. Most would agree that we need people for psychological and emotional support, but this recent research shows that having good relationships with others is also important for our physical well-being. Time and again, research and studies show strong, supportive relationships are good for our mental health and our physical health.

Social isolation, on the other hand, can be a substantial risk factor for ill health. It is sad that forces in society often drive people apart instead of pulling them together. Little attention is paid to the importance of relationships or what the Bible calls love and the pursuit of good health. Many who have tenderly cared for the ill person believe in a connection between health and love.

There are many ways we can apply this principle. One is to enrich our personal relationships, to learn how to love more fully in marriage, raising children and friendships. Another way is to be involved with your neighbors, volunteering, serving others. It's a proven way of benefiting yourself as well as those whom you serve. We have a booklet which provides extremely solid principles to help you break out of the isolation brought on by so many changes in our culture.

The booklet is called Making Life Work, and it can be accessed at ucg.org/bt503. It's a free resource for you to turn around some of the habits, some of the lifestyles which lead to the problems of our modern world. Go to ucg.org/bt503 and take that first step toward a fuller, richer, more connected life.