Walking Through Lonely Seasons

Despite the fact that our technology connects us like never before, people have never been more lonely. Loneliness can be a function of the season we’re in — but sometimes we are lonely because we’ve isolated ourselves. Join author and speaker Joël Malm and his father, Rick, a former missionary, in this 16-minute conversation about how to walk through lonely seasons with wisdom.

Editor’s Note: The transcript that follows was automatically generated and lightly edited, so please be aware there could be typos or other small errors. The Stream is working toward a transcription service that does fast, accurate, and reliable work; thank you in advance for your patience!

00;00;08;06 – 00;00;09;07
Joël Malm
Hey, dad.

00;00;09;09 – 00;00;10;14
Rick Malm
Hey. How are you doing today?

00;00;10;17 – 00;00;15;06
Joël Malm
Good. Welcome to the podcast. I’m Joel. Yeah, with my dad. Yeah.

00;00;15;13 – 00;00;18;11
Rick Malm
Here we are. What are we? What? What are we gonna do today?

00;00;18;13 – 00;00;35;10
Joël Malm
Well, we’re we’re the whole year we’re talking about conquering mountains. And, with this specific month, I was. We’re kind of talking about seasons of life and how life happens in seasons. And I was thinking about how there are certain seasons, I think, that feel more lonely than others. And I want to talk about loneliness.

00;00;35;17 – 00;00;36;08
Rick Malm
Okay.

00;00;36;10 – 00;00;53;21
Joël Malm
Because I’ve been thinking about a lot for some reason. They say that people have never been lonelier. We feel more, you know, they say we’re more connected with social media. But if you look at the data, people are just lonely, lonely, lonely. And I think the pandemic sped that up a little bit or increased that. Yeah. The feeling of separation and maybe we haven’t.

00;00;53;23 – 00;00;55;08
Joël Malm
I don’t know. So.

00;00;55;10 – 00;00;55;19
Rick Malm
Well,

00;00;55;21 – 00;01;00;05
Joël Malm
I it’s interesting because as an introvert, you’re you’re one as well.

00;01;00;09 – 00;01;01;06
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;01;01;08 – 00;01;03;27
Joël Malm
I, I kind of like being alone.

00;01;04;04 – 00;01;04;13
Rick Malm
Yeah,

00;01;04;17 – 00;01;07;27
Joël Malm
But there’s a difference between loneliness and feeling alone.

00;01;08;00 – 00;01;08;07
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;01;08;12 – 00;01;21;08
Joël Malm
And being alone. Excuse me. You can be alone and not feel lonely. But loneliness is, I think, like, this kind of aching thing that maybe nobody understands you or that you’re separate from other people in some way. You can’t find a connection.

00;01;21;08 – 00;01;27;07
Joël Malm
But I think it has more to do with feeling connected and understood than it does about being actually away from people.

00;01;27;10 – 00;01;43;15
Rick Malm
Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, I remember when the pandemic hit, we were all locked in our houses. I’m thinking, wow, this is like a dream come true. You know, and it was for a few days, maybe a week, maybe two weeks. And then after that, all of a sudden it began to realize, wow, we really did.

00;01;43;17 – 00;02;02;11
Rick Malm
I had always thought of fellowship and the connection in the body of Christ as kind of being the icing on the cake. You know, that’s nice. And it’s the thing that kind of draws us all together, and more people are interested in that and really learning the word and all that. But wow, I began to see the real value of it just the idea of those calls being together.

00;02;02;11 – 00;02;21;28
Rick Malm
And you take one call out and it just quickly grows cold, rather than live drawing life from one another. So I don’t like you say, the pandemic really did make a difference. Maybe it just pointed out how lonely we are. And you know, you’re saying people are feeling more lonely and listening to go the other day on and on something other.

00;02;22;01 – 00;02;35;11
Rick Malm
And he was saying, oh, we don’t, you know, as, as part of the problem in my generation as a young guy, you know, is that we don’t have those old, places that people used to come together. They would come together in the pubs and they would come together in the smoking lounges, and they would come together enough.

00;02;35;17 – 00;02;48;24
Rick Malm
And I’m thinking, yeah, we still have those places. I don’t know why you’re not finding them, but church is the best place to do that. But obviously he wasn’t involved in a community in that way. And so he was having a hard time finding a place to connect with people.

00;02;48;26 – 00;03;11;01
Joël Malm
Yeah, I do think it is more about connection. One of the so I was thinking about like, what it what creates loneliness. And the first verse that came to my mind is Proverbs 18 one says, he who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against sound judgment and at first glance, it seems like Solomon is saying, if you’re lonely, it’s your own fault.

00;03;11;04 – 00;03;34;07
Joël Malm
There’s another version of it, the NIV says, and an unfriendly person pursues selfish ends and against all sound judgment, starts quarrels. I’m like, what a weird translation of that. Yeah, but it is this idea of kind of separation from others. And I’ve noticed whenever I’m separated from others, you immediately tend to assume the worst about other people.

00;03;34;07 – 00;03;34;28
Rick Malm
Right.

00;03;35;00 – 00;03;40;17
Joël Malm
You’ve probably seen that you’re like, oh, I know they’re thinking this about me because they did that, and really, they’re not thinking about you at all.

00;03;40;20 – 00;03;40;29
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;03;40;29 – 00;03;49;29
Joël Malm
But it’s this tendency we have when we separate ourselves from others or we’re away from someone, that you kind of immediately start to think the worst about somebody, even people you know, love you.

00;03;50;02 – 00;03;51;16
Joël Malm
You start thinking, oh, they’re doing that.

00;03;51;17 – 00;03;52;28
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;03;53;01 – 00;04;09;26
Joël Malm
And I wonder if part of the challenge with isolation is it compounds, right. As you’re separated from people, you start thinking even worse things of people I think about was at the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski holed up in a shack out in Montana, and he wrote this whole manifesto about how bad humanity is.

00;04;09;28 – 00;04;27;23
Joël Malm
And I think about that a lot of times with people that say, you know, I’m going to separate myself from society and come back a hero. I’m like, actually, I don’t know that you can do that. Separating yourself, because, again, your natural bent goes towards their vain imaginations is one of the things it talks about in spiritual warfare.

00;04;27;23 – 00;04;33;21
Joël Malm
We can cast down vain imaginations. Our mind tends to go bad places when we’re separated from other people.

00;04;33;23 – 00;04;34;01
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;04;34;05 – 00;04;36;13
Joël Malm
And, what’s your take on that?

00;04;36;15 – 00;04;55;27
Rick Malm
Well, yeah, exactly. I hadn’t even thought of that. But it reminded me of this fella used to work for a pastor. I used to work for, you know, loving, kind, just just generous. And. But he would be gone for weeks at a time, you know, he’d only seem to preach on Sunday. And I remember when I was a bit frustrated, I was working for my first year of my job or something.

00;04;55;27 – 00;05;16;18
Rick Malm
I think about him and I think, oh man, you know, I’m blah, blah, blah, blah, and all those negative things. And then as soon as I see him go, what was I thinking? The guy’s a big teddy bear, man. He loves me. He cares about me. And yeah, that that could do it. I kind of say this, you know, I know sometimes people say in a marriage or something, they separate, you know, and we have this saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

00;05;16;20 – 00;05;28;09
Rick Malm
And I’ve added a second phrase to that, because here’s what I’ve seen. Yeah. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but if it’s too long, it makes the heart begin to wander and you begin to kind of

00;05;28;09 – 00;05;30;04
Joël Malm
Well that could apply to church, too, couldn’t it?

00;05;30;10 – 00;05;31;16
Rick Malm
Yeah. True. Exactly.

00;05;31;16 – 00;05;31;24
Joël Malm
Yeah.

00;05;31;24 – 00;05;45;10
Rick Malm
I’ve, I’ve seen it in marriages where. Okay, maybe a separation for a little while, but after a while you begin to kind of but as you say, you begin to think the negative, you begin to only see the negative and you begin to kind of wander off a little bit, and it doesn’t really draw you together much.

00;05;45;13 – 00;06;01;25
Joël Malm
Yeah. That man, that is a good point. As Paul says, don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together as some have become accustomed to doing. When you’re apart from that. What do you talk about? Growing cold for one, in your faith. But also it’s the idea of those people. Those people I know what you know, church isn’t doing it right because of this and that.

00;06;01;25 – 00;06;21;26
Joël Malm
But when you’re involved in making something happen, it’s a lot harder to critique it because you’re you see the complexity of the issue. And I think that happens in relationships, too. When you isolate yourself, you it’s easy to fix the problems, right? Because you’re like, I’m separated from it. But when you’re in the throes of it.

00;06;21;29 – 00;06;38;15
Joël Malm
In the mix of the complicated aspects of relationships, you realize this is a lot more complicated than I thought it was, but it also pulls love out of you. I mean, I said that a bunch and some people don’t understand what they mean when I say this, but I say you and Jesus may have it all worked out, but it’s how you live with others that proves it.

00;06;38;18 – 00;06;45;20
Rick Malm
Yeah, well, I mean, that’s scripture too, where he said, how can you say you love the Lord if you don’t love those that you see? There’s a there.

00;06;45;25 – 00;06;57;13
Joël Malm
I’ve been thinking about that a lot. First, John four about this idea of what is Philadelphia, what is brotherly love? And it’s like, yeah, you can love Jesus all you want, but if you can’t love people, you Jesus, like, no, you don’t actually.

00;06;57;13 – 00;07;15;09
Rick Malm
Like us at all, Paul. You know, oh, to dwell above with saints we love. Won’t that be glory but to live below as saints we know well, that’s another story. It’s such a I mean, I did some stupid this week. I responded to a Facebook post, you know, Why? Well, why why, I know, that’s why I asked why?

00;07;15;09 – 00;07;19;20
Joël Malm
Why? I’m assuming there’s a negative one. Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t just like you’re so insightful, Rick.

00;07;19;22 – 00;07;35;14
Rick Malm
Yeah. No, no, it wasn’t that, you know, some Christian guy had posted things about all the churches, this and the churches that. And I said, man, you know, it just always troubles me when we’re always talking about the church. They they they. I thought you were part of us. You know, you’re either in the boat or you’re out of the boat.

00;07;35;14 – 00;07;44;02
Rick Malm
And if you’re in the boat, then fix the problem and don’t be griping about it because you’re part of the problem. You are part of it. And yeah, and anyway, it didn’t go well after.

00;07;44;02 – 00;07;48;21
Joël Malm
So we’re not sounding here.

00;07;48;24 – 00;07;50;11
Rick Malm
But yes, I.

00;07;50;11 – 00;08;15;29
Joël Malm
Want to talk about that. Like, what are the things that, you know, Carl Jung, he said that what causes loneliness is feeling like people don’t understand you. And I think that is, again, I think that there’s a reality that sometimes people aren’t going to understand you. Yeah, I have I was talking with Emily yesterday, and I was trying to express to her that I, I want to relate to the, the, the pain she’s feeling, but the I can’t use the right words apparently.

00;08;15;29 – 00;08;36;18
Joël Malm
So it just gets her frustrated because, like, you don’t understand. I’m like, I’m trying to understand, but, I just don’t because I don’t think that way. I don’t process the world that way. And it’s not that I don’t love you. It’s just I don’t process the world the way you do. And I think in some ways we have to have grace for people who are trying to understand.

00;08;36;24 – 00;08;52;11
Joël Malm
I think about that with, yeah, if you’re going through grief, somebody who hasn’t been through grief lost someone they’re going to they’re going to just say dumb stuff and they’re going to think dumb stuff, and you’re going to feel even increasingly separated from them. But we have to have, even in our own loneliness, an element of grace for people.

00;08;52;14 – 00;08;58;07
Joël Malm
Yeah. That they know the only person that’s going to fully understand you is Jesus himself.

00;08;58;07 – 00;09;10;07
Rick Malm
Right? And yeah, nobody can because we all, we all have different experiences. We all have different. And again, out of love, as you said, a lot of times out of love, we say really stupid things, you know, out of trying to understand, you know, job’s friends.

00;09;10;07 – 00;09;10;16
Joël Malm
Yeah.

00;09;10;17 – 00;09;15;01
Rick Malm
Yeah, exactly. I’m sure that a lot of love I don’t I’m not sure with friends like that. I mean.

00;09;15;01 – 00;09;16;24
Joël Malm
You give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe.

00;09;16;24 – 00;09;19;20
Rick Malm
Yeah, maybe Joe would have been better off to be lonely.

00;09;19;20 – 00;09;23;02
Joël Malm
I mean, I’ve been job’s friends at some point, you know? Yeah, I think.

00;09;23;02 – 00;09;36;20
Rick Malm
We probably all have, you know, particularly we just had a one of our missionaries pass away, a young man, and and the pastoral care is gone. How do I what do I say? What are you doing? There’s nothing you can say. You just cry when that’s all you can really do. You know, that’s the wisest thing you can do at a funeral.

00;09;36;20 – 00;09;45;19
Rick Malm
Just cry with the people you know and. And because you can’t understand. And you, you don’t know what they’re going through. Even if you went through something similar, it’s different for them.

00;09;45;24 – 00;09;46;06
Joël Malm
Yeah.

00;09;46;06 – 00;09;47;18
Rick Malm
There’s always differences.

00;09;47;21 – 00;10;05;05
Joël Malm
So I want to talk a little bit about the idea that sometimes God will allow seasons of loneliness for us to kind of separate ourselves from dependance on people. I’ve also been thinking about that in terms of for John, for. Right. It’s the whole love one another verse. Right? Beloved, let us love one another for lovers of God.

00;10;05;05 – 00;10;09;29
Joël Malm
And everyone that loves is born of God and knows God who does not love.

00;10;10;02 – 00;10;10;22
Rick Malm
Doesn’t know God.

00;10;10;23 – 00;10;32;03
Joël Malm
Doesn’t know God. Right? So, but I’ve been thinking about that idea that often that you can’t really love people properly until you don’t need them for some sort of affirmation, until you’re literally connected. I mean, this is going to sound so preachy, but until you’re literally connected, vertically with God, you can’t love properly horizontally, which makes it cross.

00;10;32;03 – 00;10;33;21
Joël Malm
Isn’t that amazing how it works?

00;10;33;24 – 00;10;38;03
Rick Malm
Oh, that is preaching, man. That’s right. But it’s usually the one doing the preaching. What do you do it.

00;10;38;04 – 00;11;04;29
Joël Malm
But it’s a really powerful image, I think, because a lot of times our own fear of not being accepted by others actually keeps us from being able to love people in the way they need to be loved, because it makes it all about us. Yeah, and I think oftentimes God will allow separation, a desert season, a wilderness season for us to develop strength within us that we need people, but we are only going to get what we really need from God himself.

00;11;04;29 – 00;11;23;20
Joël Malm
And out of that, we become a source of life to others. And as we’re a mutual source of life to each other in community, we actually truly have a healthy community where when somebody down, you can pick them up, when you’re down, they can pick you up. But what happens a lot of times is I think we and again, I have to say this carefully because it starts to think, well, you can’t love somebody until you don’t need them.

00;11;23;20 – 00;11;40;25
Joël Malm
Well, you’re not autonomous. You need we need were made to need people. But if that is an unhealthy need where we’re trying to get things from people that we can’t, they can’t get, our spouse can’t provide us everything we need. Our friends can’t provide us everything we need. It’s only going to come from God. Oftentimes, I think God will allow seasons of loneliness.

00;11;40;27 – 00;11;50;24
Joël Malm
So we begin to depend on him and realize, really, nobody is going to fully understand us. And and we have to lean on him for that understanding.

00;11;50;28 – 00;12;09;05
Rick Malm
Well, yeah, every biblical, well, not every biblical character, but so many biblical characters did experience loneliness, you know, I mean, David, when he had to be left by his family and things like that. And I mean, Jesus, the ultimate loneliness is my God. My God, why have you forsaken me? I mean that you don’t you don’t get any lonelier than all the people have left you.

00;12;09;05 – 00;12;28;29
Rick Malm
All your friends have left you. You’re on the cross. Your moms are looking at you. But even God himself has abandoned you. None of us have experienced that. And so it’s, Yeah, I think, you know, there was a song that came out, I was thinking about us and, you know, when I was younger, that’s when I, you know, experienced a lot of loneliness and things like that.

00;12;28;29 – 00;12;48;15
Rick Malm
And I dealt with it differently than probably you did. I wasn’t that insightful. And there was a song that came out in the probably the 60s or early 70s by Paul Simon. I’m sure you’ve probably heard it. I am a rock. And in this song it’s I’m an island. I don’t need anybody. I’ve built my walls and I keep myself and it’s really a sad song.

00;12;48;15 – 00;13;02;26
Rick Malm
But when I first heard it I thought, boy that it that talks about me. I didn’t think of it as a sad song at the time because of my upbringing. It was kind of a, you know, my upbringing was kind of a rage Against the machine. I’m a victim and, you know, I’m build my walls, keep myself protected, you know, that kind of thing.

00;13;02;26 – 00;13;23;00
Rick Malm
You know? And, but it sure expressed. And I thought, you know, that’s the kind of thing, though, that, you know, when you build those walls to protect yourself, you’re keeping other people out and you’re keeping yourself locked in. And so it is essential that we connect with other people. And, I mean, there’s no better place to do that than, than at church.

00;13;23;02 – 00;13;39;18
Rick Malm
And I know we got all the bad things. Our church is full of hypocrites. And so you join them and there’ll be one more hypocrite in the group. But the point is there you’re going to find people who are the other flawed, but at least they have a goal of becoming better, and they’ve not settled into that.

00;13;39;21 – 00;13;51;11
Rick Malm
I’m going to be in isolation since I’m going to be me against you and raging against machine and all that. And so I, I just, you know, again that, not forsaking me, assembling yourselves together.

00;13;51;12 – 00;14;01;18
Joël Malm
Yeah. And maybe that is I mean, that is the cure for loneliness is you’re never going to recognizing first of all, you’re never going to be fully understood.

00;14;01;18 – 00;14;03;29
Rick Malm
And you don’t just need Jesus.

00;14;04;02 – 00;14;05;04
Joël Malm
Right? Yeah.

00;14;05;04 – 00;14;09;05
Rick Malm
You need other people as the Lord is manifested through them.

00;14;09;05 – 00;14;20;05
Joël Malm
But also recognize that maybe if you don’t feel understood, there’s something people still have to offer you, even if it’s that, again, it’s kind of our own narcissistic arrogance. Nobody understands me.

00;14;20;07 – 00;14;35;12
Rick Malm
Good. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And why don’t you know? Maybe it’s better if you begin to understand other people and try to understand them and get out of your own little cesspool. And you might find that there’s life and living water on the other side of that.

00;14;35;15 – 00;14;46;15
Joël Malm
So, last, last kind of thought I was thinking about in terms of loneliness. If you’re if you’re feeling lonely in your marriage.

00;14;46;18 – 00;14;47;10
Rick Malm
Yeah.

00;14;47;13 – 00;14;50;00
Joël Malm
Give us some. Give us some advice.

00;14;50;03 – 00;15;05;00
Rick Malm
Well, you know, it’s, And that’s easy to do. It’s easy to feel lonely in a in a group of people, too. But I think, and this is much easier said than done. But talk about it with your spouse. But first of all, you got to figure out yourself what it is you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that.

00;15;05;02 – 00;15;20;26
Rick Malm
And that’s something that I’ve kind of learned. Is it? I’m not one. The self examines very much, and I need to, first of all, figure out what’s going on in my heart. And then if I can share that, because what typically happens is guys, particularly we get angry, we get frustrated, frustrated, angry, and then we respond in anger.

00;15;20;26 – 00;15;37;14
Rick Malm
Well, my wife can’t do anything with that. But if I go, look, I’m hurt, I’m feeling lonely. If I can share that with her, then all of a sudden she can develop some empathy and perhaps help meet that need that I have. But I first of all have to know what’s going on inside of me. So that I can communicate it.

00;15;37;19 – 00;15;47;04
Rick Malm
And anger is not the way to communicate it, because she can’t do anything with that.

00;15;47;07 – 00;16;04;06
Joël Malm
Thanks for listening. Please consider sharing this with your friends on the platform of your choice. For more from Joel mom, visit Joel mom.com for more from Rick. Mom, visit Rick mom.com. Our podcast music was produced by Alex Burleson.