You aren’t meant to be alone. Sure, many of us are introverts, preferring a quiet night at home over a big social gathering – and even extroverts can still appreciate some “me time.” Yet, humans are relational creatures. Isolation is a form of punishment for us, whether it’s a childhood grounding or a prisoner’s solitary confinement.
Because we need each other.
It is in our nature. In fact, in the Bible’s presentation of life’s origin, man being alone was the only thing in all creation that was not good. So, consistent with His character, God didn’t leave it that way: “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18 ESV). That’s when marriage began. God’s solution wasn’t to create another man, a best bud who thought and acted exactly alike.
God’s solution was to create a woman. She was also made in the “image of God”, but special –she was formed not from the “dust of the ground” like everything else but “taken out of Man” (cf. Gen. 1:27; 2:19, 23). From the beginning, men and women were tied to and dependent on each other. At the same time, they were delightfully different in their physical features and temperaments, but still just right for each other. Their differences combined to make a more complete whole, capable of filling the world with God’s image. That’s true physically: it is impossible to bring new human life into the world without both a man and a woman. It’s also true in a deeper sense. God demonstrated His own relational nature when He said, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). Made in that image, we are meant for relationship.
That first human relationship was beautiful, too. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” the man declared on first seeing his wife (Gen. 2:23). Here was someone not for him to use or abuse, but to cherish and adore. “And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). According to God’s original design for relationship, there was nothing to hide. They could be completely open and vulnerable with each other, knowing they were safe and loved. They had someone to “hold fast to” their entire lives (cf. Gen. 2:24).
Through that marriage, God filled the world with other relationships. Husband and wife became father and mother. Their children became siblings. The world filled with family and friends. Society was built on relationship. Even with all the changes in the world since then, that’s still true. We still need each other. God made us that way. That’s why the best possible version of human life and relationship is when it is lived according to His design.
Discover God’s design for your life in our sermon series Real Men and our Bible study Ladies Night.