Lonely Nation

I start back on my Switchfoot blogging by just posting individual songs.  Today, is the first time I read Jon Foreman's meaning behind the song:

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. Over the course our time on the road as a band I have met so many amazing, beautiful, desperate, lonely people. We are the lonely nation. We are the disenchanted, the disillusioned- we are the remnant of lonely souls wanting more than anything that we can buy with this cold, hard cash. I wrote this song while we were playing a stretch of rock radio shows. I'd walk around near the back and just breathe in the loneliness- masses of lonely, scared kids. I remember thinking about the irony. Here you have this connected generation of online communities, IM, TM, myspace, and cell phones that grows more and more lonely every day. This is a song is still yearning, saying, "Don't settle, please, don't give up. Fight for only the true and the beautiful!"

How true this is!  When this Switchfoot CD came out in 2005, I was still mad at Switchfoot for going secular and hiding their religion.  It was also a year when many people were angry with George W. Bush for the war, making me angry with them.  I thought this song was about that.  I'm sure some of the other songs are about that.  At this point, however, Switchfoot is the only band who really knows what I go through.

I have a wonderful laptop with Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, and now Skype.  I can even e-mail.  I'm so lonely despite being connected to the world.  Maybe it's because now I put all my eggs in one basket and try to find fulfillment in my work, my friends, my church, when all of those are idols.  None of those are God.  This is why they don't satisfy, and this is why I'm lonely as I'm stuck on my couch.  Other people love the internet addiction, but it's enough that bloggers blog about that, on the internet.

The solution is to take my worries and concerns to God and find my identity in him.  If I get bogged down with work on the computer, I may need to get up and walk.  If I get bogged down over one person, I need to remember to call other people because there are other people.  If I get bogged down in some guy, I probably need to take a walk, and again call somebody else or just write it down in a journal and see how God will handle this.  My identity is in Christ, and for that reason, I don't need to be in this lonely nation.