I Can’t Do This On My Own

We were in Hong Kong when I got the diagnosis—high blood pressure. I didn’t know much about it yet, didn’t know how serious it was or what it meant for the years ahead. Then word came that a former Asia Area Director had suffered a heart attack during his tenure. Another had been hospitalized. The work Virginia and I had given our lives to was demanding—we both knew that. Anxiety welled up inside me like nothing I had felt before. I tried to get on top of it. I tried to squash it. But I couldn’t—not by myself. So I gently woke Virginia. She prayed for me, and together we surrendered that anxiety to the Lord. I don’t know how I would have made it through those moments without her.

I’ve always known I need people. And while I haven’t always gotten things right, I’ve preferred healthy, mutually encouraging relationships—over the slow drift into the bitterness of unresolved conflict, over relationships that have quietly gone sideways, and over the loneliness of relational isolation. Growing through adolescence and young adulthood, I began to recognize my own insecurity, my approval addiction, and what I’ve come to call my “withered hand”—but that’s a topic for another post.

Even as I’ve worked through those unhealthy dysfunctions, I just would not do well on a desert island. Would you?

We were never created to remain indefinitely in isolation—alone, cut off from community. We are designed for fellowship with God, and without it we are diminished. When we isolate ourselves from others, apart from meaningful connection, apart from solitude chosen for a season, we deprive both ourselves and others of what only we can bring to the larger community of faith.

And yet somewhere along the way, we accepted a lie so familiar it barely registers anymore. To be mature means you no longer need anyone. Success is full independence. You’ve arrived when you need nothing from nobody.

But this is a terrible lie—and it is costing us dearly. We suffer alone, pride keeping us from asking for help, shaming us from the inside for even thinking of imposing on others. Some of our earliest words were probably “self” and “no”—tiny declarations of independence that the world then spent decades applauding.

We were made for something better than that.

Eric Spangler serves as Area Director for Free Methodist World Missions—Asia. He writes about mission, leadership, and what it means to do life better together. This post was developed in collaboration with Barnaby, his AI writing partner.