estranged from the world

I feel the need to post a journal entry since it involves my trouble with the world. While these thoughts and feelings have brewed for some time it was a church sermon today that brought me to think afresh. The message was on reconciliation. Every once in a while we all need to be reminded to take an inventory of anyone we have outstanding conflicts with and then seek reconciliation. Well I can’t think of a single individual but have the type of bittnerness within my heart that is rooted when resentment emerges against an individual. Who am I resentful toward…perhaps the question is ‘what’. I believe I have developed a resentment toward the world…toward people as a whole. I’ve become cynical and lost my naïve joie de vive. I remind myself that as Christians we are “aliens and strangers in the world” and should therefore not get hooked in to expecting anything from the world. But what about brothers and sisters in Christ? My cynicism is linked to the body of believers as well. How did I find myself in a place where I doubt even the goodness of the body. Are we so entwined with the world that our behaviors and motives look more like the alien world and less like a loving/serving body? Are we to expect anything…of anybody…except God. Is it a wonderful thing to be so disconnected from the world that it’s just you and God? Should I be celebrating my estrangement from the world? If this was the case why would loneliness be the norm? I was reading Ecclesiastes last night and was again reminded that everything is meaningless. Perhaps I have the meaningless blues these days. Where do I go to get rejuvenated with the Spirit-filled answer? I don’t want to settle for another short-lived worldly answer. I want to arrive at a Spirit-filled truth that can sustain me through the loneliness and meaninglessness. I read the Word, I try small groups, I go to church, I serve, I help people find their way back to God…..then, I go home and live through the loneliness. I could use some fresh insight here. Is this what they call the dark night of the soul? Is that You forming this darkness? “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7