Scars on the Soul | Pastor Matt Pennington | Week 2

Well, thanks for joining us back here in part two of Scars on the Soul.

Or maybe you're here for the first time.

This isn't coming back to this series.

Somebody sent you this, or you just stumbled upon this randomly, and maybe it was the topic in the description that caught your attention.

Whatever the reason or the case for why you are here today, I want to say welcome to you.

We're so excited that you are here.

And the reason that I am excited is because the scars on the soul, this series, the heartbeat of this series is that we know that sometimes we walk difficult roads.

We walk through dark times in this human experience called life.

And what we believe is that the Bible speaks to all things that we experience, all things that we walk through, whether it be directly or indirectly.

And so the aim of this series is that we want to examine some of life's most sensitive and difficult topics, but to do so through a gospel lens.

In other words, that we believe that the Bible offers us encouragement and hope and even direction when sometimes we feel lost or abandoned or like we don't know where to go or where to turn.

Now I'll just encourage you before we jump into today's topic that there is a God in heaven who sees you and hears you, who loves you, who cares for you, and that whenever you find yourself in a dark valley or wherever you find yourself in a place of, I don't know where to go or where to turn or what to do, there is a God who is there and who hears you and sees you in those very moments.

That life itself was God's idea, that humanity was God's creation and his idea, and he understands that we live in a sin-broken world where things are not as they were intended to be.

And so before we go any further, just be encouraged that wherever you find yourself, whether you are in the darkest valley, where you are the lowest of lows, where you maybe are like, hey, this is my last ditch effort.

I don't know where to go.

My encouragement to you would be that we have a God in heaven who sees you, hears you, loves you, and cares about you.

And I pray that today this would be a step in the right direction where you feel encouraged, that you can continue to go on, but you do so correctly with your eyes fixed on Jesus.

Our topic for today is loneliness.

I know what you're thinking.

You may be thinking, well, I have plenty of friends and I have hobbies and I have activities and I generally feel satisfied with life.

But here's what I would also say to you is that just because you have friends or hobbies or interests, or you feel a general satisfaction, does not necessarily mean that you have not or will not struggle with loneliness.

The reality of loneliness is this in 2024, Dr.

Vivek Murphy, the U.S.

Surgeon General, declared that loneliness was a national epidemic with 30%, three out of every 10 U.S.

adults saying they feel lonely at least once per week.

And I would argue that the percentage is probably higher than that.

These 30% were just willing to admit and to acknowledge that if I'm being honest, I may be surrounded by people, I may be connected in a digital world, and if I'm being honest, there's at least once a week where I feel lonely.

I want to talk to you about not just the reality of loneliness, that a surgeon general in the United States as recently as two years ago suggested this is a national epidemic, but also talk about the severity of loneliness.

I think one of the reasons why loneliness is so severe is because loneliness tends to exaggerate negative thinking and behaviors.

If you've ever been lonely, or even if it was a period of maybe boredom where loneliness set in, you know that you get lost in your own thoughts.

And sometimes being lost in our own thoughts is that the negative thinking is actually exaggerated and things feel even much more worse than they maybe actually are.

And this negative thinking can then lead to behaviors that now change how we interact with the people around us.

In fact, isolation, loneliness, to an extreme standpoint, that isolation is so powerfully disorienting that solitary confinement is classified as a form of torture.

I want us to really understand that to its most extreme form, that isolation, the most extreme form of loneliness is actually a form of torture where people mentally break down, and sometimes that's strategic, to try to get out information or to break and dissolve someone's will.

And so we see that the reality of loneliness is that 30 U.S.

or 30% of U.S.

adults would acknowledge that, hey, if I'm being honest, I struggle with this to some degree, but then also to understand that this is not something that we should ignore.

This is something that if allowed to persist and that it compounds in the mind that leads to behavioral changes, is that loneliness can be severe and can have severe implications.

And so with that in mind, what exactly is loneliness?

How is it defined clinically, psychologically?

What is loneliness?

Here's what I would tell you is that loneliness is a state of mind, not a state of being.

Loneliness is a state of mind and not a state of being.

In fact, it's defined as this it's a state of mind characterized by dissociation between what an individual expects from their relationships and what an individual experiences in their relationships.

In other words, that loneliness occurs between the ears more so than it occurs in physical reality.

Now, I'm not saying that loneliness doesn't affect physical reality, but it starts between our ears.

It starts with this mental characterization between what I expect from relationships and what I actually experience.

I would add that loneliness is largely the result of unfulfilled or unmet expectations.

Without realizing it, we have expectations for our social interactions, whether it be at work, in our marriages, with our friend groups, that we have expectations, and when our expectations are unmet, it can contribute to feelings of loneliness whether we are physically alone or not.

Because loneliness is based on expectations of social engagement, you don't have to be isolated to feel lonely.

And what I mean is that you can feel all alone in a crowded room.

You can feel unnoticed, although you live with a spouse.

You can feel unappreciated in an office full of coworkers.

Dr.

Robert Waldinger of Harvard, he said this.

He says, loneliness is the sense that I am less connected to other people than I want to be.

I think that's extremely important for us to understand is that I feel less connected than I want to be.

It does not mean that we are not connected.

It does not mean that we are not around people, that we don't have social interactions with other people.

It is a state of mind that says I'm less connected than I desire to be.

I have unmet, unfulfilled expectations.

He goes on to say, I can deliberately isolate myself and feel great about that.

I can physically be all alone and mentally be okay with that because my expectation for social interaction in this moment is I just need to be alone.

Maybe for you that's a hobby.

You like to fish or you like to hunt or you like to go hiking or you like to read a book in a hammock all by yourself, sit on the beach and suntan all day long.

Whatever the case may be, the point is that we can physically be alone and mentally be 1,000% okay with that.

Meanwhile, we can have expectations that in a crowded room I desire something that's not being fulfilled and met, and I can feel all alone, though the room is crowded.

He says, the fact is that you can be lonely in a crowd, you can be lonely in a marriage, you can also be content and not lonely alone on a mountaintop.

Why?

Because loneliness is a state of mind, not a state of physical being.

Now, I would add to this and say that loneliness can stem from a number of places.

Sometimes loneliness is something that I have contributed to.

Sometimes loneliness is something that I never asked for or signed up for.

There are situational factors, whether it be temporary or permanent, you and a friend have this falling out together, and so you go through this period of loneliness because you have these unmet, unfulfilled expectations.

You have sudden life changes that disrupt relationships.

Maybe that's the loss of a loved one, a friend, a spouse.

And so suddenly you have this unexpected life change, and now the relationships are disrupted, and now I have unfulfilled, unmet expectations because of physical loss, that those relationships cannot physically continue.

Or sometimes there are other obstacles such as mentally or emotionally, where we suffer from anxiety or depression, where my anxiety prevents me from going out in crowded spaces, or my depression affects the way that I feel when I am in crowded places.

The point is that loneliness can stem from a number of places, and so it can affect a wide range of people, and sometimes even those who are unsuspecting.

I think as we understand the conversation that we have today, that we need to also understand that there are unhealthy ways to deal and respond to loneliness.

I have three things here that we will talk about quickly before we get into our text where we hopefully find encouragement for how we combat loneliness.

But three unhealthy ways to respond to loneliness is number one, to ignore the why.

I think this is a big thing where we begin to feel lonely and maybe we don't quite understand that it's loneliness, or we begin to feel things inside of us where our expectations are not being met, but we begin to ignore the why.

For some of us, ignoring the why means that we pretend that we're not lonely because we're in this crowded space, even though on the inside our feelings are betraying us.

But sometimes I think we can just ignore the why.

Maybe for us, we talked about last week grief.

Sometimes for us it's this, hey, I feel lonely, but I'm not quite sure why.

And we we don't ever explore the rationale or the reason behind the why.

Is it because I lost a parent at a young age?

Is it because I lost a spouse?

Is it because that my marriage is not quite going the way that I thought it was going?

Is it because I have friends who have now spent time in other places because they got married or they had kids or they just found new friends, whatever the case may be, I think it's unhealthy to ignore the why behind these feelings that we have.

The second thing is this is maybe we begin to feel loneliness.

Maybe we can actually target it and say, you know what, what I'm feeling is loneliness, but the way we respond to loneliness in those moments is that we embrace or we embrace unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I mean, I think this is one where we can understand that, hey, my friend has a drinking problem, but it's not just because they had a drinking problem, it's because they had symptoms long before they ever picked up a drink.

And so they're trying to mask these feelings, and so they've embraced unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I mean, how many of us know people who go through a divorce or go through the death of a loved one or a friend, and then in the years afterwards, they they all of a sudden have like an abuse problem of some type of substance?

I think we can respond to loneliness in unhealthy ways.

We can begin to cope in ways that are not helpful or healthy.

I think another one of these that's maybe a little less obvious is that we can cope with habits that are not healthy.

And one of the things that I think we see a lot, especially with loneliness, is we develop this habit called codependence.

Codependence is this idea that I feel lonely, so I act on my loneliness by clinging to someone.

I mean, it's this like over-the-top clinging to where you become my person.

Like you give me something that I can't get anywhere else.

And at first we would say, well, isn't that like love and romance?

And like that's what we long for, but it becomes unhealthy because this person now bears the weight of your emotional unrest.

Your feelings of loneliness are now being projected on a person, and now your expectations are not being met because they physically cannot live up to what you desire, because what you really desire is to heal from loneliness.

The other side of this is that when I live and involved in these codependent relationships is that I can also adopt, because of the way this person makes me feel, and they kind of scratch that itch that is loneliness, is that I adopt a mentality that I'll do whatever it takes to hold on to this person.

I think many of people have gotten themselves into sticky situations because without realizing it, they are dealing with loneliness, but they are doing so in unhealthy, coping ways.

And now all of a sudden they begin to sacrifice boundaries and morals and all of these other things because their mentality is the way that you make me feel is what I become addicted to, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you around.

I think we see this a lot, especially with like abusive type relationships.

It's this fear of loneliness and not getting what I think that I desire.

And so I'm willing to endure and put up with all kinds of stuff, no matter how bad it may be, because I'll do whatever it takes to begin to feel this need that I have inside being met.

And so I think we can ignore the why, which is unhealthy.

I think we can embrace unhealthy coping mechanisms, whether it be a substance or a habit.

Or I think two, we can, or three, that we can forget the truth.

I think sometimes the thing about emotions is emotions are real and they're valid, but sometimes our feelings prevent us from seeing the truth.

It's this idea that negative thinking is exaggerated when we feel lonely, that our feelings become all-consuming and it can begin to fog out and cloud the truth, and we begin to forget or can't see the truth because our emotions are so overwhelming.

And so I think these are three ways in which we respond incorrectly.

So here's what I want to do is to acknowledge that loneliness is a real thing.

A surgeon general in the US two years ago, so this is a national epidemic.

We see the severity of loneliness.

We see that loneliness stems from a number of places.

We see that there are unhealthy ways to deal with loneliness.

So here's what I want us to do for the rest of our time is to see, okay, how is it that we can combat loneliness when we experience it?

And the big idea I want to give us today is this that feelings of loneliness are valid.

We talked about the valid emotions and feelings that we feel.

Feelings of loneliness are not evidence of abandonment.

I think that's a big key for us is that we can feel lonely because we have these unmet, unfulfilled expectations on the inside, but we can also deduce wrongly that because of the way that I feel, that I have been abandoned.

I think it's important for us to understand that feelings of loneliness are not evidence of abandonment.

I think we see this clearly in Psalm 142.

Psalm 142 is a psalm of David.

In fact, the heading of this psalm in your Bible will tell us that this is a maskile of David.

That's a contemplative poem.

It's a poem that is meant to think and to reflect.

And the held the heading tells us that specifically this poem of David is a cry of distress.

This is a heart cry from David, King David, David and Goliath, David.

And yet he is being honest about how he feels in this moment.

It tells us that David wrote this from a cave.

Now, many scholars believe that this could be one of two caves.

This could be the cave of Adulum, where David hid, because Saul, the king, and his mentor, so to speak, the one who he worked for and played the heart for, was trying to kill him.

And so David is fleeing for his life.

He is on the run and he's hiding in a cave because his whole reality has been flipped upside down because this guy that he works for is now trying to kill him.

Or some scholars believe this could be the cave of Engedi where David was hiding again from Saul, and Saul comes in to relieve himself, and David clips the hem of his garment.

Either way, at this point, David is in a cave, probably because he is fleeing for his life, because someone is chasing him, trying to kill him.

And I think here's what we see in Psalm 142.

We will never read the word loneliness in any of these seven verses, but I think we can begin to understand David's heart and his emotion is that he feels all alone.

He feels abandoned in these moments.

What we see is that David's desperation, though, the way in which he coped with this, was in a healthy way, and I would suggest the only way in which we find true satisfaction from loneliness is that David's desperation sent him to his knees.

That's the name of God Yahweh.

I cry aloud to Yahweh, I plead aloud to Yahweh for mercy.

You hear the desperation in his voice and in his writing that I am pleading with God.

I pour out my complaint before him, I reveal my trouble to him.

I'm honest about my situation.

My honesty is I'm not okay.

My life is in danger, and I am crying out.

I am complaining to you, I am revealing my trouble to you.

Verse 3, although my spirit is weak within me, you know my way.

Along this path I travel, they have hidden a trap for me.

Look to the right and see, no one stands up for me.

Do you begin to hear David's desperation and his cry that look, I look around and I'm fleeing from my life.

People are trying to kill me, they're trying to hunt me down, and I look around and there's nobody there.

No one stands up for me, no one's fighting on my behalf.

He says, There is no refuge for me.

I can run and I can hide, but there's no real permanent place of refuge.

At the end of verse 4, David says this, No one cares about me.

Again, in these four verses, we don't see the word loneliness anywhere, but I think if we read between the lines, we hear David's heart and he is crying out, God, I look around, my life is in danger, and there's nobody there to help me.

I think here's what we see about this is that in David's loneliness, that he's honest about his situation.

Remember, one of the unhealthy ways we deal with loneliness is that we ignore the why.

Sometimes we ignore the why because we try to pretend it doesn't exist, or sometimes we just don't do the hard work of trying to figure out where these feelings are coming from.

What we see here from David is that he is honest about his situation.

He says, My complaint, my trouble, my spirit is weak within me.

No one stands up from me, no one cares about me.

Now here's the thing that could be real or perceived.

That may not be the truth at all.

And in fact, if David is in the cave of Adulum, we read later that there were 400 people with David in this cave.

And yet his heart's desire, his unfulfilled, unmet expectations, is that these people around me cannot satisfy the deepest longing of my soul.

And so because of that, my feelings are telling me, no one is here to help me, stand up for me, there's no refuge for me, and no one cares about me.

I think we see here from Psalm 142 in these first four verses, is that if we feel lonely, if we have these feelings of unmet, unfulfilled expectations, we have to be honest about why we're feeling this way.

Is it the product of something out of our control?

Maybe because of the death of a loved one, this is part of the grieving process.

Maybe it's the result of divorce where you were married for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, and now you feel all alone and you had nothing to do with it, regardless of what is the why for my loneliness?

Is it self-inflicted?

Now, I'm not trying to beat you up if you feel lonely, but we have to also be honest that sometimes the reason that we feel lonely is self-inflicted because it's actually the result of shame.

It's actually the result of me isolating from the people around me because though I'm in a crowded room, I know deep down what I've said, what I've done, what I've thought, and so the feelings of shame now cause me to isolate that even if I'm in a crowded room, I don't feel that way because I have this deep dark secret down inside of me.

I think we have to be honest about the why.

Is it something that's out of my control?

Is it something that I contributed to and it's self-inflicted?

Is it part of maybe a medical condition?

Maybe you're honest, you're like, there's no real event in my life that this should make me feel this way.

So maybe it's a trigger or a warning sign that says, you know what, maybe there's some other stuff going on.

Maybe there's some anxiety or depression that's going on and it's contributing to these feelings.

Whatever the case may be, I think we learn from David is that their incorrect way to respond to loneliness is to pretend that it doesn't exist or not be honest about it.

What we see from David is that he cries out to Yahweh.

And he says, This is how I feel.

This is the turmoil of my soul inside of me.

Can I just offer you a quick encouragement?

That though you may be walking through loneliness and it doesn't really matter why.

Whether it was something that you didn't sign up for, whether it's something that you contributed to, whether it be something mental health-related, whatever the case may be, can I just encourage you with this?

That loneliness can act as a check engine light for our soul.

You know what I'm talking about.

Like your check engine light, the reason that you put a picture in front of it is to kind of pretend that it doesn't exist.

And yet what that light is designed to tell you is that, hey, something is out of sync or something's not quite right.

And the point of the check engine light is this light comes on so that we can actually go and get it examined before we have really, really big problems on our hands.

And I think for us, loneliness, even though it's a painful journey to walk through, is that loneliness can act as a check engine light for our soul.

Is that these feelings can communicate to us, hey, something's out of sync, something's not quite right.

And I don't know about you, but when my check engine light comes on, I go to an expert to say, hey, this thing came on, so can you tell me what's going on?

I think that's exactly what David does is that he knows, like, hey, the feelings that I feel is the check engine light's going off.

And so the way in which he responds correctly is that he goes to the expert, he goes to Yahweh.

Way and he says, God, I'm just telling you all this stuff inside of me, I have unfulfilled, unmet expectations, and something's out of sync, something's not right.

And so I'm gonna go to you, the expert, and I'm gonna ask you to heal this and to diagnose it so that I know the path going forward.

And so I think for you, if you're walking through loneliness, maybe it's encouraging to think, hey, if I can just figure out honestly what's going on or what the source is of this, I can go to the expert and say, okay, here's the check engine, like something's not quite right.

God, I'm asking you to intervene.

God, I'm asking you to heal these wounds.

God, I'm asking you to fulfill these unmet, unfulfilled expectations.

Because can I just tell you, and we don't have time to read it today, but in John chapter 4, I think we see a great example of this: that Jesus shows up at a well and it says that his physical human body is weary, and he shows up at a well, and a woman shows up, guess what?

John 4 · chapter mention

All by herself.

And Jesus asks her for a cup of water, and they have this dialogue, this dialogue, and this exchange back and forth.

And eventually, here's what I think Jesus communicates to this woman that she's all by herself, that she's dealing with loneliness, and she's responding in unhealthy ways, and she's trying to mask this unfulfilled, unmet expectation inside of her with men because he asked her, Hey, go get your husband, and she says, Well, actually, he's not here, I don't have one.

He's like, You're correct, because you've had five.

I think what Jesus lovingly and graciously communicates to this woman is that you have a loneliness in your soul that you're trying to meet with all of these other ways, but only the one that you're talking to, Jesus, God in flesh, can fulfill the ultimate longing of your soul.

That's why he says to her, if you knew who you were talking to, you wouldn't be listening to me ask you for water, you would be asking me for water, because the water that I provide is a living water that satisfies the deepest longings of your soul.

So I think for us, we can learn from David is that we can be really honest about the loneliness that we feel, and that loneliness can act as a check engine light, but we can do one of two things when the check engine light comes on.

We can pretend that it doesn't exist and we can cover it up, or we can say, hey, we have a problem on our hands, and we can go to the expert.

And the expert in David's case is he goes to Yahweh and he cries aloud based on the inner turmoil that he is feeling.

Let me just encourage you before we wrap up is that loneliness will never fully be satisfied apart from Jesus.

Is that every single person has this deep longing of their soul, and we can try to fill it with substance, we can try to fill it with relationships, we can try to fill it in so many ways, but that deepest, darkest loneliness of our soul will never fully be satisfied apart from Jesus.

But as we continue, Psalm 142, this is how David ends this psalm.

I cry to you, Lord Yahweh.

I say, You are my shelter, my portion in the land of the living.

Listen to my cry, for I am very weak.

Rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.

Free me from prison so that I can praise your name.

The righteous will gather around me because you deal generous with me.

In spite of his feelings, here's what David says I feel like I'm all alone.

There's no refuge for me, no one's fighting for me.

But in verse 5, he shifts and he says, This, but I am telling my feelings that my feelings feel like I'm all alone, but I'm reminding myself, theologically, it is true that I am not alone, for you are my shelter.

My portion.

Listen to my cry, for I am weak.

Rescue me.

In spite of his feelings, David reminds himself of what is true.

And what is true is that he has a God in heaven who hears him, who sees him, who cares for him, and who loves him, and that he becomes David's shelter.

When my feelings tell me I have no refuge, I find myself I remind myself that you are my refuge.

He asks, God, rescue me.

Now, I don't know about you, but we only seek or I only seek rescue from a source that can actually save me.

And so he reminds himself that though I am feeling a certain way and the feelings and the emotions are valid, I'm reminding myself of what is true, and I'm crying out to you, God, because you can do for me what I cannot do for myself.

So, God, I'm asking that you would rescue me.

Because I believe that you have the authority and the power to do so.

I am weak.

They are too strong for me, is David's confession, his admission.

But he says, But you have the authority and the power that you can rescue me.

The check engine light of David's soul is on, and he's going to the expert saying, Hey, here's the problem.

I'm asking you to fix it because only you can.

And so here's what I would say to us as we round out this discussion on loneliness.

And it's this sometimes we have to tell our feelings how to feel.

It doesn't diminish the validity of the feelings and the weight of the emotions that we walk through, but sometimes, in spite of how we feel, we have to remind ourselves of what is true.

So here's the truth I want to leave you with.

And the truth is this we may feel lonely because the feelings and the emotions are valid.

We may feel lonely, but we know this to be true theologically and biblically, is that we may feel lonely, but we are never alone.

Here's my final encouragement.

If you're watching this because somebody sent it to you or you just stumbled on this, praise God for that.

But here's what I would tell you.

If the check engine light of your soul is flashing because you feel lonely, you have these unfulfilled, unmet expectations, then I would encourage you to go to the expert like David did, that you would cry aloud to Yahweh, that you would seek Jesus in the living water that he offers us, that we would make sure that my unfulfilled, unmet expectations are not trying to be masked and covered with substance or habits, but instead that we would lay them at the feet of Jesus and we're asking that you would rescue me.

Because you have the ability and the authority to do so.

I pray that this has been helpful and encouragement for you.

Let me pray for you as we end today.

God, thank you for today.

God, thank you that your word does not shy away from the deep, dark valleys that we walk through, that we find ourselves in.

God, we understand that sometimes we walk through painful days and journeys.

But Lord, we know that whatever we walk through, that you are there with us.

That though we may feel lonely, we are never alone.

That we can always hit our knees in desperation, we can look up and we can cry out to the God who sees us and hears us and cares about us and ask, God, would you do for me what I cannot do for myself?

God, this is my prayer for anybody who's watching this who's struggling with loneliness.

Or that they would be honest about what is going on and they would remind themselves of the truth.

And the truth is that though we may feel lonely, is that we are never alone.

God, we thank you and we rest in this truth.

And we ask this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.