The Hunger Of Isolation

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. When John asked me to do wisdom, I realized I have never read through the book of Proverbs. I thought, John caught me doing that. And here's the reason why. It's because I start reading the book of Proverbs and I stop. I don't know, something gets me thinking. And there's a million of those sort of ideas and concepts going on in Proverbs. So unlike reading a story or a narrative or a poem or poetry or a psalm, I get going and I stop. And so I've never ever just sat down and read through the book of Proverbs. So this is a good exercise for me to try to do that. I'm going to present a little bit differently than John, because part of that issue is that when he puts up all the Proverbs that he's going to cover during the sermon, I feel like I'm trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose. And it's like, well, I can't think that fast, because each proverb gives me pause and opportunity to think, well, what does that mean? Who said that? So the same kind of reason that I'm going to give or excuse for not reading through the book of Proverbs is the same one that I would give for the way I'm going to do this. So I'm going to take the Proverbs that are part of our text here today and weave them in so that I can digest them one at a time. Maybe you can digest them all at once. I know John can. He's a professor and all that kind of thing. But I am not, so I weave them in. So you're going to notice a different format, different way in which the Proverbs are presented. But you're going to notice that they're the same word of the Lord. And that's really key. It's really been a great exercise for me to go through the wisdom of the Proverbs, because it's stuff that just makes sense, and their insight and their knowledge of humanity and spirit are phenomenal. And here's what we'll do today as we walk through this together and finally get on with the sermon and not let go of the introductory material, is talk about the troubled spirit that the Proverbs kind of address. And I'm going to really see it as differently, not a troubled spirit so much, but the unsatisfied hunger of isolation. There's something that happens when we get isolated. Take a look in culture. So if you're in society or within a culture, and you break laws and misbehave, they separate you from that and put you in jail. And so you are separated from culture and from family and from friends and are placed in jail. If you misbehave or are a problem in jail or prison, they put you in isolation, solitary. So solitary and isolation are the ultimate punishments for wrongdoing, for evil. They are the sort of universal way in which humanity suffers. Isolation is essentially what we're going to talk about in the first part of this message, the unsatisfied hunger of isolation. And what you're going to see, as I discovered in this message here in my studies, is that it's universal across time and space. It is the nature of our nature to be hungry for something more, like we're missing it. I didn't want to do the Joni Mitchell song. That just seemed inappropriate. Is that all there is? So my opening question for you, sort of the opening salvo is, for what do you hunger? How is that hunger driving you? Is the hunger that you feel and that you have easily addressed with food or risk-taking or medication or relationships or sex or fun or money, do those things satisfy you? Do you get driven to them, even if they don't satisfy you? Do you continuously get caught in the loop of trying to be satisfied with those things and more? What I've discovered in my life is that it's always been true. It's that my first reflex, my first thought, my first action, my first activity is to seek satisfaction from my hungers in one of those areas. And as a result, I get that hunger satisfied for a little bit. People will tell you that things like drugs and sex and money and shopping and credit cards don't supply you satisfaction. They do, for a little bit. And the next thing that you want to do is satisfy that hunger because it dissipates. Mary Louise and I were just talking this week. We're always looking for a healthy chip. Now, that's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? A healthy chip. So we buy chips with brown rice in them and satisfy our healthy desires phenomena, right? And we say, oh, these are good. And I was reminded of a documentary I saw. There is a science in salty, sweet, crisp balancing. That there are scientists who sit around a table who look at molecules who are dressed in white coats who are trying to figure out how to get me to eat this chip because it's going to have just the right amount of salt, just the right amount of sugar, just the right amount of crisp. And I'm going to put it in my mouth and go, oh, I want more. Of course. That's the nature of the hunger that exists, is that there are forces that want us to want more. We're...