Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - 3 Ways to Seek Healing From Trauma | Peace of Mind: Part 6

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Are you or someone you know going through a difficult time? In this message, we’re learning how to seek healing from trauma. Take some time right now to rest and let God speak to your heart.ABOUT THIS MESSAGESometimes, we’re facing battles that no one else can see. Maybe it’s trying to move forward after loss or uneasiness about the future. What do we do when we don’t understand what we’re feeling and hope seems far away? In our new series, Peace of Mind, we’ll learn how to fight our mental battles and find peace.Take your next step towards peace: https://www.life.church/mentalhealthCheck out the Peace of Mind Bible Plan here: https://www.go2.lc/mentalhealthplanListen to the Finding Calm in the Chaos podcast series here: https://go2.lc/CalmintheChaosPlaylistNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #healingfromtrauma Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are in a message series called Peace of Mind talking about mental health. Next week, we're going to talk about burnout. Many of you right now feel like you're on the edge and like you can't take any more. We're going to talk about that next week. Today, we're going to talk about trauma, which is probably the most difficult of all the subjects that we've talked about in the previous and upcoming weeks. It's a subject that, quite honestly, you may not hear about. about frequently in churches,

but we're gonna talk about it today. Many of you, unfortunately, in fact, probably the majority of you at some point in your life, you've endured something severe, some kind of trial, some kind of abuse, some kind of heartbreak. And so it's with a lot of help from experts that I've been studying God's word

and getting advice from people who help others heal for a living and with a very heavy heart that I've been praying all week long that the presence of God would do something in the lives of so many of you who need hope that you can heal. So many people think trauma, what is it? What is trauma?

A lot of people think that it's the event, it's the injury, it's the abuse. But technically speaking, trauma is actually the response to what happens in an event. A good definition of trauma would be this. Trauma is a response, to a deeply disturbing or distressing event. Some think of trauma as physical,

kind of like a traumatic injury, a physical injury. But the truth of the matter is that while trauma can be physical and it often is, it also can be emotional, it can be mental, it can even be spiritual abuse

or spiritual trauma. And that's why it's so important to remember that the wounds you can't see can hurt as much as the ones that you can see. And sometimes they even take longer to heal. And so it's with a very real awareness that many of you have been hurt

and deeply wounded and been through horrible experiences that I want to share God's word today because when you walk into maybe church or in your life group and you're in pain and you want to talk about what you've been through, inevitably some happy Christian, some very happy-feely good Christian

where with very very, good intentions. Quote, Romans 828 in the middle of your pain. And we know that in all things, they tell you with a very good heart, that God works them together for good to those who love and who recalled according to his purpose. A powerful truth, a life-changing truth, an important truth. It's always true, but maybe doesn't always feel healthy. helpful when you still feel like you're in shock, or maybe denial, or maybe you feel moody because of what happened and you don't know why you can't control your emotions, or you feel overwhelmed with anxiety, or you feel numb completely. Or even though what happened to you may not have been

your fault, you feel guilt and shame for something that someone else did to you. So today, we walk into it prayerfully. The title of today's message is three ways to seek healing from trauma, and I would love it if my amazing church family would pray together with me. God, thank you for your presence and for your goodness, and for the healing work we can find through Jesus that by his stripes, we can be healed. We pray for you to work through your word and by your spirit to transform lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus, and everybody said, amen and amen. All right. Some of you grew up around the time I did, and I'm not proud to tell you this, but I was from the generation when someone said, I experienced trauma. I was

like trauma smama, kind of like, get over it. It couldn't be that bad. I grew up and when we got hurt, my dad said, rub a little dirt on it, get back on the field. Any of you grow up like that at all? Anyone? A couple of you. Maybe my life was different than I thought it was. Okay, I don't know. But I kind of just grew up with a, hey, just kind of get over it mindset. And what I've grown to to learn is that you don't just get over trauma. You don't just move. past it, you actually have to heal from it. And so what I want to do today is I want to try to build a foundational understanding of what trauma is. And then I want to show you in Scripture how we pursue healing and seek God for what only He can do.

And we'll start with three different types of trauma, just to build a foundational understanding. The three different types of trauma, there's acute trauma, there's chronic trauma, and there's complex trauma. different types of trauma. What is acute trauma? Acute trauma is a response from a one-time traumatic events. Maybe you were in a horrible car accident, or you survived a natural disaster. For those of you in Oklahoma, it was a tornado. For those of you in Southern Florida, it was a hurricane, whatever it was, but it was dangerous and you survived. It was very traumatic. Your response was. It might have been a complicated birth. One of my daughters went through an indescribably complicated birth. For others of you, it might have been losing your business in the middle of COVID, or for some of you,

unfortunately, in college, you might have been date raped. There was a one-time event. It was horrible, and the response to it was traumatic. Then the second type is chronic trauma, and that is a long-term response from prolonged or repeated events. It's not a one-time event, but it's a long-term event. For example, some of you may have been bullied all the way through junior high, or others of you experienced racism for most of your life. It might have been that you were very, very young, five, six years old. He came across pornography for the very first time. And you looked at porn, six years old, seven-year-olds, eight-year-old, nine. and you've been looking at it for years, and it's a very traumatic experience for you.

Some of you, you were raised in a home where there was alcohol or there was drug abuse, and you lived in an environment that never, ever felt safe to you. Others of you, you were sexually abused, not one time, but multiple times, and often by somebody that should have been protecting you instead of harming you. There's chronic abuse. And the third type is called complex trauma. And that's a response to multiple and ongoing events. This is when you're raised in a home or you're married to someone

and you see some combination of all the things that we talked about. There's chemical abuse, there's emotional abuse, there's physical abuse, there might be sexual abuse, and the list could go on and on. And no matter what you've been through or at what level, trauma changes you. And it changes your perspective. It can change how you see people. It can change how you see God. It can change your outlook on life.

I'll give you an example of something that's not nearly as severe as what many who have been through, but as my counselor says, you don't compare trauma. You just seek God for healing. I went through kind of an unusual series of events when I was a kid. I was in multiple car accidents in the passenger side. of the vehicle. Now, again, for those of you who around my age, I grew up in the era where we didn't wear seatbelts. Does anybody remember that era? No seatbelts at all. We would even lay up in the back of a car in the window and take naps as a kid for hours upon hours. This was the era when you

would put an entire junior high baseball team in the back of a pickup truck, drive 70 miles an hour down the highway and think you were smart. It was a very fun era, and by the grace of God, we lived through this dumb era, but that's when I grew up. Those of you online, you can type in the chat. If you were there, I was there. You did that as well. And so I was in a passenger seat of a car when I got in another accident. I had just turned 16, and my friend had turned 16. We were in his pickup truck, and we were driving down a side road, pulling up to a four-lane highway, and he leaned over to me in his truck, and he had this crazy look in his eye. I'll never forget it. He leaned over, and he said, watch this! And he was. And he leaned over to me. He said, he said, watch this. And he

He drove straight through the stop sign, straight across the four-lane highway. I looked up and you could see the timing was going to be just perfect for all the wrong reasons. There was another vehicle coming, probably 70 miles an hour, straight at me. I've got no seatbelt. I'm in the passenger side, looking up, looking up, bracing, bracing, bracing, bracing, bracing, bracing, bracing, bracing, and his car came right toward my door. And by the grace of God just missed me, hit the back of the truck, spun it around three and a half times, ambulances, hospitals, and the The story goes on and on, and I am terrified to ride with any of you.

Any of you. I don't care how good you're driving is. I mean, there's no offense. You're driving, and I'm reaching over there. It's, it is a hurrah, I can barely take it. My flight instructor said, I fly like a fighter pilot. Just think Tom Cruise. Think that I fly like a maniac. I drive like a grandpa driver. And you say, you are a grandpa. And that's true. But I've been driving like a grandpa driver since before I had kids. I'm in my mid-50s and had never had a speeding ticket, never had an accident. Traumatized. It changed me. For you, it might be that someone hurts you and you don't know how to trust people.

It might be that you find it difficult to trust God. It might be that you grew up with no money, and so you got these really dysfunctional views and fear of not having enough, no matter what. It might be that someone did something to you, and so you are traumatized, worrying that one day they'll do the same thing to one of your children. How do we heal from trauma? Well, we're gonna look today at God's Word,

and we're actually gonna look at someone that you probably wouldn't guess experienced trauma. I've been all the way through seminary with a Master's Divinity, studied scripture for years, and it wasn't until I dug into this person this week that I realized the Apostle Paul, the person that most of us would never think was traumatized, the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament,

the guy who said, to live as Christ, to die his gain, he experienced acute, chronic, and complex, trauma. And I want to show you, and I want you to see it, and I want you to watch what God did to bring healing and how God brought him to a stronger place based on what he'd been through. You go all the way through to his conversion. If you don't know, he was a guy that was killing Christians, he was not a Christian, and his conversion was traumatic. My conversion was like a Christian Hallmark commercial. I felt bad for my son. Went in kneeled down in a softball field at night. The sun was setting, the birds were chirping.

There was a Michael W. Smith song playing somewhere in the background. Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them. I stood up, new creation in Christ, saved by the grace of God. It was an amazing, peaceful experience. The Apostle Paul was killing Christians, and in Acts Chapter 9, you can read about it, a light from heaven knocked him to the ground. We don't know for sure what light knocks people to the ground. But, based on my fifth grade science class, that was probably lightning, possibly struck by lightning. And then a voice from heaven speaks,

and the voice doesn't say, hello, my servant, I have chosen thou. The voice says, why are you persecuting me, Saul? God knocks him down. And ask him, in your face question. Then Paul is blind, three days. And God doesn't say, don't worry, Three days from now, I'm going to send this guy, he's going to come pray for it, and you're going to be healed. God doesn't do that. He's just blind. He's knocked down by lightning. A voice from heaven is not particularly generous. And then he's blind for three days. And then he's healed. And this Christian killer becomes a killer Christian preacher. He preaches the gospel. And so the good news is that God rewarded him with a six-figure salary with great benefits. And

Lots of babes. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. For the rest of his life, he endured prolific abuse, running for his life. In fact, I want to show you just on the screen a map of just according to the Bible, just the verses that we have, in every city we see, he had to run out of town trying to escape to save his life. I had someone kind of rude to me at a restaurant recently, and I decided to walk out. Here's my story. Paul exited city after city after city after city, after city, because people were trying to kill him and take his life. He endured ongoing,

severe trauma, and he healed from it. And I want to show you three things in scripture that we can that we can learn from God's Word to pursue healing with God. The first thing that we learned is this, as we look at Paul and something we need to do, is we process the pain of our trauma. Now, as a side note, in order to process it, you gotta acknowledge it. And I wanna start here and say,

some of you have been through something and you're trying to put it aside and try not to act like it ever happened. You don't heal when you ignore the wound. You don't heal when you saw something. suppress the wound. You don't heal when you try to forget the wound. You start to heal when you take it to God and start to process it. And so some of you, what you have to say, you have to acknowledge it. I was abused. Now, there are some people today that think everything's abuse.

Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean you're abused. Just because someone corrects you, just because someone believes something different than you, that's not the same. But some of you need to just acknowledge, I was abused, or I was raped. You need to say it. I was abandoned. I was mistreated. And the reason that we don't want to say this, one is we just like to shut it out, because we feel vulnerable, we feel helpless, we feel like it's better to ignore it than to process it. And what happens is, according to the experts I've worked with, instead of seeking connection, we prioritize protection. Instead of taking our pain to trusted people, we often push trusted people away.

And the problem is that we don't heal in isolation. How do we heal? We heal in community. We heal together with the people of God. And that's one of the reasons we talk often about, life groups, it's not because we want you to do something else in your already busy life. It's because we're better together, because iron sharpens iron, because we confess our faults to one another and we pray for each other. Scripture says that we may be healed. Community matters so

much. And the challenge is if you ignore the pain, the wound is still there. What happens is you go somewhere else to cope. You go to drugs or you go to alcohol or you go to alcohol or you that as sex or you use food as a coping mechanism. Or you do what I do, and that is you just work. You just work. Paul actually processed his trauma. And I'm going to show you on the back wall a big portion of scripture.

And he's writing about this. And yes, he's telling them what he's been through. But the reality, what he's doing is he is processing his pain. And you can read this whole text in 2nd, Grymthians 11, starting in verse 23 if you want to. I'll just give you the high points. Essentially, it says he was in prison, too many times to count. Five times he was beaten with 39 lashes.

Now, why 39 lashes? Because you could actually die from 39 lashes. But if you died from 39 lashes in court, they would say you died from a beating. If you died from 40 lashes, that would be murder. So they would just beat you 39 times and see if you live. Five times. He was last 39 times.

Three times he was beaten with rods. He was stoned. And I feel like in this day and age, I need to say that's not recreationally speaking, just based on where we are in the world today. Just thought I would say that. He was shipwrecked. He almost starred to death.

He froze. He was in danger everywhere that he went. And this is what he said in Second Corinthians 1-9. This is the Apostle Paul. He said, we were under great pressure. Watch this. Far beyond our ability to endure so that we despised of life itself. I want to pause for a moment and tell you,

if you've ever hurt so deeply that you didn't know if you wanted to go on, the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament had been there as well. we despaired of life itself. What do you do? He's talking about it. He's writing about it. He's processing it.

And I want to encourage you to find a safe place, the right place with the right people to process the pain of your trauma. And that very well could be, for many of you, your life group, your trusted spiritual friends. It could be your local campus pastor. It could be a Christian counselor

who's trained to help. But we don't heal. when we ignore it. We have to acknowledge it and we process it with trusted people. The second thing that we do is we prayerfully press in to God with our trauma. We take it to God. We cry out to God. We talk to God. We might even complain to God about it. And this is what Paul did in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. If you don't know the context of this chapter, he had something that he called a thorn, and we don't know what the thorn was. Scholars guess all these different things, but it was a thorn that was tormenting him.

It seems to me that almost everybody has a thorn. Raise your hand if you have a thorn. Raise your hand if you have a thorn. Type online if you have a thorn. Some of you, type online. I have a thorn. Some of you right now, you have a thorn. Some of you, you're sitting by your thorn. Don't elbow your thorn right now. That would not be polite to do in church, but it seems like all of us have that something that we wish we didn't have in life. And scripture says, Paul did this. He said, three times I pleaded with the Lord. I begged him to take it away from me. Most scholars would say this wasn't like just three little prayers. It was very likely three seasons of ongoing prayer. When notice that he didn't blame God for the thorn. But he took his thorn to God and he prayed and he pleaded

and he begged in the very same way you can take your hurt to God. And you can take it to him again. And you can take it to him a third time. And you can unload on him and say, God, I don't understand. Why did this happen? Why did you let this happen? When you? You can, you could have perhaps stopped it. You can tell him, it's not my fault. I don't know what to do, God. I don't even know how to heal. You can totally and completely be honest with him.

Don't hold back. He can handle it. Scripture says, cast your cares upon him because he cares for you. You take your burdens. You give it all. You give him your praise. You give him your thanksgiving.

And you give him your hurt from your heart, God. Please take it away. Three times he pleaded with the Lord. Lord and God responded to him and God said to me my grace is sufficient for you for my power God says is perfect in your weakness and the thing that you hate the most you best discover my power and presence and Paul says something that would be just almost weird in any other circumstance he says that's why for Christ's sake I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak,

he says, then I'm strong. That only comes from the presence of God. You take it to God, you take it to God, you take it to God, you take it to God. And even if God doesn't take it away. This is my grace is what you need. This is what you need. And I hope that you'll understand, and this is for somebody here, to let it sink in your soul. Nothing can change your past, but God can heal your broken heart. God can heal your broken heart. And scripture that may be for you is this, that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. it. We process the pain of our trauma with trusted people. We prayerfully press in to God. We take it to God. We take it to God. We take it to God. And then the third thing I'm going to tell you is going to

make some of you mad because you're not ready for it yet. If you're not ready for it yet, just pretend like this is for later. But number three is we pursue purpose in our trauma. We pursue purpose. And again, I'm hesitant to say this right now because I know if you're hurting right now, you don't like me because you're not ready for that. It's too soon, it's too soon. But there will be some point that if you process it and if you take it to God, you may say exactly what or something similar to what Paul said.

And this is Paul who have been beaten, shipwrecked, stone, left for dead, whipped too many times to count. And he says this, praise, be to the father of compassion and the God of all comforts. who comforts us in all our troubles. Why? For a purpose. So that we can comfort those in any trouble

with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Praise be to the God of all comfort. Who comforts us with all compassion. So we can have a purpose in our pain and one day comfort others. Now, this is the point where I tell you a story, and I got a million I could tell you, about someone who was abused, sought God, found healing,

and now does ministry. 100 stories. But what I wanna do, instead of tell you a story, is I wanna just step off of the platform and go to my seat and sit amongst my people because I am not just, just a pastor, I'm also a people. And I want to just tell you that I've been hurt to. And the people all around me that I'm sitting with, many of them, they're hurting right now. And my heart,

as your pastor, is heavier than I can describe because I know right now, there are so many of you that are just, it's not okay. It's not okay. Your responses to what's going on, it's, It's not normal. Frustrated more easily. Angry. More easily. You're more critical. You're more dissatisfied.

You're hurting more. It's not you. Something's not right. And what I want to say to you is if you're not okay, it's because you're not okay. Meaning something happened. And I talked to my counselor in detail about this. And we went through the list of all that the last few years

has done to disrupt what is normal and inflict people, many people with untold levels of pain. Loss of loved ones, loss of fellowship, loss of freedom, loss of trust, loss of relationships. Like, how many of you guys dis- disagree on one thing and so, we don't like each other anymore. And so my counselor got onto me. I sent him my notes. He said, hey, is it really good? Thank you. You help me with them. And he said, he said, don't just tell them that they can be healed. That's where most people stop.

Tell them they can be way, way stronger on the backside. And then he said, what I want you to know is you are communicating it from the strength of Jesus inside of you. And that's what I'm doing, because what I want you to know is I've been hurt too. And I don't want you to read into it. I'm not going to tell you any kind of stories, but I'm going to tell you I've had to recover from some stuff. And I processed it.

Pray with my best friend. And we stand together. And we pursue Jesus and pursue Jesus and we pursue Jesus. and I'm not just healed, but I'm stronger. Stronger. Closer to God. Closer to God, closer to God, closer to God, closer to God, closer to God, stronger. And that's why I would tell you this.

Not in a easy Christian cliche way, but I want you to know it. I want you to feel it. You to feel it. And we know, scripture says. We know that in all things, in all things, even our most painful and broken moments in all things, our God works together for good

to those who love him, who are pursuing him, who need him, and are called according to his purpose. Purpose. So I'm going to push you a little bit. What's the pastor's job? You comfort the afflicted and you afflict the comfortable. Right? I'm going to push you a little bit.

And when I want to tell you right now, and what you hear me, is that your trauma may or may not have been your fault, but pursuing God for healing is your responsibility. You got to do it. You got to do it. No more victim. We've been hurt.

We can heal because we have a good God. We have a good God. And so I want you to have hope. I hurt with you. I love you more than I can tell you. And I love you enough to push you a little bit towards Jesus. because there's healing and there's hope. And you can be stronger with Christ.

So why don't we pray together? God, thank you for our amazing church community and for your amazing grace. Thank you that you are the Father of All Compassion who comforts us with comfort from heaven so that one day we can comfort others for the same comfort that you've given to us. So today, wherever your wife,

from those of you online, those of you at a life church location, I'm just gonna ask that you would lift up your heads, open your eyes right now, and look around the room at a bunch of people that are not okay, and they're not okay because they're not good people, they're not okay because they're living in a broken world. And what I want you to do is publicly for just a moment, I'm gonna push you a little bit,

is if you're not really doing great right now, I want you to go ahead and lift up your hand and say, I need help from Jesus. Would you do that? right now. Just lift up your hands right now. Just lift up your hands right now. What I want the rest of you do is I want you all to clap right now because we have some honest people that receive some healing from God. And those of you online, you can just, those of you online, you can type in the comment section, I'm not okay right now. And if you're okay with this, if you're not okay,

or you weren't okay when you walked in here. So I'm going to just ask you, maybe if there was someone near you that you might just put your hand on their shoulder right now if they're close enough and pray. If you're sitting next to someone you know well in their family, you might even hold their hand. And God, in this moment, as a church, we come before you and we ask for your presence to do what only you can do. God, would you give us the courage to start by just admitting, acknowledging if we've been hurt and wounded? And it may have been abuse. We may have trauma. We may not. We We may not know how to label it, God, but we know we need your help. And so, God, give us a safe community in a life group with a pastor,

with a trusted Christian counselor just to take our pain and process it. And we give it to you, God. Our hurt, our confusion, our anger, our guilt, our shame, our doubts, our rage, our unstable. And we just take it all to you, God. We cast our cares on you. And somehow God, we have the faith to believe that you could take the worst pain we've experienced

and somehow make us stronger, closer to you one day to help others with the same comfort that you've given to us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Everybody say in Jesus' name. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep praying today, if you will. Keep praying today.

This time nobody looking around, there are those of you that you don't know God intimately. And about right now, you may know that. I really don't know God intimately. Let me tell you about the goodness of God. God loves you more than I can describe so much that he sent his one and only son, Jesus, the son of God, perfect in every way. And Jesus was abused. He was mistreated.

He was beaten, he was punished because he was the innocent lamb of God who died in our place as the perfect sacrifice. He took the punishment that we deserved and he died for the forgiveness of our sins. And the goodness of God raised him back to life. Why? So that anyone, you want some encouraging news today?

Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, your sins, your brokenness, your promeness, pain, would be washed away, all of your sins forgiven, and you become new. Wherever you're watching from today, those of you that know, I'm really not in a relationship with God. God is a relational God. He doesn't want just to serve him. He wants you to know him, to be loved by him.

You step away from your heart, you step away from your sin, you step toward Jesus. You come to him. As you cry out to him, he'll hear your prayer, forgive your sin, and make you brand new. Wherever you're watching from today, those who say, I need Jesus, I need Jesus. Today, I surrender my life to Jesus. That's your prayer. Lift your hands now, all of the place and say, yes, that's my prayer right here. Praise God for you and you as well.

Others today saying, yes, Jesus, I need you. I surrender to you. Those of you online, just type it in the comment section. I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. And together as one church family, we pray. Pray Heavenly Father. I need you. Your grace, your love, your friends.

your forgiveness your salvation Jesus save me heal me forgive me fill me with your spirit so I could know you and follow you my life is not my own I give it all to you thank you for new life now you have mine in Jesus name I pray because somebody praise the God who is worthy of all praise