When I returned to the microphone after a year away, I resumed where I had left off: one chapter at a time through the Bible.

I did not contrive the placement.

Funny enough, I had left off with Psalm 67 in my last episode before the sabbatical—not at all anticipating that “6-7,” of all things, would become a cultural phrase of the moment and be declared “Word of the Year.”

Nevertheless, upon returning, I picked back up again at Psalm 68.

That mattered more than I expected.

“Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.”

That last sentence has struck a chord with me: God settles the solitary in a home.

Settling the Solitary in a Home

It is easy to make it overly sentimental. Put it on a mug. Cross-stitch it. Hang it in the entryway next to a tasteful wreath and a sign about gathering.

But Psalm 68 is no mere sentiment. It is a marching psalm.

God arises. His enemies scatter. The wicked perish before him like wax before fire. The righteous are glad.

The fatherless, the widow, the prisoner, the lonely, and the needy are not introduced into the psalm as ornamental victims. They are not there to soften the mood. They are the ones for whom God fights.

God’s holiness does not make Him remote from the afflicted. His holiness is precisely why He is Father to the fatherless and protector of widows.

God’s holy habitation is not an ivory tower. It is the seat from which He judges the proud and shelters the exposed.

Thus, the God of Psalm 68 does not merely tell the solitary to cheer up.

Our God settles him. He places him. He brings him somewhere.

Our God gives him belonging, duties, neighbors, a household, a people, a name—in a word, a future.

And that means loneliness is not just a state of mind.

Rather, loneliness is often a relational, familial, spiritual, and social wound.

No Cheap Comfort for Real Loneliness

Some people are solitary because death has taken someone dear to them.

Others are solitary because a particular sin or pattern of sinful relating shattered their trust.

Some people grew up surrounded by people, yet without anything that could rightly be called a home.

They had parents but did not receive the warmth of fatherhood and motherhood.

They were surrounded by extended family, yet without experiencing kinship.

I know well that there is a kind of loneliness that comes not from being physically alone, but from being emotionally isolated in the midst of people who can neither tell the truth nor suffer it to be told by others.

Psalm 68 speaks comfort into that kind of loneliness.

Mercifully, it is not a cheap comfort.

The comfort of Psalm 68 does not say, “Your family of origin was fine.” It does not say, “Your wound is imaginary.” It does not say, “Just be nicer, and all the locked doors of life will open to you.”

Nor does it bless the rebellious who refuse correction and dwell in a parched land of their own making, then seek a scapegoat to take the blame for it.

Psalm 68 says God settles the solitary in a home.

And that word “settles” is significant here.

What the Household of God Should Look Like

God does not hand the lonely a visitor badge.

He is not seating the fatherless at a temporary folding table in the back of the hall.

He is not tossing the prisoner a pamphlet about prosperity before leaving him in chains.

God gathers, establishes, adopts, and restores.

Matthew Henry, commenting on this passage, draws attention to God’s mercy and tender compassion toward the afflicted and oppressed.

Repenting sinners, helpless and exposed, are brought into God’s family and made sharers in blessing.

This is not merely therapeutic. This is covenantal.

The solitary is not merely soothed. He is adopted.

And if that is how God acts, then those who bear His image and claim His name must learn to act similarly.

James tells us that pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is to attend to orphans and widows in their need, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

I have observed a tendency to split those apart. Where some want a religion of moral purity without costly or practical mercy, others want a religion of mercy without holiness.

God does not flatter either mutilation. Neither should we.

Attend to widows and orphans. Keep yourself unstained from the world.

That is what the household of God is supposed to look like: simultaneously holy and hospitable, truthful and tender, morally serious and meaningfully merciful.

The Difference Between a House and a Home

A home is not merely a building where people keep their stuff.

A home is a place where life is ordered toward love.

That ordering requires walls, tables, beds, discipline, repentance, forgiveness, work, meals, correction, laughter, privacy, hospitality, and worship.

It requires protection from enemies outside and from corruption inside.

A house can be purchased. A home must be built.

And sometimes a home must be renovated and rebuilt.

That has been part of what the past year has taught me.

A sabbatical sounds restful, and in certain respects it is. But rest—from the level of the individual cell of the body to an entire land—is not inactivity.

Rest can mean stepping away from public speech long enough to see what is disorganized, overextended, broken, or uselessly occupying space in our own lives.

Some things need repair. Some need rearranged. Some need to be given away. Some need to be thrown out.

There are seasons where a man has to stop showing and telling so much so that he can take an honest inventory by observing and listening.

What is happening in my household?

What are my duties?

Where have I been reactive rather than wise?

Why have I confused intensity for faithfulness—whether in myself or other people?

Stewardship and Assignment

During my sabbatical, the Lord taught me that I have dedicated too much energy to chasing and convincing people who don’t value genuine peace. In so doing, I have invested too little attention establishing a lasting peace for those entrusted to my direct care.

At times, this looked like failing to adequately distinguish between loving my neighbor and letting their chaos dictate the terms of my fidelity to God.

While that may appear relatively benign, it is no trifle when I have a wife, children, work, church, friends, neighbors, and a public voice.

The questions surrounding how this came to be and what to do about it now are even less abstract when a family grows, bodies get injured, a house stops fitting, the budget requires rebalancing, and relationships expose old intractable fault lines.

After all, what could be more practical than when the people most in need of steadiness are watching to see whether my theology can survive Tuesday afternoon?

“God settles the solitary in a home” is therefore not only comfort for the lonely. It is also correction for the proud and impetuous.

The home God gives must be stewarded.

That means receiving and giving thanks for it as a gift, and also taking responsibility for it as an assignment.

The home is not an escape from the world, then.

Rather, the home is arguably the chief place where we learn how to live in the world without becoming spotted by it.

Purpose, Belonging, and the Root of Loneliness

This is where modern loneliness becomes especially revealing.

We often speak of loneliness as though the problem is merely that individuals lack sufficient social interaction. They don’t have enough activities planned with enough people.

While that certainly can be true, many people are not lonely because they lack events to attend or people to attend them with.

Most people are lonely because they do not know where they belong, whom they can trust, what duties bind them to others, or whether telling the truth will suddenly and irreversibly get them ostracized.

Thus a calendar full of activities is not the same thing as a home.

Likewise, family is not automatically home.

Churches are not automatically home.

Friend groups are not automatically home.

All these can become places of rest, welcome, truth, repentance, forgiveness, provision, and protection.

And yet I know from experience that all these can also become places where anxiety rules, image management is the priority, scapegoats are selected, and the person who names the problem becomes the problem.

Again, that is not a home. That is a parched land.

A Better Vision for the Solitary

Thankfully, Psalm 68 gives us a better vision. God settles the solitary in a household where mercy and righteousness meet. He does not abolish loneliness by pretending sin did not happen. He abolishes loneliness by overcoming evil, judging rebellion, delivering captives, and establishing his people in blessing.

This means Christian homes and churches should be places where lonely people can come into contact with reality without being crushed by it.

The fatherless should find fatherly care. Widows should find protection. Prisoners should hear of deliverance.

The socially isolated should find a people.

The repentant sinner should find grace.

The rebellious should be warned that dry places await those who refuse the water of life.

And all of us should honestly admit that we are not naturally good at cooperating with any of this.

Frankly, slogans and sentimentality are easier than sacrifice.

Hospitality is more convenient in theory than in practice.

Saying “family” is more comfortable than repenting when our own family system is diseased.

Defending the idea of church is less costly than becoming the kind of church where the afflicted are comforted.

Fortunately, He gives more grace.

A Man Still Being Settled by God

Psalm 68 is such a fitting place to resume this podcast.

It does not herald my return to public discourse as a man with everything settled.

It invites me to come back as a man still being settled by God, learning afresh how to receive a home, build a home, protect a home, and speak truthfully about the God who establishes and blesses all of this.

The solitary do not need theatrical Christianity. They do not need religious abracadabra and pious superficialities. They do not need another performance of concern from people who vanish when the bill comes due. They need the character of God reflected among the people of God.

They need mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, pastors and elders, friends and neighbors who can hear and tell the truth without panic as well as extending mercy without pretending.

They need homes where confession is not treated as a sign of weakness, repentance is not regarded as degrading humiliation, forgiveness is not weaponized to avoid restitution, and boundaries are not denounced as pride and selfishness merely for challenging familiar dysfunction.

The solitary need homes with tables where sincere and humble prayers are offered up to the Almighty.

They need significant work to do, their names spoken kindly, and necessary corrections issued proportionately.

They need a place to sit, to stand, and to lie down in peace. And, if Psalm 68 is true, God delights in giving them all these things.

Four Walls and a Roof

In light of all these things, the question is not merely whether we believe God settles the solitary in a home. The question is whether we are committed to being the sort of people through whom that work is realized and honored.

That is simultaneously a less comfortable question and a more hopeful one.

Because if God is Father of the fatherless and protector of widows, then the lonely are not invisible.

If God settles the solitary in a home, then homelessness of soul is not the final word.

If God leads prisoners to prosperity, then bondage is not the final destination.

And if the rebellious dwell in a parched land, then even warnings to them about that are an extension of grace and mercy, if they will know where the dry road leads before dying of thirst.

The home God gives is not always the one we expected or would have dreamed of in our own imaginations.

Frankly, the home God settles us in may not come through the people who should have provided it first.

The journey to it may pass through grief, and may require leaving some tables in order to be seated at others.

It may require repentance, confrontation, patience, and renovation.

And yet God will surely guide His people through all of this and more as He settles the solitary in a home.

That is no mere sentiment.

That is salvation with four walls and a roof.