Feeling Misunderstood? You’re Not Alone

Posted on May 15, 2021 by salooper57

According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2020, nearly 6 out of 10 Americans feel misunderstood. This figure holds across racial and ethnic lines, with 58 percent of black, 55 percent of Hispanic, and 61 percent of white Americans all saying that they are misunderstood.

The Pew survey categorized these misunderstandings under the headings: misperceptions about political views, social and economic class, personal interests, and personal characteristics. The study found that Americans over 50 are most likely to think it is their politics that are misunderstood. People under 50 are most likely to think that others misunderstand their personal interests and characteristics.

What effect does the sense of being misunderstood have on personal contentment and social stability? And it is not as if the misunderstanding is limited to people of other races and ethnicities. Younger Americans feel misunderstood by older Americans and vice-versa. Employees feel misunderstood by management. Men feel misunderstood by women and women by men. Religious people feel misunderstood by the irreligious and vice-versa.

To be misunderstood can cause significant pain. To be misunderstood continually can lead to despair. Many marriages have ended and work relationships crumbled because one (or both) of the partners felt misunderstood.

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Heidi Grant states bluntly: “We’re all terrible at understanding each other.” The trouble is that most of us don’t know it. We assume that we understand other people, including those with whom we are in conflict, yet we conclude that they do not understand us.

There are many reasons for this. We always understand people within a context, and that context is frequently framed around what we desire to happen. Because of this, we can approach a person as either an instrument or an obstacle in achieving a goal. When we do this, we only understand as much as we need to understand to accomplish our objective, which is never enough to understand the person.

Grant, a social psychologist at Columbia Business School, says that people, when asked to describe themselves, list different traits from those their friends ascribe to them. There is a gap between who we think we are and who others, including those who know us best, think us to be. Because we don’t notice that gap, we can easily stumble in our attempts to communicate.

Misunderstandings are exacerbated by our tendency to enshrine our first impressions of a person, even though they were inexact, incomplete, or plain mistaken. People are far too complex to be correctly understood by a first impression. Everyone we know is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Our bodies are too limited to express all our thoughts and feelings precisely. Our limited repertoire of words and expressions are obliged to handle the vast score of our feelings and thoughts like a keyboard’s 88 keys are required to handle a transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings for piano. The same gestures must express dissatisfaction, displeasure, and deliberation, the way the same keys are needed to represent the violin, viola, and cello. This too can lead to misunderstandings.

We have all been misunderstood. We are in good company. The Bible frequently represents Jesus as misunderstood. The Gospel of John records that his own brothers misjudged him. The religious authorities deemed him a heretic. The political authorities regarded him as an agitator.

Even his friends misunderstood him. After one such misunderstanding, many of his followers left him. In a scene filled with pathos – or am I misunderstanding? – Jesus asked those who remained if they also intended to leave. I suspect that one of the “Man of Sorrows” chief sorrows was being misjudged and misunderstood by those he came to help.

If the greatest communicator of all, the one referred to as “The Word,” was misunderstood, where does that leave the rest of us? It leaves us certain that we will be misunderstood yet praying, as did St. Francis, that we might “seek rather … to understand, than to be understood.”

And, like Jesus, it leaves us comforted by the truth that the heavenly Father understands us. For he, understanding us as he does – the good and the bad – loves us anyway.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Handling Anger: Tapping into the potential of the spiritual life.

Posted on May 14, 2021 by salooper57

(Part 4 in a 4-part series on handling anger.)

We cannot manage anger in isolation. We must deal with the entire package. I’m not saying we won’t need to be intentional about getting rid of anger. We will – but that is not where we start. We start by upgrading to the “new self” package.

To do that, we’re going to need (verse 22) “to put off the old self.” This is not a piecemeal improvement program. The aorist tense verb Paul uses suggests a clear and decisive act. He’s not talking about slow progress in the right direction but a radical choice to change. This is only possible if we have faith in Jesus.

We cannot take off the old self without something taking its place, which is why we need, verse 24, to “put on the new self.” This new self is the real you, the one God had in mind when he made you. That fretful, whining, angry self that pretends to be god is not you – not the real you. The real you is patterned on God himself (created to be like God, verse 24) and is the you you’ve always longed to be: free, easy, fulfilled, loving.

Again St. Paul uses an aorist tense verb. Putting on the new self is also a decisive action. I choose to be the person God made me to be, to stay connected to the Programmer so I can continually receive his critical updates. With this new self we are capable of doing things we couldn’t do before (verse 32): to be kind (to our kids, for example); to be compassionate (to those in need); to forgive (those who injure us).

Think of Corrie Ten Boom forgiving the Nazi guard who tormented her in the concentration camp, or Mrs. Calata, the South African woman who forgave the policeman who burned her husband alive and murdered her son in a drunken, bigoted rage. Where does forgiveness like that come from? It comes from God and it is in you too if you belong to Jesus and have been given his Spirit. (However, if you have not come to God through Jesus, you don’t qualify for the new self package and will not have access to it.)

It is true that putting off the old self is not a matter of slow progress and neither is putting on the new self. These are decisive actions. We don’t drift into them. But once we have decided and acted, the slow (sometimes painfully so) progress begins, as we learn how to actually use what God has given us.

Most of us haven’t learned to use a tenth of the potential embedded in our Office 365 software or our phones. There is so much more that could be done with them than we are doing. But that’s nothing compared to the mind-boggling potential God has placed in the new self.

I mentioned that an early step is to put off the old self – decisively choosing not to live out of that old programming. A later step is to put on the new self – another decisive act. But there is a critical step in between that mustn’t be missed: we must, verse 23, be renewed in the attitude of our minds.

“Renewed” is a passive mood verb. That means we cannot renew our own minds. They must be renewed from outside – rather like the critical updates renew our computer’s operating system. But if we can’t do it, why command it? Because the renewal of the mind only happens as we connect and cooperate with God. How do we do that?

There are many ways to do that. I will concentrate on those that make use of the Scriptures. Join a small group that studies the Bible. This has been shown to make Bible study more effective. Join a Sunday School class at church or take a course online or from a good school. But the single best thing you can do is read the Bible prayerfully which is to say, read it while connected to God. If you don’t know how to connect to God while reading the Scripture, ask someone whose spiritual life not only impresses you but also encourages you if they have any suggestions.

If you have been controlled by anger, confession will be an important help in putting off the old self and putting on the new. When we admit to a spouse (or former spouse), to children, or friends that our anger has hurt them and that we have sinned against them, change can happen. Maybe not in the relationship – this is not a manipulative tactic (and don’t make it one) – but certainly in us.

This is biblically sound and powerfully transformative. We should humbly ask for forgiveness (not merely say we are sorry); but we cannot demand or even expect forgiveness. The person may withhold it – that’s up to them.

Even if they do withhold it, God will not – that’s up to him. He will be with us. He will change us. Failure cannot stop us. Only staying away from God can do that. Don’t stay away.

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Anger: Part of an Integrated Package

Posted on May 13, 2021 by salooper57

(Part 3 in a short series of posts on handling anger responsibly.)

Let’s say you are ready to change. You are done making excuses. You admit that you have an anger problem. Great! You are ready to ask forgiveness from those you have hurt and make amends where possible. I commend you. And now you are ready to go toe to toe with your anger, face it head-on, and use your willpower to become a calm and peaceful person.

Please don’t. That will only make you angrier. You need to go about this God’s way, with him in charge, not you. And you need to understand what is involved.

So, here is one thing we need to understand. Anger is integrated into the system – your system. You can’t go and pull it out while leaving everything else in place. When I was a kid, TVs had vacuum tubes. On Thursday, when your TV stopped working, you took off the back, pulled the tubes, went down to the drug store (where they had a tube tester), found the bad one, replaced it, and were watching My Three Sons that evening.

We might think that we can do the same thing with anger: just pull it out of our lives like one of those tubes. We want to stop being angry but we don’t want anything else to change. But that won’t work. Here’s why.

Anger is one component in a package deal. It is integrated into the system. It isn’t isolatable – we are not wired like that. It is not enough to deal with anger; you have to deal with you – the whole package – and, more importantly, you have to deal with God.

I recently ordered a new computer and, when I get it, I will install Microsoft Office. That means I’ll get PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Publisher, and One Note, which are integrated into one package and share common files. Now here is what we need to understand: Anger is part of the “old self” package, mentioned in verse 22: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires…” Call it “Old Self 365,” which comes with various programs included: an orientation to sensuality (verse 19), falsehood (verse 25), anger (verse 26), stealing (verse 27), and inappropriate comments (verse 29). These programs all share files (verse 31): rage, anger, brawling (the word refers to loud talk or shouting) and slander (which could be translated as insults), with malice.

You can try to isolate one component – like anger – and delete it, but the system makes backup copies. You are programmed, so to speak, to automatically restore the old settings. If you really want to change the way anger works in your life, you need to change the entire operating system. In other words, you cannot stay the same person, only without the anger.

We’ve tried that … and it hasn’t worked. We delete files but were automatically reset to the restore point of bitterness, rage, and anger. This happens because we have ignored the Programmer. Alienated from God (verse 18), we enter the world with the “old self” package pre-installed. And the diabolical Hacker can use anger as a backdoor through which to gain access to our interior life. Hence Paul’s warning: Do not give the devil a foothold.

That is the bad news. Here is the good news. There is a “new self” package available. It, too, is an integrated system. Some of its components are listed here as well: It comes with a righteousness and holiness orientation (verse 24), and includes truthfulness (verse 25), altruism (verse 28), grace (verse 29, where the phrase, “benefit those who listen,” is literally, “give grace to those who listen) and runs on a platform (verse 32) of kindness, compassion and forgiveness. It, too, is a package deal.

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Handling Anger: The Beachhead

Posted on May 12, 2021 by salooper57

(This is part 2 in a short series of posts on handling anger responsibly.)

Anger has a wide blast radius. All of us are affected by it and some of us are controlled by it. It causes us to do and say things we would never do and say if anger weren’t present. That makes us anger’s slaves. Others of us have been controlled by someone else’s anger. We refrain from doing what we should because anger is present. That’s another form of slavery.

Some of us have gone beyond being controlled by anger and have become addicted to it. We need it. It enables us to feel. It motivates us to act. Anger is our drug of choice. We want it to course through us. It makes us feel righteous and powerful. It assures us that we are not witless sheep or frightened slaves … even as we bleat in unison with anger and jump to obey its commands.

Being dependent on anger is like living on a houseboat just upstream of Niagara Falls … without an anchor. Unless you do something quickly, you’re going over. Making excuses is not doing something, nor is blaming others for our anger. We need to stop making excuses and start taking steps.

Step one: Understand what expressing anger wrongly does: it rolls out the red carpet and invites the devil to take up residence in your life and home. This is Ephesians 4:26-27: “‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

The word the NIV translates as “foothold” has a military feel in this context. The idea is that the devil is looking to establish a beachhead from which he can launch attacks against us and our families.

Anger provides that beachhead. And when anger continues over time, it gives the devil a veritable base of operations in our lives. To yield to anger, to sin in anger, gives the devil place.

But there is another side to this that we need to understand. When we refrain from sinful expressions of anger, we give God place. Listen to Romans 12:19, where Paul uses the same Greek word that is translated “foothold” here: “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room (give place) for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” When we are angry but don’t sin, we give God a place from which to launch his campaign on our behalf. The place of anger and temptation can becomes the site of God’s operations in our lives. Turning to God when we are angry can be one of life’s most important turning points.

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Handling Anger: The Begotten Consumes the Begetter

Posted on May 11, 2021 by salooper57

(This is the first of several posts regarding anger and what to do with it.)

I believe we were living through a pandemic before any of us had heard of COVID-19. Like COVID, this malady is communicated from person to person. It devastates families, harms economies, impacts businesses, and creates mental health problems. It has taken untold lives and has torn the social fabric at every level, from families to nations.

This calamity has affected everyone; it is truly pandemic. It has been estimated that COVID-19 will cost the world economy 21 trillion dollars. I suspect that is pocket change compared to what this other pandemic has cost the world.

What is it? It is anger.

Anger is not a nameless, faceless woe. For millions of people, anger has a name: dad. For millions of people, anger has a face: mom’s. Anger can even be embodied – God help us – in our own bodies.

What would you think of a person with COVID-19 who knowingly went into a setting where vulnerable people lived, say a nursing home, and began transmitting the virus? You would be horrified. But when it comes to anger, that happens every day as people knowingly spread it to their families and friends.

Perhaps you don’t think that anger is that bad. After all, the Bible doesn’t say that anger is a sin. So what if I get angry? Everyone gets angry from time to time. It is the human condition.

I couldn’t agree more. Everyone gets angry. It is no more a sin to get angry than it is to get COVID. But to knowingly spread that anger to your family and friends, to infect them – that is another matter.

COVID-19 is airborne; it spreads through talking, coughing, and singing while in close proximity to others. Anger spreads in a different way: through words (both spoken and printed), gestures, profanity, condemnation, and contempt. Anger is so contagious that it doesn’t even require personal contact. Ground Zero for an anger event can be thousands of miles away. It spreads over bandwidth, through text, email, Facebook, and the (so called) news media.

We’ve all heard of people and corporations making money from COVID. Guess what? People peddle anger for the same reason. Many talk radio folks, media stars, writers, and news personalities are experts at making money from anger. They spread it intentionally to fund their extravagant lifestyles. May God have mercy on their souls.

Jesus warned about anger and made it clear that, if we ignore his warning, we will face serious consequences. Because he knew anger is transmitted through contempt, he prohibited it categorically. Calling someone names – idiot, fool, stupid – is comparable to going into the nursing home with the coronavirus and coughing on all the residents.

Maybe you think I am exaggerating. Anger isn’t as bad as all that. Years of being positioned to see into families and seeing the fallout from harmful (sinful) expressions of anger – the brokenness, anxiety, depression, division, hatred, mental illness, and more – has taught me otherwise.

Anger has a wide blast radius. The one person who is always injured in the blast is the angry person himself, who suffers physically, emotionally, and spiritually – anger gets in the way of knowing God. Anger is frequently devastating to the person who is its object. It can even affect bystanders who witness it. Anger leads to two familiar ends: the reproduction of anger and the generation of fear.

Anger is self-perpetuating. Over the years, people have admitted to me that they have an anger problem (usually after serious damage has already been done). Nearly always, the person whose anger has damaged relationships and ruined lives had an angry parent. Anger begets anger – and it’s reproduction rate is out of sight.

And when it comes to anger, the begotten sometimes consumes the begetter. I have known parents whose anger bred anger in their children, and now the children’s anger is eating the parents alive. And of course those children have children – and the cycle goes on.

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You Can’t Argue with That

Posted on May 8, 2021 by salooper57

In years past, I would occasionally tune into The McLaughlin Group on PBS. The show featured John McLaughlin and four fellow-journalists, two of whom were politically liberal and two who were politically conservative. McLaughlin sat in the center, tossing questions to the panel like a skipper throwing chum to bait sharks.

Then the battle would begin, panelists interrupting each other, voices growing louder and more belligerent. McLaughlin himself would frequently bark, “You’re wrong,” at a panelist with whom he disagreed, assuming that his own reasoning was incontrovertible and his conclusions self-evident.

More than once, my wife asked me, “Why do you watch this? All they do is yell at each other.” Channeling John McLaughlin, I bluntly disagreed. But she had a point.

In my own experience, nothing has ever been settled and no one convinced because I raised my voice. Facts are good. Arguments are not. Arguments spawn arguers, not answers.

If that is so, our nation is in a bad place because nearly everyone is raising their voice. We are the most argumentative people in generations. We now have technological pillboxes from which we, unseen, can send a volley of argumentation at our opponents while remaining shielded from their counterarguments. At the same time, there are fewer listening posts than ever before—and most of those we do have are abandoned. We simply never have to hear what our opponents are saying.

Contrast that with the Emperor Antonius, adoptive father to the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. He was said not only to tolerate frank opposition, but to be “pleased if somebody could point to a better course of action.” Such openness to reason has always been uncommon. In today’s climate, it is astonishing.

My wise attorney friend John Lewis recently shared with me a warning a theology professor once gave his class: It is rare for someone to change their minds about any theological position for which they have argued. What is true in theology is true in any discipline, whether economics, politics, or nutritional studies.

Something happens to us psychologically whenever we argue for a position. A switch is thrown, as it were, which closes the door on new information. It is not merely that we can no longer cross over to the other side; we can’t even adjust our position on our own side. The switch that closed the door has locked us into place.

This is why we should be careful not to argue. Should we find that we cannot do otherwise, we must at least put ourselves in a place where we are forced to listen to our opponents’ arguments and understand their positions. The proverb is right: “The one who gives an answer before he listens—that is his folly and his shame.” It is also a sign of intellectual cowardice.

This is not to say we should not have convictions – far from it. And we can, and sometimes should, make those convictions known. But we don’t need to argue to do so. We need to clearly articulate our positions and explain our reasons for holding them. Society needs more than reasoned arguments. It needs reasonable people.

I write this as a recovering – and sometimes lapsing – debater. What vodka is to an alcoholic, a good debate is to me, though debates are a stimulant, not a depressant. They wake me up, get me going, give me energy. They don’t dull my senses; they sharpen them. Unfortunately, they also sharpen my tongue. Arguments, like alcohol, can destroy relationships.

I’ve come to think that people are not talked into the truth. Occasionally, though, they can be listened into it. That never happens when we argue.

Because I am a recovering debater, I taped a quote from the 19th century Scottish churchman Alexander Whyte on my pulpit desk: “Eschew controversy, my brethren, as you would eschew the entrance to hell itself! Let them have it their own way. Let them talk, let them write, let them correct you, let them traduce you. Let them judge and condemn you, let them slay you … You have not enough of the Divine nature in you to be a controversialist.”

I can’t argue with that.

(First published by Gannett.)

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My Sheep Follow My Voice

Posted on May 6, 2021 by salooper57

In John 10:6, Jesus uses a “figure of speech” (Greek, ) one that requires insight to understand the point. We may miss that point, perhaps not from lack of insight, but from lack of cultural familiarity. Jesus’ teaching here is clothed in a figure of speech, but it was very familiar clothing to Jewish people of the first century. It is not to us.

For one thing, it is about sheep, and everyone there and then – unlike here and now – knew something about sheep. For another, Jesus talks about shepherds, and not only did everyone know about shepherds, the Old Testament often used the word shepherd to refer to teachers and national and religious leaders. In this figure of speech, the sheep represent people like us, the robbers represent the religious leaders of the day, and the Good Shepherd represents Jesus.

I would rather be classified among the sheep than the robbers. It is not, however, a compliment to be compared to a sheep. I remember an old truck driver telling me that sheep are about the most stupid animals he had ever hauled. If allowed, he said, the sheep will congregate so tightly in a corner of the truck trailer that some of them will be suffocated.

The old Scot preacher, Andrew Bonar, once told how sheep in the Scottish Highlands wander off into the rocks and get into places from which they cannot escape. The grass on those mountains was sweet and the sheep would sometimes jump down ten or twelve feet to reach it, and then be unable to get back out. They would stay there until they had eaten all the grass. Then the shepherd would hear them bleating in distress. But he would have to wait until they were so faint that they could not stand, and then he would put a rope around himself, and go down and pull the sheep up out of the jaws of death.

Someone asked, “Why don’t they go down when the sheep first gets stuck?” And Bonar answered, “The sheep are so foolish they would dash right over the precipice and be killed!”[1]

Being compared to a sheep is not a compliment, and yet, are we not like them? How often people won’t go to God until they have lost everything and have no friends left. Before he can bring us back to himself, the Good Shepherd must wait until we have given up trying to save ourselves and are finally willing to let Him save us in His own way.

Jesus says that his sheep know and follow his voice. And note that word follow in verses four and five. The shepherd does not merely speak to us; he leads us.  e is going somewhere, and he wants us to go with him. We may think that the Good Shepherd only speaks to us while we are sitting stationary in church. Certainly he may speak to us then, but his intent is that we follow him into the world, into action, into service and noble sacrifice. He does not call us to vegetate in comfort but to follow in obedience.

[1] D. L. Moody shared this story

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The Biggest of the Big Three: Love

Posted on May 2, 2021 by salooper57

Here is the sermon, The Love of Your Life, from 1 John 4:7-12.

Approximate viewing time: 23:00.
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How to Pray High-Impact Prayers

Posted on May 1, 2021 by salooper57

If someone universally acknowledged as a modern-day saint prayed regularly for you, what would he or she pray? We know what we would want them to pray: that our children would fare well, that we would have enough money to live comfortably, that our health would not fail. But is that really what a saint would pray?

We have a good idea of how a saint would pray because we know how one did pray. That saint was the Apostle Paul. We know what he prayed for because, in his letters, he made a point of telling people what requests he made to God on their behalf.

He did not tell people that he was praying for their children to fare well, or for them to be financially secure, or healthy. That doesn’t mean that he never prayed for these things but, if he did, he did not feel it necessary to mention the fact. His prayers seem to be less about people’s comfort and more about their effectiveness.

For Paul, effectiveness was not merely a matter of efficiency. Effectiveness was the result of a particular kind of life and it was for this that the great saint routinely prayed. We tend to focus our prayers on what’s going on around people. Paul focused his prayers on what was going on within them. He knew a person’s wellbeing may decline even as their circumstances improve. Indeed, it may decline because their circumstances improve.

What were the great saint’s prayer requests? They vary, depending on the people for whom he prayed and on what they needed at the time. The examples we have come from letters to Paul’s friend Philemon and to the church families in Philippi, Colossae, and Ephesus. These letters provide a model for high-impact praying.

The apostle tended to make few requests, sometimes only one, based on the particular situation of the individual or church family for which he prayed. Yet his few requests, when answered, would bring enormous benefit to the people themselves and to those around them. In the case of the Colossian church (Colossians 1:9-12), he made just one request: that its people be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

Why this request in particular? Paul knew it was a high impact request. Knowledge of God’s will is not an end in itself but a prerequisite for living – these are his words – “a life worthy of the Lord” that will “please him in every way.” Such a life brings good into the world and leads to fulfillment and joy for those who live it.

A life that pleases God is productive – “bearing fruit” is how the apostle put it – a life that does good work in the world. Since, as Paul writes elsewhere, God has prepared good works in advance for his people to do, the knowledge of his will is crucially important.

God is also pleased when his children’s understanding of him grows. When I was a teen and young adult, I didn’t get my dad at all. He was a mystery to me. After I had children, I began to better understand him and eventually came to hold him in high regard. God wants this for his children too. Their understanding of their heavenly Father grows as they begin to grasp what he is up to. That is, when they are “filled with the knowledge of his will.”

Paul also knew that God is pleased by seeing his children grow strong. God is a father – is The Father – and no father ever wanted his children to grow up to be weaklings. The strength God wants to see is demonstrated in three ways: endurance during difficult times; patience with difficult people; and joyful gratitude no matter what.

This is not how we normally measure strength. Our usual gauges measure: what we can lift, not what we can bear; how many people we exercise power over, not how many we exercise patience with; getting what we want, not being thankful for what we have. St. Paul understood what real strength is, and his prayer reflects that understanding.

Anyone who desires to offer high-impact prayers would do well to study and imitate the prayers of St. Paul.

(First published by Gannett.)

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How to Know If God Loves You

Posted on April 29, 2021 by salooper57

Christians love because of who God is, but also (this is the second of the three reasons St. John gives in 1 John 4:7-12) because of what God has done. Verses 9 and 10 state: “By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Do you want to know if God loves you? Look at the cross of Christ. It is the definitive revelation of love. If you look at your circumstances and everything is going well, you will believe that God loves you—today. But tomorrow, when your circumstances have changed and everything is not well, you will have doubts. Instead of focusing on your circumstances, look to the only begotten Son, hanging on a cross, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. “In this is love.”

Brennan Manning was sitting in a foxhole in Korea with this best friend and fellow Marine Ray Brennan. These guys had grown up in Brooklyn together, double-dated together, entered the Marines together, and got deployed together. And here they were in a foxhole together, Brennan reminiscing about the good old days in Brooklyn and Ray eating a candy bar.

And then it happened. A grenade landed in the hole next to them. Ray smiled at his friend, dropped his candy bar, and threw himself on the grenade. It exploded but Brennan was saved.

When Brennan, who at that time went by Richard, later took holy orders, he was instructed to take a saint’s name. He took Ray’s last name; that’s how he became Brennan. Years later, he went to visit Ray’s mom. They sat up late one night talking and at some point, Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?”

She shot up off the couch and stood in front of him, shaking her finger in his face and shouting, “What more could he had done for you?”[1]

When we doubt God’s love, the cross shouts at us, “What more could he have done for you?” In this is love, not in our circumstances but in God sending “his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Your circumstances will try to drown out the cry of the cross. They will shout at you, “You are not loved. You don’t matter. You are nothing.” You don’t want to listen to that ugly, croaking voice, but you can’t help hearing it.

It’s only when you look at the cross of Jesus that you begin to hear a different voice. Have you ever been in a room with lots of noise, and someone is talking to you, but you can’t quite make out what she is saying over the din? Then you look at her and, like magic, you can hear what she is saying. That is what happens when we look at the cross of Christ. The din is still going on, but suddenly you can hear what God is saying. He is saying, “Yes, I love you.”

[1] Adapted from James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God (IVP, 2009), p. 142

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