Doubting Jesus as an Introvert: Brant Hansen

Dave: So, this program is called FamilyLife Today, but it could be called Real FamilyLife Today, because we get pretty stinking real.

Ann: Because we all need to know what is happening and how to deal with the things that are really difficult in life.

Dave: And I tell you, I love being part of a program where we're allowed to do that, where we can be that honest. [Do] you know why? Because that's where people are living, right where we're living. We are talking about stuff today that we never thought we’d talk about 30 years ago. We hope that you find hope and help when we go there.

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Ann: So, go to FamilyLifeToday.com.

Brant: I struggle to pray, but I do it anyway, because I know the Truth is the Truth. So, I'm walking, and I'm talking with God, and my mind drifts. Instead of beating myself up for it, do you know what I do? Take that thing that your mind just drifted to; that must be something important to you. Start praying about that. Prayer is just you and God talking together about what you're doing in life together. That's it.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: So I don't even remember who said this to me in the last couple of weeks, but they said, [Laughter] “I was watching you play bass the other night in the worship time at church, and I could tell you weren't into it as much as everybody else in the room was.” And I [thought], “What?! [Laughter] Did I show that?”

I remember the night. It was like everybody's arms were up. There were a couple of people on their knees, singing. It was beautiful. It really was. It was emotionally powerful.

Ann: Very.

Dave: I'm playing, and they're looking at me because I'm up on stage, and I was resonating with the lyrics of Truth. I wasn't feeling what a lot of the emotions and expressions were in the room. So, this person called me out, not in a bad way, but they just said it was noticeable. Then I was [thinking], “Oh, I’ve got to fake it.” [Laughter]

Ann: Which is interesting, because one of our sons was at a Christian school, and they had chapel, and they were doing worship—

Dave: —he was what, 12? —

Ann: —12. Very analytical. I mean, he's in IT now; very smart. A teacher came up to him and said, “Hey, you need to sing.” He said, “I'm listening. I'm listening.” And she said, “No, you're going to sing, and you're going to fake it, or you'll be out of here.”

Those are the kinds of things [that]—oh! I'm sure he felt like a misfit.

Dave: Yes. So, we're going to talk about that today with Brian Hansen, back again, the author of Blessed are The Misfits.

Brant, when you hear those kinds of stories, what do you think?

Brant: Oh, it hurts. I relate to it. It hurts because at least half the people listening are like this.

Ann: Do you think it's half?

Brant: I think so. It hurts, because I know the Kingdom welcomes people like me who are more analytical and robotic, and I relate to your son. I say, “robotic,” and I don't even mean in a bad way,—

Dave and Ann: —yes —

Brant: —just different.

Ann: God made us all different.

Brant: Yes.

Ann: And we can celebrate that.

Brant: Yes. And everybody—

Ann: —that's why I like the subtitle of your book: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something.

Brant: I heard somebody say, too—I think Philip Yancey talked about this, but he wrote a book called Prayer, and he said, “Prayer is the thing we talk about the most and do the least.” I think that gets at something, because we all presume everybody else is praying all the time because everybody talks about it. But the reality is, once you start talking, it's a real struggle.

Dave: One of the things you wrote in your book, Brant, about prayer [was], you said, “They asked Jesus to teach them to pray—"

Brant: —yes—

Dave: —“and He prayed for 25 seconds.”

Brant: Yes! It's such good news to me! [Laughter] Think about this: growing up, some church prayers—on and on, and I'm thinking about the Cardinals game that afternoon. I'm thinking about what we're going to eat, and I'm thinking about the girl over there. “What's the matter with me?!”

Dave: Yes.

Brant: But they're still going on and on and on.

I love that, when Jesus is saying, “When you pray, do it this way,” and He goes for 20-25 seconds. [Laughter] If you say the Lord's Prayer, that's how long it takes. He covers enough! [Laughter] And He knows—this is what's so beautiful about this; He knows—we have short attention spans. He's not mad. My mind drifts. It happens.

So, when I write a chapter about that, I think a lot of people—most people, honestly [think], “Oh, thank goodness!” Think about how tender that is of God—

Dave: —yes—

Brant: —to recognize our attention.

Ann: Because we feel like we're not as spiritual as—

Brant: —yes!—

Ann: —that person up front, praying forever.

Brant: Because you hear people say, “I get up at 5 o’clock, and I pray for three hours.” and then I'm [thinking], “Well, that's awesome!—

Dave: —yes, it is.—

Brant: —I'm not there yet.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: I might never be there, but look how kind God is to let me play anyway. [Laughter] Right?

Dave: Yes.

Brant: My attention span is not there. Then, I had somebody point out what you do when your mind drifts. Let's say you go for a walk in the morning. That's what I do—that's my prayer thing—

Ann: —yes. —

Brant: —when I'm walking the dog. Again, I struggle to pray. I don't feel God's presence. We’ve talked about that. It's just not a strong feeling for me like it is [for] some people, but I do it anyway because I know the Truth is the Truth. So, I'm walking and I'm talking with God. Then my mind drifts and instead of beating myself up for it, do you know what I do? Take that thing that your mind just drifted to: that must be something important to you. Start praying about that.

Ann: Oh, that's good.

Dave: That's really good.

Brant: Fold it back into your prayer.

Ann: So, grocery shopping? [Laughter]

Brant: Maybe? [Laughter] Maybe.

Dave: You’re grocery shopping to take care of your family.

Brant: Yes, or you can say, “Hey, God help me get this stuff done today that needed to get done.”

Ann: That's good.

Brant: “I was just thinking about grocery shopping—"

Ann: —yes.—

Brant: —and I’ve got this list of stuff. Just give me the resources I need for today,” which is part of the Lord's Prayer:

Ann: Yes.

Brant: “Give us our daily bread.”

Ann: I don't know about guys, but women: we travel to our kids; our grandkids.

Brant: Absolutely!

Ann: We’re thinking about them. So, you’re saying, “Just pray for them.”

Brant: Well, that's something you're passionate about. Do you think God cares about what you're passionate about?

Ann: And maybe God took your mind that way,—

Brant: —maybe?—

Ann: —you’re saying. Who knows?

Brant: But instead of beating yourself up for being, “I'm so lame. I’m such a bad pray-er."  Instead of that, He cares about what you care for. That's why you can do this.

Ann: Some people are so relieved. How many people say,—

Brant: —right!—

Ann: —"I sit and pray and then my mind wanders.”

Brant: Yes. “I think I must—I'm not a very spiritual person.” Yes, you are! But just go ahead and fold that back in because God cares about this stuff.

Ann: That’s good.

Brant: In fact, He says you can “cast your cares on Him because He cares for you.” Whatever you're anxious for. In First Peter, that’s what it says. Why not?

But people think, “I must be the worst Christian; I don't pray very well, or I don’t feel it.” Do it anyway. What you do—prayer is just you and God talking together about what you're doing in life together. That's it!

I've realized I've gotten a little better about this since the lockdown stuff, because you do so many Zoom meetings. I'm [thinking], “Why would I miss my Zoom meeting with God? I have one other meeting. Why would I miss the one with the guy who actually can change everything and loves me more than anyone else; is rooting for me; wants to spend time with me, and [He] can actually change things? I'm not missing that meeting.”

Ann: Yes. And I think it's important, if you feel like, “the best time for me to pray”—because I'm not a sitter. I'm always doing; I'm going; I'm active. So, my best prayer time is walking.

Brant: Yes.

Ann: My mind is more centered; I just don't wander as much when I'm walking.

Dave: I mean, she runs into trees, because her head is bowed, and her eyes are closed. [Laughter]

Brant: That alone is something to pray for.

Dave: I mean that's—

Brant: —that’s just; yes, all of it.

Dave: That’s what made me think that, because I've had people at my church sometimes say, “Hey, when you pray on stage, your eyes are open.”

Brant: Okay…?

Dave: And I'm [thinking], “I like to look at the congregation”—

Brant: —Oh, I bet! —

Ann: —as you're praying—

Dave: —because I'm so grateful. I'm [thinking], “God, look what You're doing! It's amazing!” as I'm talking to God. There's nowhere that we're told you have to close your eyes and bow your head, which I understand that's sometimes—

Ann: —it can be—

Dave: —that's the way to do it, and it's reverent. But it's like—man! You're walking—she loves creation. She feels God in creation.

Brant: Right.

Dave: So, she's looking at God as she's talking to Him.

Brant: I do the same thing—

Ann: —you do?

Brant: —when I'm commenting on, "It's amazing how You made light—

Ann: —yes!

Brant: —how it reflects through these trees. I love the different greens I can see right now.

Ann: It's Romans 1:20, that we see Him in His creation.

Brant: Right. And He reveals his nature—

Ann: —yes.

Brant: —and that He loves us. “You didn’t have to make everything so beautiful. You didn’t have to make music.”

Ann: Yes.

Brant: “Why did You make music? What does that have to do with anything other than beauty? Why are things beautiful?”

He loves us. We can see that He loves us. So, to see the things that have been made; to have your eyes open and talking to Him about that seems like a perfectly human thing to do. I keep my eyes open when I talk to my wife most of the time, and friends. [Laughter]

So, if you want to close your eyes to concentrate, that's great. But this thing where we feel like losers because people give this impression of super spirituality; well, maybe they are super spiritual in some way that we're not. They've got a gift; but that's not all of us.

Ann: Let's talk about people that maybe—in the subtitle, you talk about introverts.

Brant: Yes.

Ann: Blessed are the Introverts.

Brant: Yes.

Ann: Do you feel like introverted people—do they feel like misfits—

Brant: —yes.

Ann: —in America?

Brant: Well, in American church culture, you can. Again, in some traditions, like the tradition I'm from, there's a thing; now, this could be controversial: I just ask that before you fire off the letter, [Laughter] think about it. I could always be wrong, too, but I want to propose the idea that a lot of extroverts kind of feel like they're in charge of things, and they tell us what we need to be doing based on their gifts. So, they're [saying], “Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize, evangelize.”

Okay! Now that is something I do want my friends and neighbors and everyone, for their own good, to know Who the King is, so that they can have peace. I want that. But the idea that I'm the one who has to be on the street, talking to strangers, terrifies me. Terrifies me!

So, you feel this guilt as an introvert. Why? Well, you know what? Some people have a gift of evangelism, and they need to use it. Others of us have different gifts. That will be mainly where we're concentrating on. If I'm good at hospitality; I've got another gift of teaching, which is what I enjoy doing, but the idea of talking to strangers—why can't we have different members of the body [who] really concentrate in that area, and they've got a gift for it. They can operate in that gift really well.

Think about all the letters that Paul writes. Is he telling every single member, “You had better be out there evangelizing door to door”? Or does he say, “Some people have—you've got this gift, that gift, this other gift?”

Some people are given to be—they have prophetic voices into the culture; some people are given to be evangelists; some people are given to be teachers; other people have this pastoral gift. All of that is a disciple-creating mix, and I'm all for it.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: But we don't do that with other gifts.

Ann: Is that the biggest piece of introversion that you're talking about in the church? Are there other aspects of being introverted that you can feel like the misfit?

Brant: Oh sure, like being made to be a greeter at church. [Laughter] Oh, my goodness! I would hide behind the folded door. The door would be back, you know. [Laughter] I didn't mean to. I would just find my body just drifting. And again, some people are so good at it. Why not let them do that?

Ann: So, Dave and I are both extroverts, and our kids were old enough that we could figure out what they were, and we didn't even understand: “What's an introvert? That’s so weird.”

But we saw this in our son since the day he was born. He'd be around people and, after a while, you could tell that he was just stressing out. Once we got alone and put him in a room by himself or with one of us, as a baby, it was almost like, “Oh, okay.” As he got older, we realized; “Oh, he needs to recharge! He needs to be alone at times.”

Brant: Absolutely.

Ann: So, to go on a retreat—a spiritual retreat at a church—to him, it was so overwhelming after a while—

Brant: —yes.

Ann: —that he was [saying], “I need to come home.” But we said, “You need to take some time out of your day to get away and be by yourself to recharge—

Dave: —at the retreat—

Brant: —yes.

Ann: —at the retreat.

Dave: “Just go to your cabin.”

Brant: Give him a break.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: "Lay down in bed.”

Brant: It's good to understand that.

Ann: And for the leaders to understand [that] other people have that need to be alone. They're no less spiritual.

Brant: Yes.

Ann: That's just who they are.

Brant: Now, conversely, I have to say this for me as an introvert: I enjoy teaching Sunday school or whatever. It's not good enough for me to just do that and say, “Well, I'm an introvert, so I'm not going to be a people person.” No. Make yourself a people person, over time. You have to care about people. It may not be—you may not enjoy the crush of a full weekend with a bunch of people, and, honestly, that exhausts me, too.

Dave: By the way, this is December, so you’ve got holidays; you’ve got family. [Laughter]

Brant: Absolutely.

Dave: This is so appropriate, because they're in your home or you're in their home.

Brant: Yes.

Dave: As an introvert, you can just go sit in the corner and drink your eggnog and not talk to anybody, and that would not be a good thing to do.

Brant: No, and it's not good for us. There's a mutual submission that can happen here where, as an introvert, I can't just say, “This is who I am. Too bad.” No, I have got to love people. It's not just who I am, too. I've seen that with some leaders, honestly: “He’s a great speaker. He's not really a people person.” Well, he needs to become a people person, because you're supposed to—we have to love people.

As far as the back slapping or hanging out with 100 people and chit-chatting and making small talk, no! That's not going to happen. But I can ask people questions and genuinely care. I can do that as an introvert, so I've got to change; but I think church culture could do more to accommodate because there are a lot of extroverts that are drawn to the stage

Dave and Ann: —yes.

Brant: And they wind up making these decisions, not realizing that this isn't where everybody else is coming from.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Yes. One of the things you get into in the Misfits book is doubt.

Brant: Yes.

Dave: Can we talk about doubt? Because that, often, is not allowed.

Ann: You like this topic right here, don't you? [Laughter]

Dave: Well, I think part of it's because I grew up in a church with my mom—a single mom, taking me to church—and doubt was really viewed as a sin. Again, I'm sort of skeptical so, even as a young boy, but especially in my teenage years, I started to voice questions.

Brant: Yes.

Dave: Honestly, I wasn't antagonistic. I literally had real questions that I just wished I could get some answers to. They were never; “Hey, yes! That's a great question. Let's talk.” It was, “You're not spiritual.”

Brant: Yes.

Dave: “We who are spiritual don't have questions like that. We don't doubt.”

Ann: Did you ever feel like that, Brant?

Brant: Yes. In college, I took some religious studies courses, and one of them—a couple of them were just all about tearing down the Christian faith. I went to a secular university, but it was all redactive criticism, Rudolph Bultmann, Schweitzer, and all this stuff I'd never thought about before ever; the different sources of the text and all that. It really threw me for a loop.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: But thankfully, I had somebody smart from my past I could call and say, “What do you think about this?” He explained it, and then I read a couple of books countering it. That made my faith really strong.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: What hurts me now is people who don't express doubt and then just leave the faith.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: If you would just ask me: I've probably struggled through this and thought about it, because I've doubted about everything.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: But we could talk about it and then, I think, you would walk away going, “Oh, my goodness! God's better than I thought.” When you go deeper—

Dave and Ann: —yes.

Brant:  —you go an inch deep, you have these questions; “Oh, my goodness!” But just to keep going.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: Then, I also encourage people: doubt can be good, but be an equal opportunity doubter. If you're going to question the Bible and question Christian ethics, or question—that's fine. You should question things. You better question the culture, too.

Ann: Your son, you said, is super smart. He's on the spectrum. He's going to Yale. I'm guessing he's had doubts.

Brant: Oh, I’m sure!

Ann: I'm thinking of a listener who's thinking, “My kids are expressing so much, and they're listening to YouTube all day, and they're hearing these things that are just—they feel like, “Oh, this is the truth.” As a parent, how would you face that?

Brant: If they ask me questions, I'd be so thankful.

Ann: Really?

Brant: Yes. If they're expressing that. “Let's talk about this.” Otherwise, you're shut up with this other stuff, one-sided.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: And if you don't know the answer as a parent, find it.

Ann: So, you'd open the door to it: “Hey, you guys!”—

Brant: —Absolutely!

Ann: —"You probably are hearing things that. . . “—

Brant: —You could say, “I haven't thought about that before. That's really interesting.” You can do that because of the strength of the Truth. You don't have to have all the answers. You just know God is good, and you don't need to be worried. All truth is His. If we keep researching this, we're going to land in a place where we actually have learned more, and our faith is increased, probably. That's been my experience.

As a parent, if they're asking questions you haven't thought about, a lot of these questions, honestly, again, are about an inch deep. They sound smart, and then you realize, “Wait a second. People can make fun of stuff in the Bible. They’ll make a meme out of it.”

Dave: I remember, as we're talking, I felt—I didn't know the term then—like a misfit, because I doubted and felt like nobody else in church culture ever doubted.

Brant: Yes.

Dave: I don't know when it was when I first came across Thomas, and he says, “I'm not going to believe unless I can see the nail scars.” I was reading the Scripture, and it's like I expected, because of my church background, that Jesus going to shame him.

Brant: “What?”

Dave: And say, “Dude, you loser”—

Brant: —“Come on!”

Dave: —"I can't believe you don't believe.”

Brant: [Laughter] Right?

Dave: Jesus doesn't shame him. Jesus says—

Brant: —Oh yes.

Dave: —"Hey, Thomas,”—

Brant: —Oh, He's so good!

Dave: —"Do you need evidence? Here's the evidence.” And I'm [thinking], “Okay, I'm not—[Laughter] I'm in! I fit!”

Brant: He’s so gentle with us. He knows we need to be reminded like John the Baptist himself.

Ann: Yes!

Brant: John the Baptist himself doubting, and what does Jesus say?

Ann: His cousin!

Brant: He doesn't go, “He what? You’ve got to be kidding me. [Laughter] Good grief.”  No; He says,” Remind him. Let's go back through this. We know the Kingdom is here.”

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Brant: “Remind him of this.” That's a really tender thing for God. He understands it. He gets it. He honors us anyway.

Dave: And I think He's excited that you're asking questions.

You won't believe this: we were in Branson, Missouri, speaking at a marriage conference for coaches; football coaches. Saturday afternoon was off, so Ann said, “Let's go to Queen Esther!” [Sight and Sound Theater] We have been told it's fantastic. So, we go, and it's really well done—the biblical story of Queen Esther, and they acted it out.

Anyway, they have an intermission, and I'm thinking, “It's so long, they have an intermission?” [Laughter] But anyway, there was no one—five seats beside me were wide open. We're sitting there during the intermission, and this guy sits down beside me and leans into me [Laughter] —some stranger! It was so—first, he sat there, and I'm [wondering], “Do I turn and say ‘hi’ to this guy?”

Then he leans and lays on my lap, [Laughter] and it was the weirdest thing ever. So, I turn, and I say, “Hey, Dude!” He goes, “[Do] you remember me?” I go, “You look sort of familiar.” He goes, “I talk about you every time I give my testimony. You led me to Jesus! I was part of your church in Detroit 20 years ago.”

Brant: Wow.

Dave: I look at him, and I go, “You're the guy in the lobby at the men's retreat—the skeptic!” He goes, “Yes!”

Brant, I'll never forget this, because I was speaking at our men's retreat. We’ve got 1,000-2,000 men there. It's a big deal! The session is over, and I'm walking through the lobby, and I'm near the door, and this guy comes up. He says, “[Do] you know what? I don't believe any stuff you just talked about. I'm a skeptic;” And he quoted somebody; I think it was Dawkins. He quoted a very well-known atheist argument. He says, “And that's why I don't believe.”

I look at him (I'll never forget this), and I say, “Oh, yes, I've walked through that whole argument as well, and here's the three reasons I think he's wrong, and I think you can believe.” He goes, “I went home, and I researched what you said, and I gave my life to Christ. I talk about you every time I give my testimony.”

Brant: —That’s cool.

Dave: —"Here's my wife. Here's my kids. My whole life transformed.” I thought, “There's a doubter who said, ‘Is this true or not?’” And here's the thing: God loves it when we bring our doubts to Him—

Brant and Ann: —yes.

Dave: —because He's [saying], “I've got the Truth.”

Ann: As you’ve said, “He's not afraid—

Dave: —no.

Ann: —of our questions.”

Brant: No! Not at all. We need to not be afraid, and then, also, trust God's Truth. Even if we don't have the answer, let's find it together.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: Let's do a mutual inquiry into the Truth.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: That's what Dallas Willard said; he said, “I don't debate people, but I will do a mutual inquiry into the Truth;” because he's very confident. He knows where that Truth leads. If you really want to search for Truth, I'll do it with you. I don't have all the answers.

Dave: Yes.

Brant: I know where it goes! So, I’m very confident.

Ann: I think that's a really good reminder, especially for me as a mom, because I would worry about my kids when they were in high school and [wonder], “Where are they spiritually?” But we don't have to worry. We can pray even when we don't feel like it. [Laughter]

Brant: You take your anxieties to Him.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Tell Him what you need, and remember what He's done.

Dave: And sit down with your son or daughter tonight and have a real conversation. That'd be pretty cool.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: I'm just—as you were saying that, Brant, I'm seeing parents do that around the world because of what you said.

Brant: Good!

Dave: “Yes, I'm going to sit down and say, ‘Hey! Let’s talk. Do you have questions?”

Brant: —nothing to fear.

Dave: —"So do I. Let's figure this out together.’”

Ann: And it’s December, so a lot of our kids will be coming home; we're going to be around a lot of relatives and people. It can be wonderful, but also, we just want to say, “Merry Christmas to you!” We want to thank you, too, for just listening; being a part of us; being a supporter. We need you. We really need you.

Shelby: I'm Shelby Abbott. Allow me to be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve. You've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Brant Hansen on FamilyLife Today.

[Do] you know what? Ann is right. We do need you. Christmas is coming up on Monday. It's an amazing time of year for many of us, and we want you to be a part of the FamilyLife Today family by becoming a monthly partner and experiencing the joy, really, of what God is doing through this ministry at FamilyLife Today.

Thanks to some generous donors, every gift that is given this month is going to be matched, dollar-for-dollar, up to $3,000,000. So, help us take advantage of these donors' generosity, and give today. You can go online to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the “Donate Now” button at the top of the page; super easy to see. Or you could give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329; again, the number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY”.

I've really loved hearing from Brant Hansen all this week; basically all week long. He's been such a gift to us here at FamilyLife Today. He's written a book called Blessed are the Misfits. If you're an introvert ,and you feel like you don't feel like you kind of belong in your church environment, Brant has written this book for you. You could go online to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on “Today's Resources” to get your copy.

Now, coming up next week: in the resurrection, God will fulfill our deepest longings, provide a true sense of home for our hearts, and reverse all of our pain and suffering. Doesn't that sound amazing? Well, next week, Dave and Ann Wilson are going to be joined by Dane Ortlund to talk about the beauty of what we have in our future. We hope you'll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. Merry Christmas, and we'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today!

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