In that moment when you're anxious about something, go back to some moment you had in life that you're really thankful happened and just camp out there. It could be sometime you were just laughing really hard with friends or when you had your baby or the first time you met that friend and just camp out there.
You can feel your blood pressure dropping. I'm telling you, this is not pie in the sky stuff. That's Brandt Hansen and he's our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us.
I'm John Fuller. John, it's very easy, even as Christians, to develop a negative attitude about the world around us. I mean, just flick on cable news and you're going to get discouraged. People are concerned about so many things, the evils of government, injustice, poverty, wars, infanticide, and it just keeps coming at us pretty much 24-7. Brandt Hansen has a great way of breaking through that clutter and pointing us back to the truth that the gospel and the joy we get from the gospel is what we should have in Jesus.
And people should be able to look at us and see a difference, right? And I am thrilled to talk with Brandt today about how we get there because we should be different. Yeah, Brandt is a best-selling author. He's a radio host. One of the books he's written is called Life is Hard, God is Good, Let's Dance, Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad. Get a copy of it from us here at the ministry.
Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, or stop by the show notes to get your copy. Brandt, welcome back to Focus. Thank you. Honored to be here. Always good to talk with you. You've got great stories. I love the way you write. It just connects with me and so many others, obviously. You're a successful author and it's good to have you.
Thank you. I think, for me, it's like trying to write to friends. Oh, that's good. That's the framework in which you tend to do it. Yeah, rather than like, I've got this important thing to say, like, no, this is what God's showing me and let's talk about it. And what's interesting, and you've talked about this publicly, so I'm not saying something that you haven't shared, but you're on the spectrum. And so it may not come as easily for you as how people might think of it. Oh, he's a great writer because he knows how to communicate. But socially, there's some things that you've had to learn how to overcome.
Just describe that for the listeners to kind of set the tone for today. Yeah, I have a high functioning on the spectrum, on the autism spectrum, and it's something that makes socializing more difficult, picking up on people's cues. Right.
It's very difficult. I've learned over time, like I'm making eye contact with you now. I wouldn't normally. I do it because humans are supposed to do that.
So you learn this stuff. But actually, I think it's a real asset. And because it gives you a perspective. Other people are like, wow, I've never thought about it that way before. It's interesting. I mean, it's areas of the brain that are unlocked. Like, you know, if you don't deal with this, you don't experience life quite the same way.
And I have people close to me that have this as well. And when we talk about it, it's it's really eye opening for me about how they interpret other people's emotions and read faces or don't read faces. Yeah. So it kind of yeah, it kind of it's a different lens in which you view the world.
Yeah. And I think that's helpful. I think God's actually used it and it helps like comedians that are on the spectrum, too. Like you're you're always observing and you see absurdity where the people don't.
Yeah, that's actually a real tool. There's a depth to it. And that's what I've come to appreciate about being on the spectrum and with autism. But let me ask you about this, though, when you were a child. And this is funny because it's a typical type of story. All the mayhem that you were trying to process as a child, you decided to start drawing maps in your bedroom about surviving a nuclear war.
I mean, this is exactly you just go down all the way. Right. So what was that about? Well, it's just we had a lot of trauma in our family. And but I just took things very seriously, just existentially serious. Like everything could end. I was afraid that Jesus was going to come back and he's instant and find me wanting. I'd watch those freaky movies about that at church. I was at that time. You're really worried about nuclear war.
But I would draw maps of fallout, like how it would affect stuff. You know, my mom, like, you should lighten up just to freak your mom out a little bit. And quicksand was another thing. Totally. Well, quicksand, anybody who's like my age, like you grew up with television, like every show at one point in the 70s and 80s was all somebody who was in quicksand.
Gilligan's Island, every other episode. Duke's a hazard. Literally, all of it. Everybody's in quicksand. You grow up thinking this is going to be a real problem. I've got to avoid quicksand. Then you go looking for it.
You can't find it. It's not really that big of an issue, is it, guys? Like it's really no one dies from quicksand. I'm not sure what the CDC numbers are, but I'm sure it's not quite high. I looked it up.
It's zero. It's such a relief. But like, it's just funny how we have these things that blow up in our heads that we actually didn't need to be worried about. Yeah, you're more likely to die from lightning strikes and quicksand. But we're worried. You know, we're lighthearted about this, but we are bombarded with problems.
I mean, we get it just going to the school board meeting, or we get it from watching the news, or we get it from entering into any kind of political discussion today because it's so volatile. But you as a child, things were not easy for you. You had some things going on with your mom and dad's marriage, not doing well.
Just explain that environment a little more in depth. Well, I'm from a preacher's family, but there was a lot of trauma in the house and a lot of fear. I was terrified a lot of the time, honestly, and so was my brother. And they got divorced eventually and then remarried and then divorced again.
My mom just wanted to make it work, but it was pretty bad. And I use that as a backdrop, and I mention it in the book just a little bit because I want people to know I'm not happy, slappy, like, hey, put on a happy face. It's not this book. It's not just glossing over all these problems like you're talking about. It's not about being naive to the world, but we can't actually be at peace. Yeah, it's a real thing.
Jesus is not crazy when he says, like, you can be like the birds of the air in the lilies of the field. This is not happy talk. There is a way to become a less anxious person where you're actually at peace. And if it could happen to me, then I think it can be accessible to anybody. You know, Brent, again, one of those processing benefits I think you possess as someone on the spectrum. When you went through that with your folks and your dad being a pastor, and I don't have all the nuances.
I've read your background, so that's what I see. Many people will use that as the excuse to not continue to follow God. You know, I'm not a Christian because my dad was a pastor and he was a horrible person and he was abusive or whatever the characterization is of that.
I run into people like that. But something in you was different. So you started saying to yourself, what? And it kept you in the faith.
Yes. So I'm a hyper skeptic. I'm extremely skeptical. What I feel like is a lot of people are only skeptical about Jesus. But they'll buy into the culture without asking the same difficult questions. Does this actually work?
Is our culture thriving? But it actually chased me back around to Jesus because he's the only one. He's like a respite. You read his words, you read the Gospels. He's sometimes the only one that makes any sense to me. Honestly, he's a relief. So for me, he's the only one that calls out human brokenness and then does something about it.
Instead of pretending like, no, there's no such thing as sin or we don't have no way out of it. Who else speaks about self-righteousness like he does? Who else lifts up the poor? Who else flips things upside down?
His kingdom is so beautiful. I don't want to leave that. So here's the thing about hypocrisy. Yes, there are hypocrites. We know them.
Tons of them. Like big time hypocrites. Got it. I'm not going to give that person the power to rob me of the best relationship in my life. That's very logical. Right. Why would I do that?
It's very logical. Yes, that's a problem. Yes, what I went through is horrible. That all happened. But God is good.
Yeah. Doesn't change that reality. You know, the one thing that I've responded to, I mean, there are what I would call hyper hypocrites that you're describing. But in reality, as human beings and being sinners, even as Christians, we're all hypocrites because we can't live it perfectly.
We don't even live up to our own standards. No one does. It is really good to challenge somebody who uses that as an excuse not to not to go after a relationship with Christ. Well, I would. But I knew I know too many of his followers and they're not very good people. Man, that is like stupid.
He's going to like why would I give this up? He's the only actual source of peace. Yeah.
Nothing else is going to last. Like, why would I? I'm just thinking about logically. Yeah. Why would I give that up? Because of what my dad did.
Yeah. Oh, I'm not going to. Or whatever I've done or whatever other people. Here's the other thing about the people. And I'm being skeptical of people and myself. When people write their manifestos, when they deconstruct, they say I'm leaving the faith and they talk about the hypocrisy. They'll talk about politics.
I'll talk. I've noticed something. This is several high profile ex pastors or artists or whatever. They don't mention Jesus. I don't understand that. What do they typically say?
They talk about politics and hypocrites and the church, this and that. But I want to know, as somebody who's a Jesus follower, like, yeah, but who do you think Jesus is now? Yeah. Why did you stop?
What were you in this for? Right. And if it wasn't for him and his kingdom, I would leave too. It's too goofy. Yeah. Your title kind of has something that's a bit challenging for Western culture, which is, let me say, for lack of a better word, living the high life. I mean, we have everything we need for the most part. We have access to it. You work hard. You're going to have a nice house.
You'll have food. You know, all those things. But your title. Life is hard. God is good.
Let's dance. The life is hard part is where we break down. Being a Christian doesn't mean life will be easy.
It's just what the Lord is saying is that you will I will equip you to manage these difficulties with peace and joy. Yes. So peace. I love Dallas Willard's definition. Actually, his definition of joy is a pervasive sense of well-being regardless of circumstances.
Right. So regardless of circumstances, that means so we can get worried and we can think it's unrealistic not to worry. But what he's actually saying is he'd said it in this world, you will have troubles, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world like wink, wink, nod, nod. I know how this ends. And I know even people who are grieving, I've known people who've gone through the worst case scenario. We can all rehearse these in our minds all the time. But I know people who've gone through it who say this peace showed up that I've never experienced before.
And it showed up only when I was going through that. And there's this sense of well-being you can have, even if you're grieving. Yeah. Even if you're even if there's chaos going on around us, there's reasons to be upset. You can still be at peace.
And we're missing out on that. I think the evidence of the Holy Spirit, I mean, when you can be in very difficult circumstances and your faith is intact and you're waking up with a sense of joy. You know, you might have distractions and all that, but I feel like that is when the Lord's smile is the biggest because he has your heart. If you, regardless of your circumstances, have your trust, your peace, your hope in him, he's got you.
And that is intimidating for the enemy of our soul. I think so. I love that Jesus takes his friends out on a lake. And he did. That was his idea to go in those boats out on the lake.
Let's cross the lake. He knows a storm's coming. It even mentions in the story in Mark, it says that he brought a cushion.
Which is the stranger. He was sleeping on a cushion. Like there's no other mention of cushion in the entire Bible. I thought that was funny.
It was like, why this detail? He's relaxed. He's chilling. He's chilling. He's right. And that's his whole approach is he's relaxed.
He knows all the chaos in the world. It's not naivete, but they freaked out. And his reaction was, where did you put your faith? What happened? But it's like, here was this test.
You guys failed. Don't you know that even if the boats go down, you're still okay? That's the point. This is called eternity.
I might have done the same thing in that setting. Me too. Hey, wait a minute, Lord. Man, the wind's blowing. Let me ask you, you pointed to Paul in Scripture as a good example of an optimist. Sometimes I don't see Paul in quite that light. But why did that stick out for you, Paul?
Okay. So there's a story with Paul and I don't know, I'm not talking about just a lighthearted optimism that you just go through life. Nothing ever, you know, Pollyanna stuff.
Pollyanna. Isn't that funny? So, yeah, that is kind of funny.
I should have thought of that. But there's actually a story in Acts and I didn't even notice it till I was writing this book. At the end of Acts, it's either on a boat and it mentions there's two hundred seventy five people on the boat. Like there's an exact number.
Yeah. Two hundred and seventy four people in that boat are freaking out because it's going to go down. It's going to wreck. They know it. You know, the captain knows it.
Everybody on board, the salty sea hands or whatever, they know it. Except for Paul, who's been told by God that everybody's going to be okay. And so they're all freaking out and he's not. Now, from their perspective, he's nuts. He's naive. Don't you understand?
You're ignorant of what's going on out here, don't you? But he's not naive. He doesn't know less than they do. He knows more.
That's the source of his piece. Well, in fact, you say that joy is an informed decision. Yeah, that's an example of that. Yes, it is like it's not knowing less. So if people are like, don't you see what's on the news? Didn't you see this thing? What do you see what's happening in schools?
Yes. There's so many things that we can be worried about. And yet Jesus is not naive about these things. There's crazy stuff at the time that he's dealing with with the audience that's listening to when he's talking.
Maybe even crazier. Maybe. But it doesn't make these things go away. It's not saying these things aren't important. These things are important. We have to protect the vulnerable. We've got to do the right thing.
But the whole point is, he's saying with me. Do you realize you're safe? You're actually safe. You don't need to worry about tomorrow.
Yeah. That gives you a sense of well-being. But you have to remind yourself of this stuff. But that's the strong hand that we're actually playing with.
And we shouldn't be as worried as everybody else. And what it is, is a competition between your soul and your flesh. That's right.
And that's what that competition is. Your flesh is going to lean into anxiety, fear. Your soul is going to say trust.
Yeah. Brent, you work quite a bit with CURE. And that's a medical mission. And you can describe it better than I can.
I'm looking forward to hopefully taking Trent on a trip there. Because he's interested in medical stuff. But in that regard, when we look at reasons people don't believe, you've kind of seen the counterbalance to that. I think one example you had was a girl's story with a cleft palate on one of these trips.
What happened and how did that end up being a positive thing? Well this is a big deal for me because of my background. And because I don't, I want to see Jesus for real. So I'm skeptical of words. Even my own. I just feel like anybody can look good on stage. Yes. Anybody can do that. I'm not impressed.
So I want to see Jesus really at work. And that's what drew me to these hospitals. These are full on permanent surgical hospitals. There's nothing else like this in the world. Africa, Philippines.
Africa, Philippines. There's eight full on hospitals. Hundreds of employees, nurses, surgeons, orthopedic neuroplastics.
It's all done in the name of Jesus. So they are loved. These are people that are pediatric hospitals. It's kids and their parents who have been rejected because they have some kind of a disability. And they think they're cursed.
And the first time I visited I was hooked. Because there was a 17 year old girl, and I do write about this in the book. Who had never really been out of the house. Because she had severe bilateral, like a cleft palate.
So there's this hole underneath her nose. But she's 17, so she's a full grown woman basically. And she was obviously very quiet, very traumatized. But they didn't want her out of the house because they would be kicked out of the community.
If they saw that they had a daughter who was cursed. Right. That's how they translate that. Which is how a lot of traditional cultures view it. Even they brought a blind man to Jesus and said, who sinned?
Same old. He said, this happened so God could be glorified. So I get to see that at these hospitals. With this girl, after her surgery, the swelling was going down a little bit. But already that hole was gone and her lip was whole. And I couldn't believe the difference. And she was sitting there with her mom. And I sat down with them and I didn't have a mirror. And I was like, wait, I have my phone.
So I took my iPhone and I flipped the camera around. And I handed it to her. And I mean she just held that thing and was just in shock, awe.
She was beautiful. Like, that looks like Jesus to me. And then they're told, this is why we're doing this. They're told the gospel about the kingdom of God. And it's so beautiful.
And last year, I say all this for a point. People don't have to give the cure or whatever, it's fine. But it's like, they did 18,000 surgeries last year, all in the name of Jesus. And people become believers. They're singing, they're thanking God.
Tears of joy. There's worship throughout, they're praying over the kids in the OR. But to me, I'm like, I needed to see that. And this is another reason, like, I'm not leaving this.
If somebody's like, well, I don't like the politics, I don't like this or that about the church or these hypocrites. I'm like, okay, man, but I'm not leaving this. This is only Jesus's kingdom. This is how his kingdom works.
It's too good. I'm not turning my back on that. Well, that's one of the things I've thought a lot about.
And when I read the prep in the book, and I was thinking, your observation is something I've thought about. If what we have tasted in the US is the kingdom of God, why are people walking away from it? There's only two answers to that, right? One, they weren't really seeing what was real. We were trying to kind of pretend to be. And secondly, they saw it and didn't like it. It's got to be one of those two things.
The first one really concerns me. Have we as the church been the authentic hands and feet of God? Well, this is Jesus's favorite subject, the kingdom of God. But it wasn't in my church growing up. I didn't hear about it. It sounds like just some, I don't know what that is, let's move along.
But it's the most beautiful thing ever. I think we're all yearning for it. I know we are. You watch a video on YouTube. I was watching these. You ever see somebody get the colorblind glasses where they can see colors for the first time? They break down sobbing. I can see colors.
Well, like that girl with her cleft palate. Right. Okay, so Jesus is saying the kingdom is breaking through and what does he do? He heals people. And then he's like, see, the kingdom's here. It's busting through.
Same thing now. We see healing. We get goosebumps. We start crying. We see reunions. Like when those soldiers come home, surprise their daughters in a classroom and she breaks down sobbing and just is limp in his arms because daddy's home.
You can watch YouTube. Somebody can hear music for the first time. They'll turn on a cochlear implant.
You get goosebumps and start crying. It's because it's an advanced trailer of heaven. All of these things, reunions we're going to have, the hearing for the first time, the lame will leap like deer. That's the kingdom of God and it's breaking through. But everybody's actually yearning for this. But if we don't show them that this is what the kingdom is, they're not going to know and they might walk off without ever really knowing how awesome it is.
Yeah, it's so true. You told a story in your book about a businessman who outsourced his worry. I was really, this is a good story and it's a great point.
It is a great point. So this is a guy who's not coming out. It was Tim Ferris. He's like a time management guru guy. He's not coming at it from a Christian standpoint, but he outsources everything to his personal assistant in India. And I was listening to his audio book and he said, one day he was really worried about something and he said, Hey, could you worry about this for me today to his personal assistant?
And she's like, okay, sure. And he said it actually worked. Like it actually helped.
Took it off his plate. Knowing that someone else is worrying for him actually helps so he could concentrate on other stuff that day. And I'm like, that's genius. That's what we're told to do in the Bible. We're supposed to outsource our worry to God.
Right. He can handle it. We can't. We can't handle tomorrow what might happen next week or next month.
He can. Why do we have such an insatiable appetite for that? The very thing that the Lord tells us not to do, to not worry, to not be fearful. And yet it's like saying to somebody, don't look at that. And what we do is look at it. There's something in the human heart. I think it's control. I think we think that by worrying about something, we can actually help control it.
Wow. It's like when you release the bowling ball and then people start gyrating. It looks like it's headed for the gutter. You lean over and you start gesticulating. That's not helping, man.
The ball has been rolled. We still think we can control things that we can't. But being able to say in a genius way, like Paul tells us to, whatever it is, outsource it to God. Tell him what you need and then thank him for what he's done. That's literally outsourcing. Cast your cares on him.
How does that look just practically speaking, day to day? Well, that's a very practical thing is saying, don't be anxious about anything. Listen to what he's saying. He's like, tell God what you need and then turn it to gratitude. And then the peace of God will guard your heart, a peace you've never experienced before. So this is kind of a habit, a muscle we have to flex. It is a practice and it becomes more second nature. But gratitude does, in fact, and we know this from just modern psychology, chases out anxiety.
It's so genius that the Bible would be that clear. Here's how you should handle it. So there's a number of ways. Another way is to make sure that you're capturing your anxious thoughts and speak truth to yourself, just like David does repeatedly in Psalms. It's like, why are you so downcast on my soul? Put your trust in God. You know, Brent, it makes sense and as you develop the habits of scripture, that's kind of growing in the fruit of the Spirit and all those things. But I'm mindful of people and I've talked with them and at times I could be that person. So I don't want to pretend that I'm above that or beyond that. You get a break in that, meaning the cord is snapped and all of a sudden you are worrying too much about your children, your adult children, you're worrying about your marriage, you're worrying about different things. And it's like you fall out of the channel that you've worked hard to become in Christ. Speak to that person about how do I arrest those feelings, those emotions, especially in a world today that is feeding you fear.
Social media lives off this. They're measuring the dopamine hits. They're measuring psychologically how they could keep you there and fear is a magnet for people. We're all human and Jesus knows that but he's still telling us be like the lilies of the field, be like the birds of the air. It's not unrealistic to actually say, okay, I'm feeling this way. Let me call myself back to praising God. Again, that's in Psalms repeatedly.
David's talking to himself and you can do that. The practice of gratitude is you could just think of something in that moment when you're anxious about something. Go back to some moment you had in life that you're really thankful happened and just camp out there. It could be sometime you're just laughing really hard with friends or when you had your baby or the first time you met that friend and just camp out there.
You can feel your blood pressure dropping. I'm telling you, this is not pie in the sky stuff. This is what God is telling us to do is gratitude. You can say thank God that happened.
Here's another thing that's incredibly practical. It's going to sound like religious. Just speak, but it's not. Praise God.
Oh, yeah. Because you think it through the Bible. I thought growing up that all that praise the Lord.
What is the ego maniac? We got to tell him all the time how awesome he is. He tells us that is not for him. He doesn't need us to say that.
He doesn't need anything. It aligns us with how good he is again. We hear ourselves saying these things. That reminds you that you can actually trust the character of God. You don't have all the answers.
You don't know what's going to happen next week. You don't have everything figured out, but you've learned I can trust the character of God. What a great start. I want to continue the discussion next time. This really gets the whole thing moving in the right direction. I want to come back and talk about learning to laugh at ourselves.
Christians, we could be far too serious about ourselves and about those around us. Radical hospitality, which you address in the book, and reaching the world by being counter-cultural in all the right ways. I'm looking forward to doing that. Can you come back and do it? I love to. I hope you'll ask us for a copy of this book, especially if you're feeling joyless and a little bit overcome by the anxiety of this world. This is the book. Life is hard.
God is good. Let's dance. Brant Hansen has done a wonderful job capturing these thoughts and ideas for you so that you can put them in the right place. Get in touch with us. If you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy. As always, saying thank you for being part of the ministry. Join the support team here. Help us help so many around the world by making a donation today.
800, the letter A in the word family is our number, 800-232-6459, where you'll find details in the show notes. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back when we continue the conversation with Brant Hansen and, once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ. God wants true disciples, ones that think like him, talk like him, walk like him, disciples that bring shalom to the chaos of this world. Pursue that path with the RVL Discipleship series. Bible scholar Ray Vanderlaan will give you the tools to understand the Bible more deeply and inspire you to be a passionate follower of Christ. Watch the first episode at RVLDiscipleship.com
