The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. That's literally what it says, Psalm 23.1. You rehearse that in your head?
I lack nothing. You can tell yourself that every day, and then it ends with, Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Well that's Brant 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 always good to have Brant on the program with us.
It's always fresh, and I just love the way he gets into topics that are relevant, that people care about, whether you're a mom or dad or husband and wife, and it fits right in the wheelhouse for Focus on the Family. We do this for one reason. First, we want you to have a relationship with Christ, because that's the foundation for all. Then secondly, have a great family experience. I mean, I think the Lord created family not to drag us down, probably to teach us about being selfless. I love that thought in marriage. You know, the idea of the institution of marriage is not how to build me up, but how to become more selfless for my spouse.
How about that? More like how Christ is for us, right? So this is why we hit these topics, and Brant does a wonderful job with great stories to help bring this to the surface. He does, and he is a radio host.
He's syndicated on hundreds of radio stations. He's written a number of books, and we're talking today about one that covers so much great material. If you missed last time, the first part of our conversation, get the mobile app, stop by our website, find the links, get ahold of that first day of content. There's so much there.
The book is called Life is Hard, God is Good, Let's Dance, Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad. We've got the details for you in the show notes. Brant, welcome back to Focus. Thank you. I love it. I always shorten it, you know, focus. Focus on the family.
I think people know that. We promised listeners last time, and if people haven't heard it, you know, get the app or go to the website and download the program and you'll hear part one. It was really good. We talked about a lot of the social pressure of just being riddled with fear and anxiety and how to do some things to kind of overcome that. But today, one of the things we promised to talk about was being able to laugh at yourself. And I think, you know, it's, could you imagine, think of Caiaphas, the high priest and how Jesus was trying to deal with him. Do you think Caiaphas ever really laughed at himself?
That's not the image I get at Caiaphas. Maybe it's wrong, but people that can laugh at themselves usually are pretty healthy people. I think so. I've heard that people who struggle with narcissism can't laugh at themselves. And so I want to be not that. And I think making a practice of not taking yourself too seriously is a much more fun way to go through life.
Like it's much less pressure. Yeah. Speaking of a fun way to go through life, didn't you have a motorcycle example that you were able to laugh at yourself? I had one that I cried, but I didn't laugh.
I tried to laugh about it. This is, see this whole book is full of cringe stories of me. It's like my friends, like weird stuff just keeps happening to you. Like, yeah. But even in the moment, I'm like, this is going to be a good story.
And I thought of that. I was in Indonesia to do tsunami relief years ago. It was right after it happened. A guy left me with a motorcycle. He said I could use it as he took off.
And I was, it was with a crowd of people was around in a parking lot at a hotel at Banda Aceh. And I said, I don't want to do that. I'm not good on motorcycles. No, no, no. Take it.
I want you to know. I don't want to. I told him that like four times.
It's like, no, go ahead. I got on, I kept doing the clutch gas thing. I kept killing it. I felt embarrassed.
And all these guys are gathered around watching me kill. That's terrible. I got to do this. I hadn't slept in a long time. I just traveled. I've been traveling like 39 hours.
I'm tired. I gunned that thing on accident and it took off across the parking lot. I did a wheelie and it was out of control.
And I smashed into a parked truck and I went over the bike cause I tried to pull the bike down, sent myself flying over and I dented the truck with my face. Oh my goodness. And I tried to make a joke out of it. I thought you looked more handsome. Thank you.
Yeah. And I got out of the, I got off the ground. I saw the dent and I said, yeah, for my next trick I'll, and I remember losing consciousness after I did that.
Only guys could really, I just, I just telescope to the ground, just like went to the ground, like was out. And when I was coming to, I just heard all these voices and yelling and it was the guy who owned the truck wanting money from me when the whole crowd was gathered around. I came back there a week later on my way out. It was like 10 days later. It's, there's still all these guys and they made this little motion with their hand accelerated.
They have t-shirts now. That's the last time evil can evil, right? But there's just stuff like that. It's, it's cringe. But on the other hand, it's, it's all right.
If I look dumb, it's all right. It's a good story. Who cares? You know, Brent, one thing that's so true about human interaction. People like hanging with people that do this. You can, you, you know, laugh at yourself.
Don't take yourself too seriously. It's interesting that that is an attractive aspect of some people. It is. And it's, everybody's so worked up and anxious in our culture.
It's, they're sick with anxiety and to have somebody who's not anxious can laugh about stuff. It's actually compelling. I think you say when you describe yourself, you describe yourself as an introvert.
So that's gotta be even more difficult. Yeah, it is. Cause you're thinking a lot. You think quietly self-conscious, right? But there are things I think in life as you, as you grow with God where you do take yourself less seriously. You realize not everything.
It depends on you. Honestly, you don't, you don't control very much. You really don't. You have a quote in the book from Anne Lamott. I think it is.
And she says, peace is joy at rest and joy is peace on its feet. Yeah. Wow. That's a good statement.
I love that. That's the, so the last dance thing in the title from the book at the cure hospitals, I get to visit in Niger Thursday afternoons, there's a dance party and it's exactly what you're talking about because it's all kids who have disabilities have been rejected their whole lives. They might be five years old.
They might be 15, 17. They've got different levels of disability, but they're in different places of healing at the hospital. And they turn on the music and some kids are on in their wheelchairs. Some are just using canes. Some of you have to hold, but you just, everybody's dancing. And it's like this joyous thing that God is there and they're finding healing in the midst of one of the toughest places in the world to be a kid.
And these are all rejected people, but to your point, there's no party as much fun as when no one's trying to be cool. Right? Totally. And when you do become like, like the birds of the air, you're not thinking about next week.
Yeah. Next year, what could happen? Potential threats like that frees you up to have actually have some fun. You know, Brent, not everyone's going to have that great experience like with cure or any other relief agency that's overseas doing something some well, but you have a story about a neighbor, Joey, who you reached out to.
And my point in that is that it doesn't have to be like next month when we go to Africa to do something or whatever that might be. It's today with your neighbor, describe Joey. So Joey has a great personality, but he's, he's got brain injuries and he's a, he's an adult lives with his parents. Yeah.
Single, not a believer. And he always tried to make friends in the community. He was very outgoing, extremely outgoing. Some people had a hard time understanding him or why he was so extroverted, whatever I was drawn to him. So we would start hanging out and doing music and stuff.
Cause he liked to sing. So I'd play guitar and it was a blast, but then he found out his parents were moving and he had to move with them. And so my wife and I, this is not normal for us. So if you're hearing this story and you're like, Oh, you guys are just the party people.
We're not, we're not, but we become more so because you can take risks and do it joyfully. It's really fun. So we said to him, we want to have a going away party for you at our house for the neighborhood for him.
Yeah. Invite neighbors. We'll get on the neighborhood Facebook page and we didn't know if anybody come and we made sure we had our direct neighbors come. So at least somebody came. So they came after about a half hour.
No one's there. Then a mom and her daughter came. We had streamers up balloons, all the food. And he was fine with it.
Well, that's cool. But then some other neighbors came and then some more neighbors with a couple of kids in the place was jammed and his parents were there. They came and in shock, like we didn't know he had friends like this. It's like, well, people love you again.
They're not believers. Yeah. But we had this conversation after the party where she wanted to know, she's like, so you're like God people, right? Like this is, this is mom. Yeah. She's like, maybe the stuff he's went through, he's gone through. Maybe it's for a reason.
Maybe people are actually, they actually love him. Huh? It's like, right. But we, that wouldn't have happened if we didn't step out on a limb, create a space for that to occur. But you have to be willing that something may not go well.
It may not end that way. You may have, I call it an experiment. You label everything and experiment.
And then if it fails like, well, okay, we learned something. But we've thrown parties for our lawn care people that come through the neighborhood, like turned on the music for where they're from. They're so good. They're all from Guatemala. And we bought food and had a big part.
Again, our neighbors are driving by like, what in the world is going on with these people? That's good. Something I saw on YouTube was just somebody who set up snacks and drinks for UPS and Amazon drivers and all that. It looks like a little mini shop.
I mean, there's like 14 snacks they could choose from and about 14 different drinks. And I said to Jean, I sent it to her and said, we should do this. She goes, absolutely.
We'll start today. That's so, I mean, it's just something fun to do. So I was going to say brilliant one more time because it's really brilliant.
I really love that idea. And, um, but that little thing, you think it's a little thing. It's not. Yeah. Especially in this culture. Yeah.
What if we were known for being people who weren't anxious and we were actually known for making outsiders feel like insiders because that's what hospitality actually is. Right. And it ties into another quote. I was going to have you comment on it from Eugene Peterson, who was a great friend and he and I were, we were able to spend some time together and what a terrific theologian. And, uh, he wrote about how we should be known as Christians. And I think he captured it. Well, he basically said, some people see Christianity as a stiff, uptight life or religion and others see it as a dancing, leaping, daring life of joy and fun and peace. And that's what we should be known for.
Yeah. Well, my goodness, the opportunity here is vast because we are underperforming well, but yeah, right. But also our culture is so not this right.
We would stand out like a city on a hill or something. Like we would, we would be like a lamp on a lampstand if we were the people who weren't anxious and angry because we knew more about the goodness of God. You have a philosophy that, um, hopeful Christians attract people to Christ.
That's so true. I mean, that's scriptural actually. He who has hope or he who has vision has hope and people are attracted to hope. Well, they're supposed to ask us about it because literally, like I used to think there's that scripture about be sure to have a ready answer. And I used to think that was about apologetics. Like if somebody asks you about, you know, what do you think about the age of the earth or something like that? It's not what it says. It's when they ask about the hope that you have and what they want reasons for your hopefulness, that we should be so weirdly hopeful even right now in the midst of all of our cultural whatever that people would say, what's up with that?
Why are you so hopeful? I mean, I don't think that's a common thing right now, but it could be. Yeah.
You use a illustration in the book. Life is hard. God is good. Let's dance from a movie that I love actually. Shawshank redemption. Yeah. There's so much in that film.
That's good. Yeah. What was the scene that caught your attention? Oh, the scene where they're out in the prison yard and everything's gray, everything, their clothing, the yard, the sky, the buildings, and Andy commandeers, the PA system and one of the inmates. Yeah.
Yeah. And puts Mozart and opera on and it's going out on the PA outside. Something beautiful just broke through.
Everybody just stops. All of these prisoners look up like grace, like something beautiful just broke through all of this. And I do feel like that's what happens to slightest thing where you're actually being like radically hospitable is so different.
It cuts through like a bolt from the blue. So I love that image. Cause I think that's, that's who we could be right now in our culture.
You know, we're jumping to various stories because you've mentioned him in here. There was a woman's softball team. And again, this is the truth of scripture. It's just right in front of us.
If we stop and see it. Yeah. What happened in this press conference with the softball team?
This is amazing. You can look it up on YouTube or whatever it was Oklahoma. We'd won like 57 games in a row, three national titles at this time, the ESPN reporter said, not knowing anything about these players.
I didn't either. Right. I said, so how do you keep the joy going? You know, you've got all this pressure on you and sequentially down the line at this press conference, each one of these softball playing young women had the most profound theological statements about joy. They're like, Oh, you want to talk about joy? Like we know that our significance doesn't come from softball. It comes from knowing who Jesus is. We know this.
And the second one I paraphrase and it said, now let me piggyback on what she said. That allows us to be good at what we do because we're playing more loose because our entire identity doesn't rest on softball. We know that even if we lose, we'll be okay.
Ultimately we have each other and we're safe in God's kingdom. And then a third one starts and said, I'm like, they're, they're all brilliant statements, all off the cuff. And I'm like, I bet ESPN did not expect that.
No, they did not, but it's so genius. And then the coach resounded with all of that too. She's a believer. Wow. So hearing that coming from young people like, man, sometimes wisdom wears a softball uniform.
It was beautiful to hear, but it's also true. Like this allows you, if you actually trust God and your identity is with him, everything else isn't quite as important, which means you're free to take some big swings, including your obstacles or your handicaps or whatever they might be. Right. And you can, you can take things less seriously, which actually allows you to do your stuff better.
Yeah. You know, one of the scriptures that I feel like we're fumbling with, because it's hard with our flesh getting in the way, but to love your enemies, that whole section of Luke, I think it's Luke chapter six, it's kind of hard to read because he's saying, what is it? If you love people who love you, sinners do that. I'm telling you love those who hate you pray for those who hate you. And you know, it's really an admonition, but it is freaky to love people who hate you and the people that are mostly freaked out or the people that hate you. Like, why are you treating me so well? It's freaky.
Awesome. So you know, all this stuff, Jesus says like, wow, that's really hard, but you know what? It's always easier than the alternative, like going through life, bitter, going through life, anxious, going through like his way of living. He is, he has a way. He is the way his way of living is lighter and more restful.
Loving your enemies actually frees you mentally to concentrate on other stuff too, instead of being obsessed with anger. Well, yeah. Brennan Manning, you quote him in the book, a theologian, he wrote, if we dared to live beyond our self concern, we would change the world in a few months.
We would die in fist man. Boom. Yes. People are like, they're sick with anxiety. The way of Jesus is a way that ultimately frees us. It's not just pressing a button.
It's not just now I'm not anxious. It's a way of life. But over time you become the sort of person who is less anxious to love your enemies. It has to start with forgiveness.
Totally describe that formula. If I could call it that. Yeah. Well, forgiveness is letting go of your right to anger. There's no other way to, you can't say I'm forgiving you, but I'm staying angry at you. Why do we like that so much to hang onto that?
It's juicy. It feels good. It does our self-righteousness because we feel like we've got someone, somebody, and again, it can be something horrific that they've done.
Still it's freeing to forgive someone because what happens is they'll stay in your head the rest of your life, but that freedom allows you to have a more joyful life. Like, so everything Jesus is telling us is actually a better way to live. So it's, it's incumbent on us to help other people understand that because their life is going to be better if they practice the way of Jesus. Let me ask you in order to have peace in the midst of the chaos that we've been describing last time and this time, you say we have to be focused on the right thing. So this is kind of one of those practical questions.
Yes. What is it to focus on the right things and what are they? Well, first I want people to understand, I want me to understand who we're becoming is entirely dependent on what we pay attention to.
There's no way around that. You pay attention, you pay to attend with your mind and that determines who you're going to become. And God's very invested in who we're becoming. So that's what I'm talking about.
Focusing on the right things, the goodness of God, like continuing. I've started memorizing scripture in the last few years. That's great. Yeah, I know I should have done it a long time ago.
It's a lot harder the older we get. It's true. And it's funny because I tell people, especially younger guys, like, you know, the most punk rock thing you can do in this culture is memorize scripture. That's good.
Right? Because so countercultural, but also they can't take it from you, man. It's in your head. No matter where you are, you can rehearse that. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. That's literally what it says. Psalm 23, one, you rehearse that in your head.
I don't like, I'm lack nothing. You can tell yourself that every day. And then it ends with surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. And I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Well, I've got that memorized and it reminds me the other shoe's not going to drop. Sometimes you feel like God's going to get you in the end. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. And then I'll dwell in your house forever. Well, you tell me that doesn't affect your anxiety level.
I lack nothing because you're my shepherd and surely you're never going to drop the other. That helps. That's a pretty strong, we're playing from a really strong hand and we don't realize it. I think that we're actually way more safe than we realize. You know, Brent, let me ask you a real practical question because we're in it. You know, we're in a democracy. You look at the political arena and I just do not like going to DC.
I don't feel like it's a healthy place, not uplifting, not uplifting. It's conflict. It's the kingdom in conflicts. And so when, when you look at it, how do we manage that as Christians to be engaged? How do we not become overwhelmed?
We're going into a political season with state elections, federal elections, judges, all of it. It can be a bit overwhelming. And, and of course we're looking at it through a biblical landscape and we're going people that don't get it, they're just, what are they thinking?
And how do you, how do you manage it? Number one, remind yourself of that thing about it's, it's a spiritual battle. We still have to love these people, but there is a spiritual battle that's quite real. So reminding ourselves of that, I think is actually helpful. Another thing when you're watching the news, it's okay to be informed, but if I'm not memorizing scripture, if I'm not practicing God's presence in my life, I'm going to be a nervous wreck. Yeah.
So we're going to have to double, triple down. There's a lot of older Christians. I think they're very anxious and that's too bad because things seemingly are slipping away. Well, we understand the nations, but in Jesus' time, he's talking to people that they don't have food security, right?
They don't have antibiotics. They're occupied by the Romans. There's factionalism going on. There's racism happening.
There's infanticide happening. There's all this stuff happening. And he's still saying, you don't have to be anxious. He knows how this ends. Remember he's there and he's telling us, I know how this ends. You can be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. That's a pretty, again, a strong place for us to actually be.
But if you're just consuming news and you're not going deep and I'm not going, then I'm going to be an anxious wreck. There's no doubt about it. No question.
One of the things that you encourage us is to take a lesson from Job in responding to the hardships and trials. Are you serious? Have you read that story? Right. You know what?
I love that Job was asking a lot of questions. Some are, aren't so good. Some are, but he stays loyal. And in the end, there was a backstory that he didn't know about. And in the end, he is rewarded for staying loyal. God's, you know, goes through these like, who are you to question me? And then he rewards him.
I like that one. That's a good response. So I don't have all the answers, but it's good to know that God's ultimately good.
And there is a backstory and he's telling us in the end, this turns out well. Yeah. I think right at the end here, Brent, the last obvious question is how, for people that are struggling to do this believers, how do we find peace in Christ? Yeah. It's going to be actually trusting his character.
I don't have every answer, but it's trusting his character. Think about it this way. There's a game in the NCAA tournament.
I wrote about this in the book years ago. I'm an Illinois fan. I graduated from Illinois. They were down 15 with three minutes left against Arizona and love years on a fans. I was agitated. The refs were bad. The team was doing poorly. We should have been ahead.
We were getting killed. The game is over. I told my son who was little at the time, we might as well shut it off. And Carolyn, my wife was like, quit being negative.
He wants to enjoy the game with his dad. I was like, this is over, but it's over. What's the point. So I sat down and left it on and rolled my eyes. Good mom. And they came back and won that game.
And I've watched it on YouTube about 4,000 times since then, because it's such a great comeback. Yeah. You know what? When I watch it on YouTube, I'm not anxious. I'm not throwing something at the TV.
I'm not angry at the refs. Why? Because I know how this ends. Jesus is literally saying, yes, you're going to have troubles. I know how this ends.
It ends well, I'm telling you. It's actually trusting that. Do I actually trust that or not? Because if we do, that changes everything.
Well, in the inverse is true. What you're saying, if we're anxious and fearful, we are demonstrating our lack of trust in Him. And that, wow. When I see it in that way, that concerns my heart. That I would be behaving in such a way to displease Him like that. That you're not a big enough God for me to trust. But He's not zapping you for that.
No, no. He wants you to have a life at peace. But it's my attitude. It's my heart toward Him.
Not His heart toward me. You could have had a much more fun life. Honestly, I'm asking this question not rhetorically, but I'm asking you both. Do you think that looking back on our lives, we might look back and go, you know what?
We never actually needed to be worried about anything. Yeah. In the big picture, in the big picture of things.
I suspect that's going to happen. Yeah. You know why? He was right. Jesus was right. Right.
What do you know? But the good thing, and Gene often reminds me of this, when we're in heaven, I doubt that even the negativity of that reflection will be present because God will wipe it away from us. I don't think so. And we won't have that sorrow that, oh, we missed that.
No, just like watching the YouTube game. It's just joy now. Let's watch that again. It's just joy. Brent, this has been so good.
Thanks for coming, and thanks for spending time with us, both last time and today. Life is hard. God is good.
Let's dance. What a great resource, really to refresh you about where you're at in your journey with the Lord. And if these are concepts that you feel you struggle with, why not get some help? I love the fact that God wrote in Galatians the list. If you're in me, here's the fruit of the Spirit. This is what you're going to see in you, love and joy and peace and others.
And if you're not feeling that, I would get, first, read that scripture in Galatians 5.22. Secondly, get a copy of the book from Brent, Life is Hard, God is Good, Let's Dance, because it reinforces the idea that that's all you need. And I'm so grateful for your ability to communicate this. Thanks, man.
I'm honored to be here. So get in touch with us, make a gift of any amount, and we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for participating in ministry, and you get a great resource. Make a one-time gift, or if you're able, sign up to be a monthly donor to Focus on the Family.
We've got the links and details on how to do that, and get a copy of this great book from Brent Hanson in the show notes. And next time, family coach Jim Burns will share some great advice for parents of adult children. Whenever we are intrusive with giving advice, what they hear is not the lesson we're trying to give them.
What they hear is that you don't trust them to be all grown up, even when they're not making good decisions. And so it's important for us to understand that. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we 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 Vanderloon 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.
