Blessed are the Misfits: What if I just don't seem to fit in as a Christian? - Podcast Episode 115

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Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be continuing what we do on occasion and having a guest on who has either written a book or particularly passionate about an issue or an expert on an issue.

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Our guest today is Brant Hansen, who I've been looking forward to this for a while because I've been a big fan of his on the radio show, various networks, and continuing also with his odd cast.

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And also joining me is Beth, one of the Got Questions employees, who I don't think I'll embarrass her too much saying that she is having a major fangirl moment right now with having

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Brant on the show. So Brant, welcome to the show today.

01:01

Good. I want more people fangirling and fanboying. I think that's only appropriate for me.

01:07

So we should open it up to the rest of the staff. Yeah. Good.

01:13

Yeah. Thank you. So for our listeners who may not be very familiar with Brant, Brant Hansen is a radio shock jock, author, and podcaster.

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He's passionate about making life -changing medical care available to the least of these through Cure International.

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But his greatest accomplishment, according to Beth, is probably introducing the world to his producer, Sherry. Brant is an accomplished writer who has pieces for CNN, The Washington Post, U .S.

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News & World Report. His books include Unaffendable, which I have read, and it's excellent, The Truth About Us, The Very Good News of How Very Bad We Are, and The Men We Need, God's Purpose for the

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Manly Man, the Avid Endorsement, or Any Man Willing to Show Up. So for our conversation,

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Brant has graciously allowed us to go back to a book he wrote a few years ago called Blessed Are the

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Misfits, great news for those who are introverts, spiritual strugglers, or just feel like they're missing something.

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So Brant, what led you to write Blessed Are the Misfits? It's really personal, but I kind of thought

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I was alone or at least something like alone in Christian circles or church circles in that I don't react emotionally like a lot of people do, and I thought something was wrong with me for the longest time because I couldn't feel

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God around me for years, decades maybe. And when

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I was in college in particular, I felt like, okay, I must be doing something wrong, or maybe my sinfulness, like the stuff I'm due and the thoughts

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I have of God's just kind of tossed me aside. He doesn't want to deal with me anymore. He's tired of it.

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And I had some people kind of back that up who were believers like, yeah, well, you're missing something and you need to do this and that.

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Well, this and that didn't work. And I tell the story and I think at the beginning of the book where I talk about being in like a very charismatic

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Bible study in a church basement and everybody was praying in tongues and everybody was very emotional.

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And I was, I wanted whatever they like, I was like, okay, I'm 19 or 18 or whatever.

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Like, I don't want to be closed off to things of God. I want this. But nothing kicked in that night.

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Everybody's like gathered around me. They're praying over me. I didn't ask them to, but they put me in the middle of the room and they were whispering in my ear, like open up his mind.

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He's too caught up in his intellectualism. He's too like, I'm like, God help me. Whatever it is

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I'm supposed to be doing, help me. But nothing happened. And so they gave up. I walk home in the dark.

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Like, what is this? That's a pretty, I think there's a lot of people, I've just kept running across a lot of people that they identify with that.

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I'm like, well, I want to write a book for them and for people who are more analytical and less emotional, maybe.

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I actually spoke at this big mega church type thing with a huge band and the fog lights and the lasers and holograms and everything up on the stage.

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And I asked at the time, I said, so just being honest, that band was awesome.

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But just be honest, how many people would you, raise your hand if you really feel like you were missing something, like the other people were having a different experience around you, like you maybe weren't feeling it like they were.

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And at least half of the crowd raised their hand. So I was like,

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I hope you see that. And I want you to understand that following Jesus isn't about your emotion primarily at all.

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Like your emotions come and go. So that's kind of a big part of the message of the book. But that got me started thinking, you know,

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I should write about this because there's an awful lot of people that can relate to this. I can certainly relate to not having those emotions and those type of settings and being analytical.

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I'm slightly analytical. Did it ever cause you questions like I was having?

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Well, fortunately, I do feel God, like all the time.

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I either feel God or it's sinus pressure. I'm not sure which, but I'm going with God. Go with it.

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Yeah. So I don't have, and I realized that this could happen at any moment, but I don't have any sense of doubt.

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I don't have any sense of loss when other people are getting over emotional.

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I don't understand them, but good for them. But we have a lot of questioners who don't feel

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God and don't have the feelings they think they're supposed to, like feelings related to being saved or I must not have repented because I don't feel bad enough about my sin.

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And I'd love it if you'd speak into that. Totally. I want to give you some great news.

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God is faithful to us, and there's not much about emotion that's mentioned in our response to him or what the response he's looking for.

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There's just not. It's not that emotions are bad. They're like warning lights on a dashboard, but they're not the final thing.

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They don't determine reality. And what's wonderful about this, you know what God is actually looking for from us?

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It's not emotions. He's looking for loyalty. He's looking for believing loyalty.

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So we just keep showing up. I keep talking to him. I don't feel him around, but I'm going to keep praying because I believe he's true and he's good.

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What I do see scripturally, and this is fascinating to me too, when it comes to anxiety or depression, either one, you can feel something, but you have to be able to say it's not reality.

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You have to be able to speak to your emotions. That is in the Bible. Like in Psalms, David's saying, why are you so downcast?

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Oh, my soul. There's a few instances of that. There's other instances like Jeremiah does it too, but like he's saying,

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I feel downcast, but why am I so downcast? I'm going to put my trust in God.

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I'm going to refocus on the truth. And I think that's brilliant. If you had a lot of emotions, here's the thing.

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If you have a lot of emotions and you do think, no, it really is about emotions. Like if I feel God around, that's, it's, I don't know what you're talking about.

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That's crazy. Well, guess what? Some people lose that and they're forced to think, okay, well,

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I guess maybe God's not real or maybe he walked out on me. He's left the room, but this happens to people.

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Mother Teresa wrote about 50 years. She called it the long dark night of the soul. Like she just said,

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I just got to be faithful. She was writing letters, but just going, I don't feel anything, but just, I want to be faithful. Well, that's a lot of this, but our culture at large, not just Christian culture, the culture at large is all about feelings.

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Like it determines reality. And I'm here to tell you, it does not. Your feelings are influenced by whether you had a nap or whether you, you know, you had a candy bar or you didn't, or you exercised or you didn't, or your team lost or it's, it's a whole bunch of factors, coffee.

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Like, so the idea that God comes and go based on my emotions is, is weirdly narcissistic.

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And it's great news because it means you may not feel him around, but he hasn't changed. He still loves you.

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So that, that's a top line description, but there's one other thing I mentioned in the book I thought was so good.

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If you ever saw the movie, A Beautiful Mind. So long story short, it's this brilliant minds based on a true story.

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But this, this guy who won a Nobel for mathematics, for game theory was, he was, he had major illusions going on.

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Like he was seeing people that didn't exist that were talking to him and spoiler alert, cause it's 20 years old, the movie,

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I can do this, but he realizes they're not real, but he still sees them.

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And so he now has learned to ignore them and just keep doing his thing. And I think that's really key for mental health.

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I think Christians should do this. Like you may feel bad or you may feel that you don't have, like,

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God's done this. He's, that has a lot to do maybe with your childhood or with what you did yesterday or today.

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It doesn't change reality and you may feel nothing. And that doesn't change reality either.

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It's just, you're maybe more of an analytical person. Wonderful. In the book, you quote, Eugene Peterson, you say, feelings are great liars.

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We think if we don't feel something, there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting.

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Yes. Fact. That's so true. If you're not feeling in love with somebody, let's say you're married or something, do an act of service for like, as if you were in love that those flowers, whatever it is, where you serve your spouse, you will feel differently towards that person at the end of your act.

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It's bizarre. Like our, our feelings a lot of times follow our actions, our beliefs.

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A lot of times follow our actions, unfortunately, but that's like, it's a very powerful thing. The wonderful thing about what he's saying too, if you think about it, if I'm in love with somebody, let's say

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I'm feeling these, I was overwhelmed with in love feelings from my wife. And I'm like,

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Hey, let me, can I get you some tea? Uh, that's one thing.

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Cause I'm thinking I'm getting these great feelings out of it, you know, and maybe she'll return that we'll have this romantic evening or something.

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So there's, there's something in it for me. I get this, I get this feeling that's a payoff.

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It's a reward. That's fine. But you know, if you're not feeling something for somebody and you do, you serve them anyway, and you're not getting any emotional reward at all, that's love.

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I mean, the only reason you'd be doing something like that, you're not getting a reward is out of love for them because you love them.

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So there's something actually really beautiful about loyalty and that goes with your relationship with God too.

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Like maybe you're overwhelmed with spiritual feelings and you get goosebumps during the songs and now you're, you know, and that's fine, but there's something wonderful about when there's no goosebumps and you still show up.

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I mean, that's, that's, that's love. I think that's a, that's a gift. That's true.

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To switch topics a little bit. We have a lot of folks writing in who are neurodivergent.

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Some Asperger's, a lot of OCD, and a lot of them don't feel like they can be saved.

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A lot of them have a really hard time with assurance of salvation. You wrote,

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I tell them, I don't know. I don't understand this culture. I don't understand the humans that populate this planet, this earth.

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They don't make sense to me. I tell them I'm actually kind of happy about that as much as I want to fit in sometimes.

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I think normal is acting boring, but I tell them because of my faith, I have to love people.

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I like us. I like us non -neurodivergent people. I kind of prefer us. Don't tell the other people, but I do.

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I remember one, I remember reading one book from some doctor, but he knew of another doctor that when he made the diagnosis of Asperger's at the time, he would say, congratulations, you have

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Asperger's. I've always really liked that. I feel that way now.

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I meet a lot of kids because they know I'm on the spectrum. I'll talk about it and their parents will bring them to me.

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I'm like, you're on the spectrum too. We high five. I'm like, congratulations. We get to commiserate.

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I think we're interesting. We usually have some interest area that's amazingly intricate and deep and other people are like, why are you so interested?

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Well, I like passion about seemingly esoteric subjects to be really, really interesting.

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I wrote a chapter in that book, Blessed Are the Misfits, about why I'm attracted to Jesus as a result,

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I think, of my being on the spectrum. I mentioned several things about that, but I do want to connect with what you had said about a lot of the people you're hearing from feeling like they can't be saved or it's just not going to work.

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I have always struggled with feeling like a failure, always, from age four.

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I had a breakdown at age seven with my mom. I was crying. I'll never accomplish anything.

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I've wasted my life. She's like, you're seven. I have wasted my life. What have I accomplished? Again, in high school,

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I broke down. I'm a failure. What have I ever done? Somebody described it for people on the spectrum that there very commonly is what they call a haunting sense of failure.

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I think that can interfere with your approach to God because you feel like, why would he want me?

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I feel worthless. I think it's harder, maybe a little bit harder for us in that area than it is for some people.

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So I have had to deal with that. I keep going back to the truth.

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Here's the thing. What you pay attention to, I would tell anybody this on or off the spectrum, but what you pay attention to determines who you're becoming.

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That's just a fact. That's like gravity. If I put my mind on what's true and what's beautiful, what's pure, what's lovely, what's admirable, if I put my mind on those things,

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I gravitate towards the truth. But I have to start with that.

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In fact, there's a list in the Bible Paul's actually writing, and he starts with whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is pure and admirable.

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He starts with the truth. Well, the truth is God loves me. It's hard to believe, but one of the advantages

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I think we have, we tend to be pretty skeptical people. Honestly, I think it can be an advantage as long as you're an honest skeptic, meaning you're willing to get answers, you're open to some answers, and you're skeptical of the culture at large as well, not just Christianity.

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Because I find a lot of people, especially online, you can go on Reddit or whatnot, people who are on the spectrum, are highly skeptical, and they call all sorts of Christianity into question, but they don't question their own atheistic precepts.

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They frankly, I think, fall apart very quickly. So in my case, my skepticism has chased me back around to Jesus, because I think his understanding of human nature fits mine as somebody who views it as somebody on the spectrum.

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The way he calls out self -righteousness, cognitive biases, the way he doesn't allow people to point fingers at others, he always turns it back around on them.

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To my aspie soul, that is medicinal. I love how he supports the underdog.

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Good grief, I love it. People on the spectrum, we're always like, why are you treating that person like they're so important?

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There's one story where Jesus has the guy who's the head of the synagogue. So he's like the biggest religious big shot around, who's like, okay,

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Jesus, I need you to heal my kid. So Jesus is going to do it, but he's interrupted by this woman in the crowd, who isn't even supposed to be there because she's bleeding, she's unclean, and she's a nobody.

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She's been mocked and isolated and left out. He ignores the big shot guy and totally focuses on this woman.

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The big shot guy and his people are like, wait a second, what's going on? We need you. No, he's focused on her now.

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She cut in line. She's a nobody. Jesus does this over and over and over, and as somebody who's on the spectrum,

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I love that. If I was designing God, it would look like Jesus.

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So I think people should give it a shot to look at it that way, because Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

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I can understand the stuff Jesus says. I mean, not fully, of course, because it's so deep, but it's so good.

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And I'm telling you, if you're not closed off to it, if you don't buy into the cartoon idea of Jesus, the stuff that is propagated, you actually look at the biblical

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Jesus, for somebody who's on the spectrum and is open -minded about that, wow.

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It's like hero. I get that. So when everything else doesn't make sense, actually, this book came out of an article,

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I should have mentioned it, Shay. I wrote an article about this called Mr. Spock Goes to Church, and that was for CNN.

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And I got such a huge response to it, because I was saying, I feel like Dr. Spock, not Dr. Spock, Mr.

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Spock, at church, not computing. This is not logical.

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I don't understand what's going on. But ultimately, you know what? I retreat to Jesus, because he's the guy that makes any sense in the world.

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I swear, honestly, that's how I feel about it. He makes sense, and nothing else in our larger culture makes any sense at all.

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So, Brant, one thing I've always enjoyed about listening to you is how you take something that a lot of people would view as a weakness, and yet you turn it into a strength.

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And just as an example, with me, I mean, I'm very, very analytical. Any personality test

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I've ever taken, analytical and deliberative, comes up really, really high, and empathy comes up at the very, very bottom.

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And for the longest time, it's like, it's not that I don't care. It's that I don't recognize when

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I should care. It's not like a natural thing. That's not how I'm wired. But recently,

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I've had a good friend kind of walk me through this. He's like, okay, Shay, use your analytical nature to your advantage.

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And I felt sort of like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory going through this is like, okay, so if someone just experienced this, what emotion are they likely feeling?

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And I'm like, they would be sad. Like, okay, so even if you don't feel for them, you can recognize, you can analyze the situation, know that they're sad, and then respond accordingly.

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And like you said earlier, even me doing that has begun to develop in me.

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I wouldn't say I'm empathetic, but I'm starting to get some warm, gushy feelings every once in a while when

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I'm around someone who's hurting. So what you shared earlier really relates to my experience in that I'm very, very analytical and not very emotional.

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And yet, I truly do care about people. So using what could be a weakness and turning it into a strength, that's something

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I know you've talked a lot about on your show. Yeah. And I love that you embrace the weakness not to say, well, that's just who

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I am. So too bad. See, that's what some people can do. Like, I like personality tests, Myers -Briggs,

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Enneagram, or whatever. I'm okay with that. But you can use it to go, oh, it's just who I am.

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It's like, no, no, no, that's who I am. And I need to improve in these areas. I do need to be more empathetic.

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Okay. So how do I do this? I've done the same approach with stuff. I've had to learn how to make eye contact.

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I've had to learn. And when I talk to middle school people on the spectrum, I've done this several times, a lot of them are like, what is the point of learning all this stuff?

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Like eye contact or smile, or I have to fake it. And I'm like, I get it.

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I don't want to fake anything. I don't want to make eye contact. I don't, why do we have to do all this?

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I'm like, well, think of it this way. If you're a believer anyway, a missionary is in another culture and it's a foreign culture to them, but you learn it and you do it because you love the people around you.

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And like, make no mistake. I get that it doesn't make any sense. And a lot of our social customs and mores or the things that we do make no sense to me whatsoever.

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Why is it you see somebody down the street, you're walking in the hallway. If it's somebody you don't know, you like nod down.

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But if it's somebody, you know, you like kick your head back. Like it goes up. If it's somebody, I have no idea that none of this makes any sense.

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It doesn't compute. But like, if I love the people in this culture that I'm in,

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I will do the thing that helps put them at ease as best

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I can. So I can't, it's not enough for me. I have a naturally furrowed brow.

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I have a very intense look by nature. I have nystagmus, which makes my head move back and forth.

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I'm reading something especially or concentrating. So I'm literally saying no. Every time

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I'm at a cashier or something, I'm looking down with my credit card. They're like, what's the matter? I look angry, but I'm not.

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But I've had to learn like, pick your eyebrows up. Okay. Smile. Okay. Now yes, because, because I want to,

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I want to love people. Shay's overstating.

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He has great empathy for dogs. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah.

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So, so I do too, like extreme empathy for dogs and always have. I bet you have too.

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You probably grew up like that. Like, I don't know why that is with us.

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Like I've always been more, maybe it's safer. I don't know. I'm a big little animals guy.

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I like little fluffy animals, hedgehogs.

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From your podcast recently, you said something that really struck me. You said we listen to ourselves too much and don't talk to ourselves enough.

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Yeah. That that's huge. Yeah. Okay. So that kind of gets back to what I was saying.

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And I borrowed that quote from somebody. I don't know if I can't remember who it was, but he said that much of the problem with human lack of human happiness is that we listen to ourselves more than we, we listened to ourselves too much and we should talk to ourselves more or something like that.

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And that gets back to that. Why are you so downcast? Oh, my soul. Yeah. Why am I anxious?

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God's good. Let me review all the good things he's done. Let's, let's look at, let's look at his track record here.

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Like he is been good to me. Why am I anxious about this again? He said, I don't need to be,

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I should be like the animals who don't worry, worry about what's going to happen tomorrow and borrow threats from the future.

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I need to tell myself this. So you talk to yourself rather than listen to your emotion or the thing that just passed through your head and go, well, that must be reality.

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It's not, we're wrong about a lot of stuff. So speaking to that can, it totally changes your outlook.

24:45

Um, and it's very mentally healthy, I think. And of course you have to go back to scripture to know the truth, to tell yourself to fight.

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Yeah. It gets back to what you put your attention on. So I've been trying to memorize like Psalm 23, the

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Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing is how it starts. Like he,

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I have what I need for today. I can feel overwhelmed very easily.

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You know, I always feel this haunting sense of failure five feet behind me. It doesn't even matter what

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I accomplished. I could, I could have a great resume or whatever. It doesn't matter. I'll feel that way, but it's not reality.

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So there's, there's something about being able to bring scripture to mind and be able to tell yourself

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I'd lack nothing. The Lord is my shepherd. So I don't need to be fearful no matter what happens today.

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I have the resources I need for today. And I ask God for that. Let's daily bread.

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I start the morning, like give me the energy I'm going to need for people today. Cause I, I drain real fast, like because I'm an introvert.

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So to me, the resources of the day, it's not just bread. It's Lord, give me the energy that I need, the creativity, the patience for today, not tomorrow.

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But I, he's very faithful with that. And, I think I've renewed my desire to memorize scripture.

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You can kind of lose it if you're raised in church. And then it seems like it becomes too much of a,

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I don't know, Sunday school thing. I don't know what it is, but I'm way into it now.

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One thing I got is the Bible memory app and you score points by memorizing scripture and they have a, they have a ranking system.

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So you can like see that, you know, Annalisa the 10 year old beating you, but now I'm beating her, you know, just moved up 15 notches.

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So yeah, that's actually helped me a lot. I watched myself move up the thing. I'm memorizing all sorts of scripture and it comes to mind and it's something true to put my mind on instead of all the garbage.

26:59

One last thing is you said that you did feel true religion when,

27:09

I'm sure you have before, but especially working with Cure. Yeah. Yeah.

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I do get feelings kind of like what Shea was saying about little things get me.

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And for me, it's being in the OR, it's being in the operating room at these hospitals.

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These hospitals are in countries like I'm leaving a couple of days ago, Zambia. And so in Africa, but they're in Africa and the

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Philippines, and it's for the poorest of the poor kids that have disabilities that we could fix. If they had access to surgery, it would be fixed.

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So there are some believers who said, well, wait a second, we're surgeons and we're,

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Jesus said to heal, let's do it. So that's what these hospitals are. So I'm in the

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OR and it's just one kid after another. It's one little girl. It's one 15 year old boy.

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It's one 18 year old girl who's been in hiding her entire life because they make fun of her because of her disability.

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Never gone to school. It's a three year old. It's a baby that's going to die if they don't get this thing treated. One kid after another.

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And they pray over these little kids under the lights and they're asleep and their life is about to change.

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And I see these top -notch surgeons and these people, and finally these legs are going to be made straight, and this guy's going to be able to run for the first time in his life, or this little girl's going to be able to walk.

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And it's done in the name of Jesus. And I'm like, I get that. There's a lot of stuff

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I'm skeptical of, or a lot of, even a lot of religious things. I'm like, I don't see the connection to Jesus necessarily.

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But man, do I see it there. That makes sense to me.

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So I'm elated. And the hospitals tell the kids and their families about Jesus.

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It's not just the physical healing. It's spiritual. They think they're cursed.

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So we can tell them, you're not cursed. You're blessed. God loves you. We charge zero dollars and zero cents for the surgeries.

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And it's a dream come true. They cannot believe it. They have no money. They never thought it would ever happen.

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And they're in tears. People are in tears of joy constantly. So that I do get emotional about. I get very excited about it.

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I could go on all day about it. But if people want to know more about it, they can look up cure .org online.

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But goodness, that just looks like Jesus to me. And I like when you're talking about vulnerable little kids, and now they're running around.

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Yeah, that gets me. Beth and I are huge, for lack of a better term, fans of the listening to you over the years, your passion for CURE and hearing stories of the great work they're doing.

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CURE is a ministry well worth looking into that God may have you get on board and start supporting their work.

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So we'll include links to where you can learn more about Brandt, the books he's written, including Blessed Are the

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Misfits. And of course, CURE in the show notes, when this episode goes live, the description on YouTube and at the podcast .gotquestions

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.org link. So Brandt, Beth and I really enjoyed the conversation with you today and keep doing what you're doing.

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You bring a lot of smiles and a lot of good thoughts to a lot of people's minds.

30:38

Good. Thank you. Thank you so much. God bless you. Thanks for what you do too. Yeah. This has been the

30:44

Got Questions podcast with Brandt Hanson. Got questions? The Bible has answers, and we'll be fine.