Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - When We Don't Have the Answers [Featuring Dr. Henry Cloud]

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Why does God allow suffering? Is it possible that the pain in your body or the anxiety in your mind is rooted in something spiritual? In this episode, clinical psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud, best-selling author of the Boundaries books, joins Pastor Allen Jackson to wrestle with the hard truth that not every prayer is answered the way we hope—and not every struggle has a clear cause or a simple solution. Together, they challenge the common tendency to compartmentalize our lives into spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental categories. Whether we struggle with anxiety, chronic illness, relational wounds, or deep grief, the lines between the spiritual and physical are far more intertwined than we often realize. This conversation invites us to consider a more integrated, biblical perspective on health and a deeper trust in God’s purpose for our lives.More Information:Why I Believe: A Psychologist's Thoughts on Suffering, Miracles, Science, and Faith: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dr-henry-cloud/why-i-believe/9781546003410/?lens=worthy Boundaries: https://www.drcloud.com/books/boundaries Dr. Henry Cloud's Website: https://www.drcloud.com/about —It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Welcome to culture and Christianity. We are continuing trying to understand how to live out our faith in a world where it gets mixed reviews. But I don't believe it gets mixed reviews in the kingdom of heaven. So it's an honor to bear the name of Jesus in this generation. I'm excited my guest today is Dr. Henry Cloud. I have enjoyed his work for a long time. His writings on leadership. He literally wrote the book on Boundaries.

has been a real blessing in my life in many, many ways. His latest book is a bit more biographical. It's called Why I Believe, and he really wrote of his journey. It's a little different than his other books, how he came to faith and how he's processed that. It's a wonderful book to share with people that are maybe standing on the outside of faith and have questions. God can withstand our scrutiny. God can withstand the probing of our great intellects, which there is some comfort in. but I think you'll enjoy the conversation with Dr. Cloud.

We wandered a bit through some questions that certainly fulfilled my life in ministry and the kingdom of God. So if you're not familiar with Dr. Cloud, I hope you'll enjoy the discussion. I think it'll be a blessing to you. Okay, well, welcome my guest today's Dr. Henry Cloud. It's good to have you, sir. Pastor, good to be with you. It is always good to be with you. We haven't had a lot of time personally, but I feel like I know you.

I've read your books and listened to your materials. so I feel like I'm sitting down with an old friend, but we'll see what emerges from that. Well, the results look fantastic. That's all. They just speak for themselves. That's the part that matters, right? You are a practicing psychologist and a practicing Christian,

which I suppose some people would say was a dynamic tension. But I think there's some real health in that. But I very much appreciate your... I used to buy it. me, you know, they said, doctors got to practice. I thought, shouldn't they be done practicing by now and actually know how to do this? Before they get to me, I want to be done practicing. Get done practicing. My father was a veterinarian. I understand that language. I think that is fascinating, that all the professions practice, but when it comes to ministers, we want to act like

we have all the answers. Well, you should. You're up there in the pulpit. Yeah. I promise we're practicing. You know, there's actually a verse about that. There's several. But one of my favorites in Hebrews 4, I think it is, or Hebrews 5, it says, Solid food is for the mature who through practice have learned to discern good from evil. One translation says through constant use. Constant use. That's a, I agree. So after all the years and all the people, you at least write and present like an optimist?

I hope so. Well, not everybody achieves that level of peace with the world. It's encouraging to me. Well, first of all, a lot of people, if you watch a Netflix movie, you know, how they have a little, you can pause it and you look at scenes. And so you can be a third through the movie, and she sees the text from the old girlfriend on the boyfriend's phone, and it all falls apart, and she's moving back to New York. And that's just one scene in the movie. And I think we have to remember, we've read the book. The movie's unfolding, but it has a good ending,

and he has a good ending for all of us who are in his hand. And so I think that's a part of it. But just even apart from that, and I know a lot of non-believers who, you know, optimism is a science that's been studied for 50 years. years. And we just know from science that optimists do way better in life than pessimists, period. It's indisputable. So when you, if you look at the world, and I think this is accurate, if you look at the world through the eyes of abundance, there is enough good and more and more good, and we can create more and more good in spite of the bad, then we'll be able to find it.

Absolutely. Well, the last book that you wrote, excuse me, and you literally wrote the book on Boundaries. Literally. I mean, that book, when I got a hold of that years ago, it was a game changer and how I understood my own responses to a lot of things. But the most recent book I picked up was why I believe, which is a bit more of your personal journey. And there's some parallels in there. My mom, when I was a boy, was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live. Wow. And we were churched, but we weren't Christian.

Minister came to see her in the hospital and didn't believe in heaven or hell. He didn't? He did not. And so they were flying to Mayo Clinic. She had a C-section, and that's when the doctors told her she had six months. Wow. So my parents were on their way to Mayo Clinic for some dramatic surgery. And she prayed that if there was a God, he would let her know the truth before she died,

so she could tell her sons, I've got two brothers. and after a four-day work-up at Mayo, the doctor came in and said, you had cancer, we had pictures of it in lab work, but we can't find it, go home and raise your babies. And she lived to be 88,

so. Not only could she tell them, she had a long time to tell them. She told us over and over without any doubt. And it was sometime after that, she was washing, we moved to Miami. My dad was a vet.

He went to the University of Missouri vet school And we moved to Miami for him to go to work on the thoroughbred tracks And she's washing dishes And she heard a voice And we're Methodist and Methodist don't hear voices That said you asked to know the truth before you died And she said, yes, I did That's what the voice said

Mm-hmm You said, I'm the way the truth in the life So she didn't know She knew it had to be in the Bible But she didn't know where She went and found a Bible and looked Until she got John 14 Wow

But when I read your story and your conversion season and the role your mom played in it. I mean, it's not a one-to-one parallel, but clearly the supernatural kind of opened faith in both of our lives when I didn't even know I was, it was a possibility. Yeah. And it's interesting when you talk to people today, a lot of Christians, the supernatural part of our faith

is not part of their lives other than, you know, they say, well, God leads me and guides me, and he's got his hand upon me, and thank you, God, this door open or whatever. But in terms of real dramatic, direct interventions, which isn't every day, but they are normal in the Bible, and I think they should be normal in our lives. You know, it's not like every single day, but God does do things. He most certainly does. But that doesn't mean he intervenes every moment. There's still a bumpy journey.

It's a bumpy journey. I mean, if anything, you read the Bible, if anything is true in there, that the people of faith had some really big bumps. There's no doubt God's hand was on Joseph, but he got thrown in a well by his family and then sold into slavery that locked up for, what, 14 years or so before the big reveal. and there's story after story like that. And in my book that tells my story,

one of the things that was so perplexing in the beginning when I hit bottom and I was in the depths of depression and God did begin to step in really supernaturally and yet he wasn't healing me of the depression that I couldn't get out of. And it was perplexing, but I learned something. I could not deny that he was real, and he was letting me still go through something. But that was a valuable lesson, that even when we're still going through something and the Red Sea doesn't part, he is still with us. And that's been a – talk about how to hold on optimism.

You know, it's easy in the victory days, but when you're in the worst parts of it, that's when it's difficult. And that really helped me. I mean, I knew he was real. I knew he was there. I knew he had intervened, and I knew I was still suffering, but he was there. But that honesty of thought is one of the most appealing things to me about your books and when I have heard you lecture. There's an integrity to it. You acknowledge God and his engagement, but you also acknowledge the struggle of the journey.

And on my side of the aisle, I think if you're in the second, of the church that's going to believe in the miracles and the supernatural. So oftentimes we act as if it's just to skip down the yellow brick road. And I don't find that to be accurate, but it doesn't mean God's abandoned us. No, it doesn't. And I think a lot of people feel the pressure to be God's marketing agent. I'd like to sell this great, you know, name it and claim it and grab it and blab it, you know, send a dime, you get a dollar back kind of thing.

And they're afraid to be honest. You know, when they're talking about their faith in the culture, they're afraid to be honest because they think, well, you know, nobody's going to want to come to something with struggle. But I always say God's got a marketing problem in the Bible. I mean, you know, if he went to, if he got an MBA and went to marketing, they'd promise all the good, right? But he tells it like it is.

And it's a tough story, but so are most. of our lives, tough stories too. And that's what I love about our faith. I think it's the only one that includes all of reality. You're not going to find a part of reality in this real world in our culture today, wherever you look, that you can't find that reality in the Bible. And yet God says who's there the whole time. Well, the book we're kind of talking our way through is why I believe,

and if you haven't read it, it's worthwhile. It is invitation to the supernatural and the miraculous and the hard work of finding wholeness, which describes my journey pretty well, I think. It's hard work. It is hard work. Then if it's hard work to stay physically fit or some version there of healthy,

why would we imagine it's easier work to stay spiritually or emotionally healthy? I mean, it's illogical to me to think that those are just default settings that come to us easily. Yeah, I know, it is weird. You know, if you go to any trainer, you know, just go to a personal trainer, and they're going to get you in the gym, and they're going to take you through stuff that hurts. And it really hurts, and you've got to strain, and we know physiologically a muscle only grows after it's been torn down, and then it's got to, you know, healed and get stronger. And we just want to skip over those verses a lot of times. you know, one of my favorites is in Romans 5.

It says it's talking about our sufferings, that if we persevere through the suffering, produces character, which produces hope. And that word for suffering there, the roots of it mean some circumstance from which there's no escape. And that's like the trainer that's not going to grab the weight for you.

He's going to lead you into the healing room. but you've got to do the crime. And, you know, you take it in the area of personal growth as a psychologist. What does the lifting weights look like? Well, that means that instead of putting on the happy face, sometimes we've got to get into our pain. And sometimes you've got to work on wounds, and sometimes you've got to work on losses.

And sometimes there's dark parts of us that have to be confessed and revealed and turned away from, and it's a daily struggle in the beginning, especially you take an attic, for example. And then on the other side, there's a lot of good stuff that we need that we don't have, and we've got to get that put into us. So it takes work. You know, I remember I was sitting there a couple one time, and, you know, they were just not doing well, you know, constant battles.

And I said, let me just. stop y'all for a second. What kind of marriage do you want to have? They looked at me and said, well, we don't want to have... I said, I know you don't want to have all this brain damage, but what's your vision for your marriage? What does it look like, the one do you wish you had?

So they started describing it. And I said, well, you've just described a marriage that's a 10. The problem is you both want to attend marriage, and both of you are threes. So I don't know how you're going to get to 10 unless you start changing some of your ways. And that's the hard part of it. But it's unlike any other aspect of life except one, except in one way.

We're not alone in it that God promises a supernatural hand holding us that's going to make a way for that and provide for the, provision we need in that, and also to hold us up when we're going through it. And I've lived that. I've witnessed it. I've seen him do it. Yeah, me too. But it seems to me we're much better learners when we're right there on the precipice of

desperate, and yet I don't ever want to be desperate. But that's usually my learning. That's where my breakthroughs come. Well, you know, there's even in human learning. and new skills and behavior change, there's a neuroscience reality that new behavior and new learning can only be done when you're in a state of arousal, which means you're stressed. Because the arousal state to be stretched and out of your comfort zone, that arousal state amidst a lot of neurochemical influxes into the brain that actually when you take the step of the new behavior,

that chemistry of being aroused binds them to the hippocampus, which is the memory part of the brain, which turns it into new circuitry that new ways can live on. But if you're not stress and you're in a hammock and you're trying to read a book and grow just from the book, or watching YouTube, unless you're trying to grow through, 30 more pounds. That's not going to fly. That would be accurate. So I'm going to ask some questions. I mean, we're making this sound awful. It's great. No, it's just, it's tough. It's the adventure. Yeah. It's not the absence of the challenge. It's in the challenge we find new strength. I mean, I don't regret that, but when you, when you are in helping professions, whichever seat at that table you have,

you spend a lot of time with people that face real challenges. Oh, gosh. And our help is incomplete, and we're dependent on God and his help. That's right. And at some point, you've got to get to the realization that, look, most of the times we're changing because of pain. It's either the pain of not having something that we want. There's a goal, a dream that I've got to work towards.

Or it's the pain of not having something we have, you know, some dysfunctional pattern. or something like that. And that we've got to get to a point to where we say, you know, the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. And it is because one of them ends and the other doesn't. I mean, I got a root canal needed. If I don't go to the dentist at pain, I'm in pain, but it's not going to change. If we go to the dentist, I'm going to have some pain, but it's a temporary pain.

and the pain of growth, if it's real pain of growth, that's temporary. And it will end, and you will be great on the other end. It's just the middle phase that we don't want to sign up for. Well, I think in my case, it's easier to use me, but it's not unique. We all want to ascend the throne and have all the answers. And we don't. And that brings us into this constant tension. I went to Vanderbilt.

It's been a while, but the family in the church had a daughter who was having seizure started inexplicably, and she was losing function, vision. Then I happened to be there when five doctors came in the room, and they said, we don't know what caused it, we don't know how to stop it, we don't know if it's going to continue. And they all five leave, and the family turns and looks at me. So I did the best I knew, and I left, and I got on the elder, and I was so mad at God. I thought, you know, don't send me down here to apologize for you.

That was awful. That family's torn apart. We're on the top floor, trauma unit. Every time the elevator stop, somebody with the white coat got on. By the time I get off at the bottom, it's filled with health care professionals. And I'm walking to my car. I didn't hear a voice, but inside of me, I heard this. It was so clear to me that everyone of those doctors were highly trained, very well qualified.

five of them just said, I don't know, and they were going to send a bill. And I was mad because I wanted to know. And I had to humble myself and say, you know, I don't know either, but I'm going to invite God into the middle of this. And the little girl recovered, and I got a life lesson. But I think all of us in the faith side of the discussion want to pretend like we have all the answers. And most days, I have to begin with God if you don't have. help me today, I'm going to be the village idiot again. And I've kind of made peace with that.

But again, I think it's where your work to me has been so helpful because you acknowledge that dynamic tension between extremes that we don't have the answer for. Right. And that's really an okay place to live. It doesn't mean we're intellectually deficient. No, and if you think about it, and if you, you know, let's just move away from the suffering part for a second and just talk about some people have a lot of, intellectual quandaries to faith, right? I did.

I write about it in the book the questions that had to get answered for me. And you go through those, and God led me to very, very good answers for the big questions I think in the way. But I wrote about this, I said, but then if you're thinking I'm saying that I understand everything about God

or everything about the creation or everything about how all this works, I don't. And some people want to say, well, you know, I can't believe, I can't believe God because I don't understand how this could be and this could be and this could be. And what I learned was, and when I say to them, is if you understood everything about God, then you would be God and you wouldn't need a God. Why do you want a guide that you're as good as? It just falls on its face. if there's nothing about him that's above us and our understanding,

then we better keep looking. Or get people to send in their tiths to us. That's going to be an awkward place. Well, there are some people that act that way, but yeah, no, we don't want to do that. But that makes humility really important. It's not like a bolt on. I mean, it's essential. There is a God and it's not us.

And there's some real peace in that. There is piece in that for a couple of psychological reasons, but apart from those, I've come to, over the years, a different understanding of humility. I used to think, okay, we have to get humble, right? So you're here and you've got to step down a few notches, and now you're going to be humble and bend the knee or something. But the longer I've been in this game and the more I've grown, in order to grow, I had to learn to be more honest and real. And so now what I've really understood, if you're real about yourself and you're honest about yourself, all your good parts and all your bad parts and your weaknesses and limits and, you know, inefficiencies and all that, that's, how can you not be humbled? Because you can't criticize anybody else anymore because, you know, there's some parts of you

that have done some version of that probably, at least in your heart, or made those mistakes or whatever. So if you are living the kind of life that ends up to be mentally health-wise, mental health-wise, what we call healthy, then that means that you have learned to get real. you've learned to get honest, you've learned to take the fig leaf off, you've learned to be vulnerable, and there's nothing left to hide. So that's humble. It's not some big slap in the face.

It's just acknowledging the reality of who we are before God. No, I think that's really good. And it's not capitulation. It's not like you're just saying, well, there's no use trying. No. You know, so it's because we tend to, on the Christian side, I think we tend to go to extremes. but I think you're right

authenticity about who we are changes the entire discussion and you know it changes every discussion I mean everything we know even about conflict resolution if you talk to the best conflict resolution people

the best negotiators the best you know getting things to calm down people you, the best way to win a conflict is to not try to win, but to start to be humble. And when you humble yourself and you give some vulnerability, you know, turn the belly side up a little bit, and then you start to take an interest and a curiosity about the other person, the road through conflict opens up.

So it's a path through life. And the most humble people are the most curious people. And the most curious people are the biggest learners. And the ones that learn the most are the smartest. I said that when my father recently did a podcast. He told the story how he came to faith, how God transformed our family. They started a home Bible study all the way up to the beginning of this church

that I've served now for decades. And as I listened, the heart of it was the work of the Holy Spirit. his life and through his life, I ask him to do a book around the topic and we have it so that you can invite the Spirit of God to be the dynamic presence of the power of God to bring change and life and hope no matter what the circumstances. You'll enjoy the book. Experience the Holy Spirit in a deeper way with this new book by Pastor Allen's dad, The Eternal Breath of Life. Request your copy when you donate any amount today and when you give $50 or more, you can also request unleashing the power.

of the Holy Spirit. It's a collection of Pastor Allen's sermons that will help you understand the Holy Spirit in new ways. Request yours today at Alanjaxon.com. Well, I want to ask a couple of questions that I don't know the answer to from what I know about you, which I would not normally do when they were recording. But in... Now, I should have said, I got to be honest before you ask these questions. We'll explore it together. But, um, I'm just, you know, I should have said, I've got to be honest before you ask ask these questions. We'll explore it together. But, um, I just don't know, I should have to ask, but, I'm just to ask, I'm, I'm, I'm my academic career started in the basic sciences.

So I have a high value of science. But I couldn't escape the reality of God and spiritual forces. So there's a tension. Basic sciences, biology, chemistry, physics. Yeah, the hard sciences. Not the squishy ones like mine. The social science. Yes, exactly.

But there's a tension in the discussion between When we talk about wholeness and health, is it physical, chemical, emotional, mental, spiritual? Yeah. And I land in the place where oftentimes it's not easy to know those boundaries. You know, when Jesus prayed for the woman that was bent over and had been for many years, and he cast out a spirit and what looked like scoliosis got better and she could stand straight, doesn't mean every spinal problem is demonic. but once was.

And we hear testimonies like that today. We do. So it's more than once. Frequently. But it doesn't, there's not a, there's not an absolute in it that every time you see it, it has a demonic cause. No, I did spine surgery two years ago. You could see it on the films before and see it after. It was physical.

So I'm really, I don't really have a specific question other than I guess kind of how you work through the challenges that are emotional. that psychology helps us with and those that have more significant spiritual cause. Yeah. Because it's not always easy to know. I mean, from the pastoral side, it's not easy to know. I'd like to hand everybody off as a counseling assignment, but I don't think that always brings the resolution we need. There's other forces in play.

Yeah, and I think you have to be really careful about defining the terms. You know, when you say something's psychological versus spiritual, for example. And when I first went to this field, somebody had an emotional problem, you sent him to the Christian psychologist. Somebody had a spiritual problem, sent them to the pastor. And so they do the spiritual disciplines and all this kind of stuff. Well, that never made any sense to me because the Bible teaches, and I think science affirms, the Bible teaches that we were created in a certain way and everything's supposed to work. Right?

And then something went wrong. At one time it was all very good. It was all good. Yeah. And we didn't even know it was good because we didn't know what bad was. Sort of like, you know, you just get up and walk. You don't know what pain feels like if you're fine, right? But then we learned that this creation fell, and that was heart, mind, soul, body,

the external world that influences our body. And we learned there was a spiritual reality floating around trying to mess with our lives behind that. But then there was only one gospel. There was only one redemption. And that bothered me from day one when I went into this field because they would divide it up in emotional, psychological problems versus spiritual. Well, what I saw in practice and what I saw in the science was everything is spiritual.

Now, here's what I mean by that. We know, for example, would you say forgiveness is a spiritual dynamic in construct? Absolutely. Sure. We are spiritually in heart, mind, and soul commanded to live in forgiveness. Okay, we know from all decades of research, unforgiveness is a big factor in immune functioning, cardiovascular disease,

on and on and on and on. And you do the spiritual work, and now all these physical problems, begin to get better. So is it physical or is it spiritual? Well, I would say yes. And the Bible says were fearfully and wonderfully made and all the parts, you know, work together. And so I don't, I do think that we can make, we can draw circles around. He says, it's hard to know the boundaries between these parts. But like anything else in God's ways or his creation, those boundaries are, are permeable, and there's a oneness as well as the separatists, even in the Trinity. We have one God, but we have different parts, if you will, or personalities, or however

you want to argue that. But we know they're one. Well, our bodies and our hearts and our minds and our souls and our spirits are all like that, too. And they affect one another. That's why Jesus said, you've got to love God with all of it, heart, mind, soul, and strength. And and then you get to, you've added another dimension to the argument, and that would be outside entities like demonic spirits, and that's a reality too. On the other hand, we also know, as Jesus said, somebody can be delivered of a spirit,

but if you don't fill up the house where he lived and leave it empty, In other words, if you're not growing emotionally, spiritually, relationing, and all that, they're going to come back and bring seven other buddies. And so it all works together. It all works together. I have treated people that have had deliverance after deliverance after deliverance after deliverance, and there is righteous and pure and holy as anybody I know, and they're still having a, quote, psychological problem.

but it was caused like there's a thousand reasons, but by some deep wounds that have never been healed, and they're filled up with pus because they need a lot of trauma work. And so that's why it always scares me, you know, the old saying, all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Some people have deliverance focuses, and everything needs to be delivered, and some people are, you know, believe in the supernatural,

and everything's got to have either, a pill or a therapy session. And it just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. And that's why we have to have the whole counsel of God. And the best of what the creation is revealed to us in the sciences. You know, Luke was a doctor. We don't see chapter one.

Well, I hung up my shingle because it's all spiritual. Thank God. We didn't see that. No. But it's what I've always appreciated about your work is you, you grapple with the integration of all of that and you acknowledge it. And I think too often, whichever seat of the table we take, we want to highlight our perspective and say it's unique and disproportionately significant.

Yeah. And in reality, we need the whole council. We do that until something comes along that won't fit in our box, and our box doesn't solve it. You know, that's usually when we grow, unless, and this is what makes me. at unless, like some people say, you know, in my field, if somebody's suffering, there's one in Big Camp says, well, there's got to be a sin behind it. And they have them go through all this, you know, stuff. And sometimes there's sin. I mean, somebody's taking heroin. Yes, they will

suffer. You got to stop that. And sometimes they'll say, well, it's because you don't, you don't know God's word. You got to get in the word. You got to get in the truth. And that's their hammer. and then others will say, well, you need to let righteousness be your guard, and they claim their position in Christ, and that's their methodology. And then others have the supernatural. And so you've got all these, and then there's the faith people. Well, it's because you don't have enough faith. Well, if you analyze all of those, and you go back and you analyze Job's counselors, That is what some version of those were the sermons that Job's counselors preached. And Job said, oh, how I wish your wisdom were silence. In other words, shut up.

And he said, you're worthless physicians. And then at the end of the story, you know, they kind of get the spanking. and Job gets all the cows because he's the one that said, I surrender. I don't know. I do know one thing that you're God and I'm not and I have to trust you even though you slay me. And sometimes there's just not a simple answer to this. But as we hold on to him, he takes us to the answer. And sometimes I've seen instantaneous healings.

I write about them in the book. I've seen healings that didn't take place. And then see, the ultimate healing, I tell a deathbed story about a friend that I led to the Lord five minutes before he died. And then as he died, he looks as he took his last breath, he goes like this. The other reality came to get him. So we just, and we prayed for him. Does that make me not believe in healing? no. Because I've seen healings that made me believe everybody's going to need to heal? No, they don't.

Now, it may be my lack of faith. There are instances of that. I don't know. All I can do is try to do what the book says. No, I don't think it's that simple. I mean, Jesus walked up to the pool of Bethesda that was surrounded by people who were not well, and he healed one man. I mean, he didn't heal everybody that was there. I mean, he certainly had the power or the ability. And I think we want to, there's a temptation to want to have a formula that's so neat and clean. We make ourselves something the gospel doesn't present. That's right. But it doesn't diminish the power of God. And it doesn't diminish his command to tell us to do it.

Right. And we don't always, not exactly the same as yours, but I had an experience. There was a young woman in the church, woman in the church that had a very, very, very difficult life. and she got to a place of wholeness. She got married, had a nice husband, and in a matter of months, was diagnosed with the brain tumor, and in a short period of time, was gone.

And so they asked me to do the memorial service. And it was awful, mostly because I was mad. You know, it was the first time in her life she'd had peace, and I did the service, and I was driving home, driving back to the office. And I was telling God I thought he'd done a lousy job. I mean some really plain language and I

stopped at a traffic light and I remember where it was and again I didn't hear but on the inside of me I heard the Lord say I know how to get my children home boy I got really quiet because I'd known that woman for a good season

and in the entire time she was more prepared for eternity that then than I'd ever known her to be and I thought you know there's a lot I don't know I had the craziest thought yesterday. I've never thought this before.

It was about a situation like that. And I thought, you know, we have two girls. They're grown now, 23 and 25. And all of a sudden, I saw this memory of they're over at their friends playing when they were little. And I had a bunch of family who was going to go do some stuff. And I got to go tell them it's time to leave. You're going with us because we got to go, no. And, you know, they're screaming and fighting it.

And everybody said, you know, the other kids said, no, you don't have to go and all that. And I was thinking, I have something way better for them than it's going on in that backyard right now. But they don't understand it in the moment. And I thought, I had to go pick up my kid and take her to where we're going. And I thought, maybe that's. That's just what God does sometimes. We don't get to say how long his kids stays at our party. And it hurts when they leave.

It does. Now, I don't know, you're the theologian, if that's accurate or not, but it kind of helped me to realize we do the same thing. We do. If this were the only party, maybe it would be a different story. Oh, then we would be desperate. Yeah, but he's taken us to some, if you ever talked to some of the people who have died and been there,

there and buy. They didn't want to come back. You told the story in your book about the woman struggling with some disassociative issues. Yeah. And she saw a bright light and had a conversation with Jesus. Yeah. And changed her perspective. Well, it helped me too because... That was a tough day at the office. Tough day at the office. Yeah, she went catatonic. And I was about to call 911. I checked her vitals, and she was stable. And I thought, well, wait a minute and just pray. And I started praying and kept praying and kept praying.

She was literally catatonic, hadn't been responsive. And all of a sudden, you could tell she goes, there was movement. And she didn't see me, but she's seeing some other something. And I thought, you know, severe PTSD and she's whatever. And she says, she's got this, okay, like this. And then all of a sudden she comes back. She's perfectly normal. And I said, what happened?

And she's, no, I'm sorry. While she was in it, she said something like, who's the nice white light? And she starts talking about this white light that's talking to her. And then she says to the light, okay. Then she comes out of it. I said, what way? She said, I saw this light, and he was so loving.

And he told me, do what Henry tells you to do. And she had been a very resistant, defensive person to work with because of the trauma she had gone through it. But I got a little help from above. When the Lord writes you a reference, that's pretty good. I like that one. Well, we got to wrap up on. No, we've got church service here in a minute.

Can I say one thing about the book? Yeah. This is a very different book for me. I try to stay in my lane. I'm a psychologist and I guess I can say I'm a trained theologian. I think that works. Graduate theology. But I'm mainly right in the field of leadership in psychology and what they call self-help and all this stuff.

But I just had a problem for. so many years of so many non-Christian friends that, and it's so divisive out there now, and, you know, to talk about faith in different environment, it can blow up, it can, you know, and you've got to be with some people, it's a, you know, you've got to go gingerly, right? And so, but there were a number of people that I really loved that we never really talked about. They knew I was one of those weirdos, but somehow they say, well, you're pretty normal anyway, so we were still friends. But it was bother me.

And so I wrote a book, I was going to call it to my friends. This is why I'm one of them, one of those crazy Jesus followers. And that's what the book is about. I actually wrote it to my non-believing friends so they would understand why I believe. And what happened was a lot of people, Christians, told me I've got that same problem. Family, extended family, coworkers, friends.

I don't know how to have the conversation. I'm going to give them the book. And so it kind of became a tool for Christians, sort of like a big tract. But it tells the story of suffering and God's intervention and all the intellectual quandaries that had to be solved for me and how he did that. And then a pretty clear invitation to the gospel.

But one of the things that I really struggled with was I always liked God. just didn't like his friends. There are so many weird Christians. I was going, if this is real, how can they be like that? And that's a big chapter in the book that I address that problem. And how scripture actually talks about that problem. And as I said to one friend, look at things you don't like about Christians,

those are the same things Jesus doesn't like. You're a Christian. You don't even know it. you agree with him about those people. And so it goes through all that. But it's, I believe what I hear is it's a good tool to give to people. I agree completely. The title's why I believe.

But when I read, I had that same. It would be a book you could share with people that were either in search of their faith or had rejected it because of Christians and their behavior. Absolutely. And I share it with people that we've talked to, And I'm a devout atheist is what they tell me. I go, great, I want you to read it. And we're having a follow-up conversations.

But I also liked it because you kind of called out the Christian, or you at least invited the Christians out of the position that we have to hide our faith in order to maintain peace. I mean, you know, we have to lead with our faith. Yeah, and it's interesting. You know, there's a lot of different ways to lead with your faith. Agreed. And this is almost a cognitive style, a personality type.

You could almost map people. But the ones that are the clearest and strong on truth and all of that, they also always lead with all of that and the proclamation. And they're trying to win a debate or, you know, argue somebody. And it does come off. as pretty judgmental. And there are times in the scriptures where there was leading with proclamation, but there are many, many, many more examples.

Like Romans says, it is the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance. And where our faith has more than my favorite sermon, hell's hot, heaven sweet, Jesus, no, what is it? Hell's hot, heaven sweet, judgment sure, hell's hot, heaven sweet. Sins black, judgment sure, but Jesus saves. And you see all these Christians talking about, you know, there's more than that. You know, when you are feeding people and you're loving people and you're declaring your faith then as well.

Now, I'm not saying it's not supposed to be followed up with words, you know, people get mad, at, they call it the social gospel. No, it's got to all go together. But it doesn't mean that you have to start an argument to talk to people about your faith. Not at all. You know, when Paul, when Paul, and in the last chapter, I talk about Paul, we talk about, you know, sharing your faith in your culture now and how everybody says that. So, whatever. Paul was in Athens, and he went into the New Age convention, you know, where all the idol worshippers were, and all these people worshipping these gods.

And he goes in there, and he first identifies with them. He starts out by saying, I can see that you're a very religious people. you're a very spiritual people. And he validated that. And then he didn't say, but you're wrong. What he said was, but the God that you seek, in fact, I saw on one of your monuments that says to an unknown God, I'd like to share with you that the God that you seek is not far from you now.

And then he tells them about Jesus. We don't have to start fights. I agree. And I don't know if I ever seem to like win one of those, unless they feel like winning is they'd feel good after they win and did it. And everybody from their team claps. But I've seen a lot of people get one over the other way. I agree, both from my life experience.

And I'm not going soft on telling people. No, I don't think you will. I've read your book. And I've listened to you a lot of your work. So I'm not... You just don't... But I think we... Someone once told me that we form our theology

like we parallel park. We go forward until we hear a crash and then we put it in reverse until we hear a crunch. And then somewhere in there we stop. And I think some of us that were exposed to the harsh edge of Christianity

went the other direction until there really were no boundaries. Right. And there's a destruction in that. You know, in my own life, I went through a very public, high-profile divorce when I was 23. And there wasn't much compassion around me because I did... Were you in the ministry at that time? And I had been a self-righteous smug.

You know, if you did the right thing, good things would happen. And if you did bad things, bad things would happen. Well, if you really do it perfectly. Yeah, well... No, seriously, if you really do it perfectly, which one guy did, you get crucified. Thanks on cool. You're right. We shut him down.

It put too much pressure on the rest of us. But it gave me a completely different understanding of compassion and the need for healing in the midst of people of faith. And having said that, doesn't mean you're soft on sin because it destroys us. And I think that... But you're soft on judgment. Yes. Our judgment.

Yes. Yeah. You can talk to people about... You know, you go to a church. an addict and alcoholic can go to a church that's like that, not all of them are like that, go to a church, and they're going to get told the truth about their sin, but it's going to feel like so much judgment that there's a recoil. Paul said the law was utterly useless to save us,

and they've got people, they try to put them on the law, your bad change. But they go to a recovery group, anything but soft. Right. I mean, they expect 100% working the sobriety path. But you walk in and tell them you're struggling, and they clap, and they identify with you.

Neither is soft on the truth, but there's a way to do it with a knife, and there's a way to do it with anesthesia. you know, to make it, make the surgery health. And the people that are there come, they at least present under the guise if they want help. Yes. Which is an important component too.

And the ones giving the help presenting as, I don't judge you because I've been there. Right. Broken. I agree. You know, I've been in enough cultures, both in this country and other ones to recognize that religious rules,

mine makes sense, and yours are stupid. Because we all kind of have our own little canon within the canon that we used to define. So true. I went to an island, a little island in Fiji, one time. Forty-three people lived on the island. Very primitive.

Didn't have power, didn't have running water. And the chief let us on, and we were on a boat. He led us on, and he gave us a tour. and he took us to this building about the size of this room and he said this is our church because the Methodist missionaries had been there 100 years ago and there was faith on the little island and showed us the church and told us about the missionaries and then we walk out look across the field about 100 yards away there's another little building and I said what's that

he said well that's our other church I said you got 43 people and you have two churches churches. He said, well, we used to have one, but we split. This is a true story. The chief told me this. I said, you split with 43. I said, why did you split? And he said, it was over the music. Tragically, I believe it. I believe it. I heard the story of the man that was rescued from a desert island. He was alone as a Jewish man. And when they rescued him, there was two synagogues. And they said, what's that one? And he said, I'm never going to that synagogue. Again, they're filled with hypocrites. So yeah, I think we all struggle with that. It will get a bit. My guest today's Dr. Henry Cloud. Thank you, sir. Good to be here. I have enjoyed your work and your writing, and it's an honor to have you

visit with us. That's a pleasure. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic, too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.