Episode 371 - "Belonging to Become: Exploring the Deepest Longing of the Human Heart"

Welcome to Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. On today’s episode, Michael sits down with fellow intensive therapist Brian Boecker for an honest, heartfelt conversation about the universal human longing to belong. Inspired by Michael’s recent talk at the Connections Conference in Washington, D.C., the discussion explores how belonging shapes our sense of self, impacts our relationships, and is deeply tied to spiritual themes found in scripture—especially in Jesus' teachings on prayer.

Through personal stories, reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, and insights from attachment theory, Michael and Brian unpack what it means to be at home with ourselves, others, and God. They wrestle with vulnerability, shame, and the courage it takes to truly let ourselves be seen. Drawing on poems, psychology, and biblical wisdom, this episode invites listeners to consider how authentic belonging not only leads to healing but also to genuine transformation.

Transcript

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Hi, everybody, and welcome. It's Michael, and this is the Restoring the Soul podcast. Today I'm with my colleague and fellow intensive therapist, Brian Becker. Hi, Brian. Hi, Michael. Good to be with you today. It's great to be sitting with you at this conference table. We're across from one another, as opposed to an Internet connection where we're literally in rooms about 30ft apart. But talking over the Internet, this is much more preferable, for sure. Especially with the topic of belonging. It's hard to belong over the Internet, I mean, if you're in different countries. But sitting 30ft apart, that just feels wrong. Sure. And it's always good to be at a table. We're talking about belonging because this past weekend I was in Washington, D.C. i had the honor of speaking at Kurt Thompson's conference for the center for Being Known called the Connections Conference. The theme this year was belonging to become. So you and I have talked some about it, and I've done some dive into scripture and just wanted to have this conversation today because I believe that the deepest longing of the human heart is to belong. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that resonates with my own story. It feels like that's been the longing as far back as I can tell in the different ways that I've tried to go about making that kind of work or get that. And so to me, it really resonates. I think that word just resonates in my own story. So. So thank you for that. We're going to be sharing a number of stories back and forth today about our experiences with belonging and not belonging. But I'm aware that although this is not a wound, as in abuse or trauma or neglect, that the moment we begin to talk about belonging, that it really does tap into people's pain. I want to start in an unlikely place for those that. That say, okay, give me a chapter and verse to kind of frame this. Right. I actually looked up several days ago in preparation for the conference, you know, all the Bible verses on belonging, and there were not that many, but duh. The whole Bible is about belonging. Right. So the concordance wasn't very helpful, and there were several. So if people write in and say, I typed in belonging in my, you know, Google search, and here's 42 verses. Thank you. But in the context of what I'm talking about, but I want to read this passage from Luke 11. And this is Jesus teaching on prayer, and he teaches the disciples on prayer, and then he tells a story to teach them. And I think that it's it's there's just belonging and therefore attachment all over the story. So I'm going to read it and then we

can unpack this. Luke 11: 2:52

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12: 2:55

1 day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. And Jesus said to them, when you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us, and lead us not into temptation. So there's the teaching on prayer. We all know the Lord's Prayer. I for one have said that probably as a little Catholic kid, until the present day, in 12 step meetings where they often say it, I'm guessing 10,000 times I've prayed that prayer. You know, our Father who art in heaven. Jesus doesn't stop there, he goes on and he says to the disciples who asked him, how do we pray? Jesus says to them, suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him. And suppose the one inside answers, don't bother me, the door is already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of your friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. So again, doesn't seem like a story on the surface about belonging, but I want to make a couple of points there. And listeners of this podcast know that my book Sacred Attachment, which is it's right now about eight months that it's been born into the world that that book really revolved around these four S's that allow for there to be trust built and secure attachment. And those S's are seen soothed, safe and secure. And what I want to have people pay attention to is how in Jesus teaching about prayer, he's not saying this is how you pray, even though he says those words, he's saying prayer is about belonging. Prayer is about attachment. And we say the word so often that we might skip over it. But encouraging listeners and our conversation now to unpack this idea that Jesus starts the prayer in the context of belonging. So he has invited these 12 men to belong to him. Come and follow me. Be a part of my band of brothers. Be my disciple, be my Apprentice. And he's invited them into this relationship where something in their hearts, they weren't counting the cost going, you know, what about this? Versus getting an associate's degree in chariot riding in Jerusalem or something like that. They dropped their nets and they followed him. Why? So that they could belong. So that's the context of this teaching of prayer. The second thing is that he starts out saying Father. So there again, you start prayer not as a person who is on the outside trying to get in, but as somebody who's on the inside, who's already part of the kingdom, who's already part of a family, and who already has a father, which for many people, as soon as we start talking about father issues, we say, I don't know what a good father is because my earthly father was absent or he was an alcoholic or he abused me, or he was just emotionally checked out or silent. So that brings up all kinds of issues for people. But Jesus is not just teaching them about prayer, he's teaching them about attachment. So, guys, you belong to me. And as you're coming saying, how do I relate to God? Number one, you have a dad, you have a daddy, you have a papa. That word for father there is abba, and it means daddy in Aramaic. That's the intimacy of this relationship. And for a Jew in that particular day and age, it would have been a radical thing to say that you pray instead of saying Adonai or El Shaddai or El Roy or El, all of those Hebrews named for God Almighty and his power, that you start by saying daddy, that was radical. But what Jesus does then, by going through these different aspects of the Lord's Prayer, is we all know, hallowed be thy name. And I love how Dallas Willard says that those words simply mean, may your name be treasured and loved. So Jesus is inviting us to relate in such a way where it's not about our Father. Help me to obey the rules and to obey and to be a quote, unquote, good Christian. Help me in my heart to treasure and love who you are. The next part of what Jesus was teaching on the prayer as he taught the quote, unquote, Lord's Prayer is about thy kingdom come and the longing of our heart to belong, to be included, is actually what God's kingdom is. May love and goodness and truth and beauty and compassion and care and love and joy and peace and all the fruits of the spirit and all of who God is. May that come into me and to my life, and may it move in and through me and My family and my work, my vocation, my community, and may your kingdom come. So even Jesus telling us to pray for the kingdom to come, it's as if he's saying, may belonging happen and may belonging expand. Because my Father's ways are all about belonging. Now here's my favorite part in this Lord's Prayer. Looking through the lens of attachment we all know, give us this day our daily bread. And what Jesus is inviting us to do through this lens of the four S's of seen, soothe, safe and secure. He's saying, the kind of relationship that you have with this daddy, God, this Abba God, this Father is that he sees you and he soothes you in your needs and he invites you to come to him with those needs. So part of how I'm teaching you to pray is to bring your humanity, to bring your great need and to say, lord, Father, Papa, Daddy, would you give me my daily bread? Would you give me my portion? And I don't believe that that prayer is specifically for bread because he's speaking about food and I don't believe it's specifically about food. I think it's about nourishment and that's emotional, relational, physical and spiritual nourishment. God, would you come? Would you be the God El Roy Roi that sees me? And would you come and tend to my needs so that I'm seen and soothed? And that's what Jesus is teaching the disciples the next verse about forgive us our sins as we forgive others through the lens of attachment. Once again, I think what Jesus is saying, God, repair the ruptures that have been there in my life and in the ways that I've related to others to cause pain, will you repair the ruptures? And then when we know that two sided coin of forgive us our sins as we forgive others, God, would you make me a person who repairs ruptures? Would you help me to be quick, to be humble, quick to entrust, quick to say I'm sorry, quick to become small to our children and to say, oh, I'm so sorry. Daddy spoke harshly or Daddy yelled at you or Daddy was preoccupied with his phone and that shouldn't have been that way. I'm so sorry. May we become people of repair where there are ruptures. And what if that's actually what it means to have the kingdom come? What if in all the ways that we are relating and all the ways out of relating in this relationship with the Father, that's what happens? The next part of it is beautiful as well. If the Part about asking for daily bread is about being seen and soothed. And if the forgiveness is about repair where there's rupture, I believe that when we're taught to pray, lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. Jesus is saying, your heavenly Father is the one who keeps you safe and the one where you find security. We could think of Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my stronghold, that Father fortress, that refuge. So I'm inviting you to pray and engage in this relationship where you're bringing your desire and longing to be seen, your desire and longing to be soothed, your desire and longing for repair in relationship, your desire and longing for safety and security. This is how we are to pray and to bring all of that to God. Now, that's the context for us understanding the story that Jesus tells. Because the story, as you've pointed out in other conversations, when Jesus tells a story, it allows us to fit into the story anywhere. Right. So let's start by. As you and I have talked in the past, you've talked about how you could be any one of those three people in the story at any given time. Yeah, I really. I think when I hear that story, I love your retake on the Lord's Prayer, because that to me, really speaks to me. I said that a lot. I think I used to have to. My football coach would always have us pray it before we go out to play football. And so he would always yell at me to start doing the Lord's Prayer. Like a lucky charm. Yeah. And so. But I think there's a sense of that belonging, like, that's just a really rich, deeper take on that. That feels really meaningful. I think with the story, I found myself kind of again, the shameless audacity really took my breath away because it's like, I don't know that I've ever experienced that to that level, that I could just be present with myself and be present with my ass. Could I take up space and request of another person like that? I think when I hear that story, I find shame in all the stories. I didn't pack enough for the journey. I don't have enough at home to offer somebody something. I have too much and I'm unwilling to get up out of bed. And so all those stories provoke in me something of shame. But yet this idea that this man was shameless audacity could ask. And to me, it just feels like the invitation was, let's all three of us sit down to a meal together. And what Would that look like in that way? And so I think there's something in me that really longs for belonging, but there's also something deep in me that just goes at times. I don't know what that is. Thanks for sharing all that. That's so rich. And I do very much for listeners benefit. I want this today to be two men talking who have wrestled and who continue to contend for belonging, where we have had profound experiences of belonging, but also inner struggles around, you know, our worthiness of that, our security in that, and so on. I want to come back to. Let's walk through each of the characters. Character number one, he shows up at this person's house and he gets kind of skipped over right away in the story because it's like somebody shows up at your house and a man wakes up and realizes he can't feed them, and then he goes to the other man's house and wakes him up in the middle of the night. But this character that gets skipped over, he's on a journey. He's not at home. He has set out. And as you talked about your own struggle with belonging, what I certainly relate to along those lines is I have so much of my life not felt at home within myself. And so I want to talk about belonging not just with these three characters, but on three levels. And I've said this in other contexts. We've got to belong to ourselves. And this first character, he's not at home. And. And so many of us listening are not at home within ourselves. You know, it's hard to be with ourselves, to inhabit ourself. So what is it that you see most in that character as they're on this journey? It's both a journey where they're not at home, but they're headed somewhere. And that's hopeful. Yeah. Yeah. The phrase that has resonated in my heart, last number of months or maybe a year or so, is this phrase, I'm coming home, I'm becoming home. And this idea that I need to come home first in order to offer home to others. Right. And I just think there's something to that, that this sense of journey that is definitely part of the mix, that I have to come home. I have to experience this sense of being loved and wanted and welcomed in order to offer that to others. Right. And I think that's the interesting part is there's this one that's definitely coming to receive for sure. And I just think that feels like a man on a journey with lack and wanting something, though, coming to somebody who can maybe sense what that need or desire is, but doesn't have it himself. And then he goes to the one who does have it, and. And then makes an audacious request on his behalf of that. And so it's an interesting place, especially for that character, too, to have that sense of agency. But that agency doesn't mean he can answer the request. It means he can go and advocate on behalf of the other. And so there's something that in that is people on the journey looking for somebody to advocate for them, maybe, or to provide a place where their journey, their longing for belonging, has a place to rest. So let's go back to that character who is on the journey and not at home. And let's say that there's somebody who is listening who says, I've been on a journey. You know, I've read Sacred Attachment or Surfing for God, or I've done an intensive, or I read, you know, Kurt Thompson's last book or Andy Colbert's book, or Chuck De Groat's book, or Alison Cook or Ian Cron, any of the frequent guests on this program. And something started a journey inside of me where I want more, but I'm not at home with myself. It's hard for me to literally show up with myself, which I can certainly relate to. Where do people begin there in that journey of belonging to themselves? Yeah, I feel like the journey for me has been naming the places where I deeply feel that, and also maybe naming the strategies of here's how I try to work around with that, to try and find belonging. I think, you know, we've talked before about Brene Brown's famous quote, right? The greatest enemy of belonging is fitting in. And it feels like the. That that becomes a deep sense in me is like, I get a taste of something, but it's not the real thing. And it's like, oh, there's something deeper that's longing for that. And I think that's part of the process is naming that longing, that I'm actually desiring something actually deeper and fundamentally different than maybe these strategies of the way I've made life work are getting me. So people think I need to know more, I need to get more of the Bible, more teaching more theology, or they somehow need to do better, which often looks like serving more or fitting in more. And when that doesn't happen and it doesn't bring about that sense of belonging, then people are disillusioned, as you were talking about. And that sense of I really still don't fit in, but Belonging can never be earned, can it? I mean, that's a transaction. And that's like, if you make a donation to this particular benevolent society, then you can be a member. Yeah, I totally resonate with that. I think you and I have talked about just the neurodiverse piece of masking and kind of finding a script to fit into life. And I think most of my life has felt like I gotta find the right rules to live by. I gotta find the right. The right script. I got to find, what are you expecting of me? What are you doing? And that's somehow going to get me belonging. And I think that just that has left me empty because it feels like it's so precarious. I might get it, but I could easily lose it. And so I think that's where I really resonate with that journey of, like, what is belonging? It's. It's like what my heart longs for, but I have no idea at times what it is or how it fits in. It's one of those things, like, I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it or I know it when I experience it. Yeah. Feel it in your bones or something like that. Yeah. So it's part acceptance. It's part, to use your welcome word, which you've been thinking and teaching and writing about. It's part security. It's part being seen and wanted and desired. I want to give a little bit of history of the definition of this word. I'm an etymology guy. I've never studied Greek or Hebrew languages at seminary, although I'm a fan of that. But as I began to dive a little deeper into the meaning, the modern idea of belonging is about inclusion and into a group. So, you know, I belong to this church denomination. I belong to this local church in the church. I'm in a small group. I belong to the Rotary Club. I belong to a health club. You belong to the staff at Restoring Soul. I belong to the staff at Restoring Soul. But if you go back to the. I think, like, 13th century, the word belong actually meant to go toward desire. Wow. So we know that the word longing, which is all throughout scripture. Psalm 38, verse 9. King David said, all my longings are open before you, God. My sighing is not hidden from you. All my desires are right there. He says. And so the idea of belonging is to move toward what I long for. Yeah. What a beautiful concept that this movement into a community, into a circle, into a fellowship, into a family, into an embrace, that that's. To move toward Our desire. Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah, it is. And that's what's so striking about this passage. Right. Is that this person who's the second character. And let's now talk about him, he's so. Out of shame or out of just hospitality and probably a mixture of both. He's so desperate and ready and willing to do anything to give this guest bread. Yeah. Who shows up in the. Presumably in the middle of the night and to the point where he gets up and he goes and wakes up his friend in the middle of the night. And I don't know about you, but I've had a couple of, you know, things happen at our home that we've lived in for 21 years where, like, I had to go knock on a neighbor's door at 10 o' clock at night, and I was like, terrified that they come to the door with a gun or that the police would. Would be called, or that they'd just be like, what are you doing here? But this is apparently like, you know, two or three in the morning, and the guy gets up and responds in a way like we hoped he wouldn't. But the point is, with his desire and his longing to be hospitable and to feed his friend, who he senses this journey is about something really important. He shameless. He's willing to be naked and

unashamed. Because remember Genesis 2: 23:10

27 is our original state, that we were created. Like it says, the man and the woman were both naked and unashamed. He puts himself in that place where he could be made a fool of, where he could be humiliated, where the guy could get up and say, go away. I've already put my kids to bed. What do you think about the second character? Yeah, I love that idea. I mean, several things you said really struck me, right. Is this idea that belonging is actually a place where I could be with my longings. Right. And. And, you know, I know Kurt has said, like, belonging will always come with an invitation of becoming. Right. And I just think that feels like when I. When I have the freedom to really be with my longings, there's something that erupts in me that wants goodness and beauty. And I want to be someone different. Right. And that's not somebody imposing something on me. Hey, you need to become this. I think it's something that awakens in me that I actually want to become what my longings are inviting me to. Yes. It's an awakening. It's a flow from the inside, as opposed to, like you said, having to go out and find it or feeling an obligation or pressure to have to be something. Yeah. So that second character feels like something. And again, maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's. But it feels like the word shameless audacity. There's something is like, I want goodness for this person and I'm awakened to that and I'm gonna go wake up other people because I want to. Goodness. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to shame the other person, but I'm going to just keep asking. Yeah. And that shameless audacity, we have no idea, you know, beyond feeding this person who has the physical need of bread, we have no idea what feeding them would unleash. For example, as I was teaching on this and as I just began to kind of let my imagination run wild with this first person. They're on a journey, they show up at an unexpected hour, it's the middle of the night, what's their story? Right. And for some reason, you know, what popped into my head was they had a parent, a mother or father that lived two towns away or three towns away, and it was a two day journey and that parent had a heart attack or they fell ill and somebody sent for them and said, come quickly, you need to see them now. And this person is filled with grief and fear that they're not going to get there in time. And they push themselves beyond the normal time of travel. And so they said, maybe I can get there in one day instead of two. And it's two o' clock in the morning and they're still six miles away and they're exhausted and they show up at the door. And the shameless audacity of the person that gets up to go knock on the other door to get read is not just about, well, somebody's here and culture says that I should have food to feed them. And that's kind of the Jewish custom. Maybe it's the mercy of this person is racing to see their parent for their last breath. And we could fill in any number of stories. Right. Every listener would say, here's my narrative of where I was in need and where my vulnerability in that position, I had to depend upon other people in order to fulfill this journey. How many times with all of your world travel and having lived in Asia for 14 plus years, you know, did you get a delayed flight or where something happened and you had to call up somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, can we stay at your house? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And it's not often as simple as, oh, I'LL go get some bread. Sometimes we got to press into those issues of shame. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I was thinking of a story where I just remember praying for an old woman countryside in Asia, you know, that was asking for healing, Right? And I just remember just being profoundly moved. Like, I longed for healing, the gift of healing to flow. But I knew I. Like, there's nothing in me that has that, but something in me just. And I just remember praying in that place. A very different prayer. Wasn't an obligatory prayer, but I just felt like, God have mercy, you know, on this woman, right? Answer her prayer. And there's something that awoken me that goes, I want to bring healing to this world. Right. And that was a profound moment, Right. Like, not just for that woman, but something deep within me that I became aware of. Thank you. Before we move on to character number three, I want to have you read another piece, but first I just want to comment, because you did this, and I meant to. We're kind of bopping around here in pinball style. You know, you talked about, as you were growing up and through life, feeling like you didn't fit in. And that's been something deep inside of me. And the last several weeks, I've been at major conferences speaking, and I'll often share from the stage or wherever I'm speaking that, you know, I. I have this deep struggle inside that's a kind of insecurity because I, too, am growing in learning how to be securely attached. And I think. I think people often have this sense of, like, yeah, right. That's just kind of what you're saying, because you're supposed to say those kinds of things, and. And you're not really that vulnerable. And what I'm aware of is that in any given moment, there's a vulnerability that's deeper than what's there on the surface. And that vulnerability of how much I need people, how much I need friends, but how often I'll just say, like, I'm okay. And that's not having shameless audacity, but that's giving into the shame, the shame of needing. So I'm really identifying, even in this conversation, as the first person, and I think as an enneagram, too, I often default to the second person. Hey, I'll go get you some bread. You know, 711 is open, that kind of thing. So I won't have to go wake anybody up to inconvenience anybody, because I'm really good at that, you know. But I will go serve you and try to Meet your need. So go ahead and read that poem. Yeah. I think this really struck me. This is from a poet. Long live her book, Love and Misadventure. And again, just came across it this morning, just hearing a little bit of her story. She was actually born and raised in a Thai refugee camp, but this is her poem. And again, just struck me on this topic. Shrinking in a corner Pressed into the wall do they know I'm present? Am I here at all? Is there a written rule book that tells you how to be? All the right things to talk about that everyone has but me Slowly I am withering A flower deprived of sun Longing to belong to somewhere or someone. And I think that that feels like that has been a deep place in my story. In my heart is just that longing to belong somewhere to someone, as well as that sense of, like, I need a rule book. Like, why did. Why does it seem like everybody has the rule book to know how to belong, but somehow I didn't get it along the way, and I'm just kind of making it up as I go and trying to figure it out. And I think that compulsion has felt like it's definitely been an ongoing part of my story and drive in that. Wow. Again, I want to. I want to thank you. I'm not taking for granted that as you share these parts of your story and I so relate to. What I'm touched by from that poem is how I can relate so much to this presumably little girl in the Thai refugee camp who is not only feeling invisible, but, you know, her needs are not being met and in what many of us would imagine to be the worst possible circumstances. And there is a part of me and I. I believe a part of our listeners, that we all have a small part of us that's kind of crouched down somewhere hoping for someone to come for us to us, to see us and someone for which we can belong. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, this other quote from Bernay Brown that she says it really well. She says those who have a strong sense of love, love and belonging, have the courage to be imperfect. And I just thought, what a contrast, right? It's not that belonging leads to perfection, but longing leads to greater freedom to be vulnerable and undone and incomplete and in process. And. And I just think that's such a contrast, right? Like that when you experience it, you don't have to cover up. You don't have to find a script. You don't have to find the right methodology or technique or way to get through life. But you have this freedom to just be you. Yeah. And belonging happens. Yeah. Like the old bumper sticker, S H I T happens. Haven't seen that in a while, but belonging happens. Yeah. So flip that over. That belonging allows us to show our imperfections. But people oftentimes say, well, I still am not sure how to belong. And our imperfections open the door to belonging. Right. And that's the other big part about what Brene Brown has taught about, but also the teaching of Jesus that when we lose our life, we find it when we somehow reveal our vulnerabilities, our imperfections, our weaknesses, our limitations, our struggles, our sin, our shame. And when there is a comedy, compassionate person there, as we say in trauma therapy, a compassionate witness, a loving presence, somebody who meets us and meets our gaze with kindness, it transforms everything. And when we're known in that vulnerability and shame, we discover that we're actually loved for who we really are in our imperfections. And that's what fleshes love out. Right. If I'm coming pretending to. To be somebody, then I'm not actually going to know the experience of love because I'm just loved based on this good false self. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I thought about this, a couple movies came to mind. One was the Last Samurai, Tom Cruise. And it's a sense of this drunken soldier that gets captured by samurais, and then he's just. There's something that awakens in him in the presence of the. This community of people. Right. That he wants to be a better, different man. He wants to live for more noble reasons in that. The other one was Dances With Wolves, kind of the same type of deal that again, being welcomed, being wanted, being seen being invited in, just awakens something in him to look at the world differently. And in both of those movies, if I recall, because those were back like early 90s movies, although arguably Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner went on, you know, if they keep. If they keep going, they might become successful. Yeah. Eventually, 35 years later, those were both communities where Tom Cruise was a Caucasian who fell into this samurai Japanese society. Kevin Costner was Caucasian soldier who fell into the. This indigenous Native American population. And so that welcome was even more meaningful because of the otherness of the community that he's a part of. But he found himself at home in both cases. Yeah. I think that's what surprised me these last number of years is just the gift of being welcomed by people other than you and the surprising nature of that. Right. And to be loved in that or have kindness come your way. And from just places outside of that. And I just think there's something that really just takes it down kind of to the core of the issue when you're in that place. Right. Is to see, oh, there's love here. There's something different. It's not about rules, it's not about following or adhering to the, the collective, but it's. There's something about. There's just love here. And I just think that's where it gets it back to again, your words earlier, right. The kingdom values. Right. Like God would your kingdom come, would your beauty, would your goodness, would your love penetrate this place and invite people to this great dance, this great party. Yeah. Because no one wants to belong where there's anger, cynicism, toxicity, or at least no one wants to belong to that for very long. Yeah. Because it's not what we were made for. And it doesn't lead to joy and it doesn't lead to a sense of being seen, soothe, safe and secure. At times we can have an artificial sense of being seen, soothe, safe and secure by belonging around an unhealthy set of values or atmosphere as opposed to the values of the kingdom. And I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about the way of Jesus in relating. Yeah. I think that's one of this dilemmas that we hold in belonging, is that there's this sense of which I'm always sitting with somebody other than me. Right. Gottman's research on marriage is 70% of marital conflict is irresolvable. Right. We're going to be different with person that we're most intimate with seven out of 10 times. And that's just shocking to me that there's a sense of belonging. Belonging isn't about agreement. Belonging is about empathy, understanding, vulnerability in places where we don't agree. And how do we create space and welcome for that. And that just is like. That takes my breath away, that there's this sense of which how do I be both connected with somebody who's completely different than me? But also I don't lose myself in that. I still maintain my uniqueness, my differences, while I welcome and honor their differences. And that becomes a very different place to have a relationship and to have intimacy. And I think, don't you think that that's what's behind Jesus saying love our enemies, that first of all, God loves enemies. God loves that which is as different from him as could possibly be. But the love your enemies is an invitation to other to put yourself in their shoes, to look at their Story, their pain and enemies might not be the country with which we are at war. Or if we're the Hatfields, the enemies are the McCoys. But our enemies might be somebody who simply not meeting our need or somebody who's interrupting us at 2 in the morning, knocking on our door while our kids are asleep. And I haven't had a good night's sleep in eight days, and boom, there's this knock on the door at that moment. I think it would be fair to say when this man is angry and saying, go away, that they are enemies even though they're friends. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to me, it'd be fascinating to imagine a scenario in which that man goes, I won't give you anything but invite him in. Let's have breakfast together, right? And to have this table where they're eating together and they're suddenly realizing, hey, we're not that different, right? And the things we perceived as bigger difference, we found some core humanities and their stories that as they hear the stories together, they start going, oh, I remember a journey I was on once, right? Or I remember when I didn't have anything. Thing, right? And there's just something that, like, that picture feels like, oh, that would be the kingdom of God, right? That that place would be created. So let's talk about that. Because you jumped at that point off of the third man, and we haven't kind of taken a dive with him. This third man, it's the middle of night, his children and wife are asleep. He's locked the door. And interestingly, he gets up. You know, he says, I can't get up, but he's already up. So that's very important to point out in the story. The guy's like, well, you know, I can't come to your wedding next week because my aunt is going to die. You know, that old excuse, like, he's already up. He's already woken up. Why don't you just walk 10ft and get the bread? Yeah, there's something going on inside of him. That's not about the knock on the door. Yeah. To me, it feels very much like scarcity, right? Like, it feels like, hey, I don't have enough. Right? And there's some. Again, not always completely sure where this comes from in my story, but there's definitely a scarcity orphan mentality in my mind of, hey, I gotta. I gotta conserve what I have. I gotta make sure I don't do this, right. Like, there's a stingy cynicalness that I've got to protect what I Have. And I think that's what I relate to in that man is like, hey, don't ask too much of me. Don't make me give more than I have to. Let me. Let me tell you what I can give and how I can give, but don't ask for more. Right. And it just feels like God always puts me in places where the metaphor of somebody coming in the middle of the night asking for something I don't want to give feels like it's regular because he's like, I don't want you to see your security in those things you've accumulated for yourself. Yeah, I love that. That's the whole idea of scarcity. We could do a podcast episode just on that. I want to add maybe a modern spin. Obviously, when Jesus was telling the story, the culture didn't yet understand interpersonal neurobiology, but what if that man's asleep with his family and there's the sudden knock on the door and his nervous system goes into a fight or flight mode? Yeah. I mean, we all know the. The phone call in the middle of the night, right? If your parents could you come down to the police station, you know, your son or daughter is down here. We pick them up, you know, driving intoxicated with 14 kids in the car. We. We dread and fear that phone call in the middle of the night. And here's this knock. It could be the Roman soldiers. It could be somebody breaking in. And I. And I kind of imagine that guy with his heart racing and perspiration coming down, and he's angry because of that jolt in the middle of the night. And so there's even this physiological response that what if it was just that? That the wear and tear and difficulty of living in that culture and perhaps trauma was a reaction. So that his response was actually a reaction and a kind of aggression that we see in the story. And it's hard to have compassion for that guy in the story. But to other and to belong is to actually go, oh, maybe this guy had a really hard day, or maybe he just got fired from his job. The call is to be hospitable, but to actually understand to. To listen and to interact with them. Yeah, I totally. I think that's. That's what happens. I think when you gather them at the table, right. Is when you can hear another person's story. You suddenly have compassion going, oh, I remember what it was like to be scared in the middle of night. Oh, I remember what it was like to be on a long journey and not have any idea Where I was going to stay or what I was going to eat. Do you mean? Like, there's things that. It might not be the same story per se, but it. It just taps into something, and I think that's what's beautiful. Right. Like, you know, the movie comes to mind is Paul Young's movie the Shack, or the, you know, his book the Shack that was made into the movie. And there's this sense of like, hey, do you forgive this little boy? And it's like, yeah, that little boy. Watching this boy being abused. Well, it turns out that boy was his father who he really wanted to be judged. Right. But once he sees the story of his father, it just changes the way he wants to be with that story. Let me go to the end of the teaching of Jesus here. We don't get this statement that the man gave up and gave him bread, got up and gave him bread. What we do hear is Jesus saying, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, we're. Which is to say, to honor the relationship and the belonging that's already there. Yet because of your shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. So it's a hypothetical. Right. And in this story, we don't know. But what Jesus is saying is that when person number two in this story shows up willing to be naked, willing to be unashamed, willing to put their need and their vulnerability out there, willing to be intrusive, judged, willing to be potentially rejected like he initially was, that. That friend, because he's a friend, is going to see his heart and not say, oh, this is my friend, and I should do this because I'm inconvenienced, frankly, but because of this willingness to just lay themselves bare. Yeah. And that's the key to this. All belonging, I would say, is hindered because of shame. Yeah. And. Or some kind of fear because we've had a bad experience and we've been wounded in this before. But some sense of it's not safe to belong. Yeah, yeah. It's not safe to belong and it's not free to be all of me, to bring all of my desires to the table and to bring all of me. And I think that's what. Again, to go back to your words, right. If. If belonging is about being with my desire, then the second man is with his desire of, I want goodness for this man, and I want to be with that. And I want to do what it takes to be able to do that. And that allows for this just tenacity of like, I'm going to keep asking. I'm not going to shame this man for asking, but I'm going to keep asking. I'm going to keep coming back and ask because I want goodness and beauty in this place for my friend. So, Brian, as we wrap up, I want to direct people back to the beginning

of Luke 11, 1: 46:55

4, to the Lord's Prayer, and I'll read it again. One day when Jesus was praying in a certain place when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, lord, teach us to pray. Just as John taught his disciples, he said to them, when you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us, and lead us not into temptation. Those words, as familiar as they may be, are an invitation to be securely attached and to actively engage in the process of trusting that we have a father and we're part of a family where all that we need has already been provided. We simply need to ask and we need to go inward to have that sense of being at home with ourselves so that we can then be at home with others and to be at home with God. But we don't need to go searching for the home with God. That home is right inside of us. Yeah, yeah, I want. I'd love to just end with this poem from David White. It's from his book Essentials. It's called the House of Belonging, and it's just a part of it, but it says, this is the bright home in which I live. This is where I ask my friends to come. This is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness, and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging. Brian, thanks for sharing this conversation today and listeners. I want to just pray a brief blessing over you. May you know, know the peace and rest and safety and security of living in the house of belonging, which is the family of God. May you be at home within yourself. May you be at home with others, and may you be at home in the embrace of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We'll talk to you next time.