Roger Marsh: Well, hello once again, and thanks for joining us for Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. And today, we're going to bring you the conclusion of a conversation that Dr. Dobson had back in 2018 with pastor and author Jentezen Franklin when Jentezen paid us a visit in our studio here in Colorado Springs. Pastor Jentezen Franklin is the senior pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville, Georgia. He has a weekly program called Kingdom Connection that airs on new as Christian television networks all over the world.
He is also a New York times best-selling author. And yesterday on the program, Dr. Dobson and Pastor Franklin recounted how they first met. They were both invited along with other evangelical leaders to take a trip to the holy land, Israel. On their flight, they sat next to each other and began to talk. They spoke for several hours on that flight and that began their friendship. They also served together on the White House faith advisory board from 2016, until 2020.
On today's program, Pastor Franklin and Dr. Dobson are going to continue to talk about Jentezen's book, Love Like You've Never Been Hurt. I want to share with you the summation from the publisher, because I think important for you to understand the heartbeat behind this book. "The human heart was created with a great capacity to love, but along with that comes a great capacity to feel pain as well. There is no denying that those who love us, who are closest to us can also wound us the most profoundly, that kind of pain can be difficult if not impossible to overcome.
And it can feel even more impossible to continue loving in the face of it, yet that is exactly what we are called to do. Sharing from his own story of personal pain pastor and author Jentezen Franklin shows us how to find the strength, courage, and motivation to set aside the hurt, to see others as God sees them and to reach out in love. Through biblical and modern day stories, he discusses different types of relational, disappointment and heartache and answers questions such as, why should I trust again? And how can I ever really forgive?" Well with that, let's now join Dr. Dobson and Pastor Jentezen Franklin right here on Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: Let's plunge right in today to what we were going to talk about last time having to do with this book, Love Like You've Never Been Hurt.
Jentezen Franklin: I wrote the book because I think that there is such a need for families to be healed. To me, there's a sickness in the body of Christ we so many just don't know how to make our families work. We don't know how to love one another. We know how to get along and love one another as long as we see eye to eye.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: And have the same view point, the same theology, the same standards and convictions and everybody's in line. But what do you do when conflict comes, when betrayal comes, when hurt comes, when lies are told or things are said? And it happens between people that you love, you got to learn how to love like you've never been hurt.
Dr. James Dobson: But you say in this book that hurt is inevitable. It's the human condition.
Jentezen Franklin: Jesus said in Matthew 18, "Offenses will come." I don't care who you are, you're going to be betrayed, you're going to be stabbed in the back, you're going be lied on. Somebody is going to disappoint you, rip you off, hurt you. And at that point, you're either going to become a bitter, angry, mean person that shuts off the love and the flow of life, or you're going to learn how to love like you've never been hurt. And it is, I believe the number one battle of every believer at some point, will be to pass the test of forgiveness.
Dr. James Dobson: And sometimes the people who hurt you are the ones you love the most.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah. Mark Twain said that if you ever see a dog on the side of the road, mangey and starving and in bad shape and you take it home and nurture it back to life and feed it and gets healthy and strong, that dog will never bite you. And then he went on to say and therein lies is the big difference between dog and man.
Dr. James Dobson: Between a dog and man. I've never heard that before.
Jentezen Franklin: The people that you love the most can hurt you the most.
Dr. James Dobson: And sometimes it's a spouse.
Jentezen Franklin: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: You're talking about reconciliation. Is that really what's the theme of this book?
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: It is forgiving and reconciling with someone who has torn a hole in your heart.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah. And I think the thing that I really wanted to share in the book is there's no magic wand. There's no quick fix. We want to go to church and hear a message and get a miracle and all this stuff is over. But when a family's really been ripped to pieces, when something has happened that is so heavy that your family is in shambles, it doesn't just necessarily come instantly. And there are things that happen, Dr. Dobson, that change everything. One day in your family can change everything.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: But God can make all things new and he can bring restoration and give a brand-new beginning.
Dr, James Dobson: Now, you have a huge church in Atlanta. And in fact, you have seven churches in Georgia and South Carolina, and then you have one in California. You're all over the place. I wonder if you have time to counsel people about things like this?
Jentezen Franklin: I don't anymore. I did for many years when I first started. But I do of course, with my staff. I minister to them as much as I can. We have full time staffing counseling center, but as a pastor and just as a father. I have five kids, my wife and I have been married 30 years. We had four teenagers in our home at one time. And still have two.
Dr, James Dobson: You're sane.
Jentezen Franklin: I still have one and yeah, I'm still alive and still sane. We had a picture perfect family, I guess you would say. I mean, we weren't perfect, but everything was just kind of beautiful and wonderful. And my oldest daughter went off to school, went off to college. And it's kind of the same old story, got around the wrong people. One thing led to another and before we knew it, we had a crisis like we never dreamed, that I never in my wildest dreams, thought that I would deal with in my home.
And I'll never forget the Sunday my wife came into my office and she said, "I didn't sleep at all last night. Jentezen, I'm going to get our daughter from college. She was at three hours away." And said, "What are you going to do?" And I said, "Well, I've got another pastor, I'm going to let him preach. I'm going with you." And we took off and we got our daughter.
We didn't even get her stuff from her dorm. She was just living the party life. It was deeper and deeper and deeper. And we packed her up. She broke, she cried. She wanted to come home. We cried all a lot and talked a lot. We thought when we got her home, things would get better. And we took her car. We cut her off from her bad friends. All the things that you do. Make a long story short, our home became a combat zone for about a year, it felt like. It felt like we were in a war zone.
Dr. James Dobson: There's no pain like that.
Jentezen Franklin: Oh. She ran away. And we had a week of, we didn't know where she was. My wife curled up on the couch. And the amazing thing, this went on for about a year of everything you can imagine almost. And then it began to affect the siblings.
Dr, James Dobson: Yes.
Jentezen Franklin: It began to the dynamic of our home. And here I am at the same time, Dr. Dobson, our ministry was exploding. I got a call and TBN and some of these Christian networks wanted my show. They said, "We'll show it free if you just do it." And then I did. And I got all of this going on. The churches are growing thousands of people, but at home it felt like I didn't know what to do. I couldn't fix this problem. I didn't know how to heal my own family. And it was getting deeper and deeper. And I didn't feel like I had anybody I could turn to. And I thankfully reached out.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah, a pastor can't go to his parishioners, if you will, the church members and can say.
Jentezen Franklin: I was ashamed.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: I was ashamed. And so my wife and I, when we wrote this book, we decided to remove the ministerial front. It's funny, sometimes when I preach people will come to me after the service and they'll say sometimes things like, "Pastor, I'm going through something. And I know you can't relate to this." Like we don't live real lives, like what we do is just get behind a microphone and everything's beautiful in our lives. And I think what we wanted to do with this book is show people it's all right and it's normal almost to go through crisis in your family, deep, deep trouble.
And when some kind of addiction or problem comes to your house, it changes everything. Then me and my wife, we wouldn't agree always on the discipline of the children and how to deal with it. And that caused us to have friction. And I can remember one particular Sunday being on my knees, thinking it had just been one thing after another. And maybe people listening to me right now, you're driving in your car, whatever, and you're saying, "Nobody understands, are we going to make it?" And I was having one of those weeks and I just didn't know what to do.
And I got on my knees and I said, "God, I don't feel worthy to get up and preach to thousands of people. And I can't even get my life together, and my own family together." And I cried and I was weeping. And the Lord just, it felt like He put his arms around me and he said, "You're not a failure. You're a good father. You've done everything you know to do to raise your children right. This is a season." And He gave me a scripture in Jeremiah that said, "Your children shall return from the land of the enemy. The land of bondage.
Dr. James Dobson: Right.
Jentezen Franklin: It's in Jeremiah 31. And he said, "Your children will come back from the land of bondage and the enemy." And He was originally giving it to the children of Israel and Babylon in captivity. And I held onto that word and I would get up and preach. To make a long story short, she had run away and she sent a text actually and said, "I'm married." And it broke my heart.
It broke my wife's heart. We went through a tough season there. We had to start making decisions, to reach out, to love again, to call again, to have that young man at my dinner table that had taken her off and all of this. And to make a long story short, little by little God began to restore. That daughter is now fully on fire for Jesus Christ.
Dr. James Dobson: Praise the Lord.
Jentezen Franklin: She works full time in a ministry, in a church as the media director in Atlanta, Georgia of mega church. Not my church, another mega church, her and her husband. He's a graphic artist. They're doing amazing. All my kids are loving God in the ministry, serving the Lord.
And I just want to encourage somebody today. See, the thing that I battle with, Dr. Dobson, is how do you respond to a child when they're doing everything that you've taught them not to, that it so goes against who you are and the Christian values that you have? And the answer came to me and that's why I wrote that book, Love Like You've Never Been Hurt. Love. Love will never fail. It's never wrong to love. It's never lowering your standards to love. It's never breaking your convictions to love. Love is the answer.
Dr. James Dobson: Jentezen, I don't know exactly how to put this into words except to say that what you just did with the disclosure that you just made, it's not easy for a minister who's been blessed and he's been followed and influential all around the world. For you to open up and tell that story is one of the most precious moments in this entire year on the radio. Because we're talking to people who are driving down the freeway in a car.
Jentezen Franklin: That's right.
Dr. James Dobson: And they're trying to serve the Lord. And they've tried to do the best job they could. They're not perfect. But the very fact that they see their own imperfection means there's terrific guilt when something like this happens.
Jentezen Franklin: True.
Dr. James Dobson: And Satan comes and says, "Yeah, look at you. Yeah. You talk about the Lord and you don't even live it." I can't describe it except to say that we have connected in this moment with many, many people who are in agony right now over something similar to what you've talked about.
Jentezen Franklin: I had an older minister; he was 80 years old that I trusted and I would call him and he would walk me through this. He's gone on to be with the Lord. He told me something that I feel like I'm supposed to share with your listeners right now that I'll never forget. When I was low and I told him, "Maybe I ought to just resign the church. Maybe I ought to just take a sabbatical, get my family together."
And he said something to me, I'll never forget. He said, " Jentezen, God had two children. And raised him in the perfect environment. And He spent quality time with them, because He walked in the cool of the day, every day in the garden of Eden." And he said, "Both of them messed up, but he didn't resign from being God. And you're not going to resign from being pastor."
Dr. James Dobson: Oh, that's so wise.
Jentezen Franklin: And boy, it made me feel like I could go out and whip a pack of lions.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: And it strengthened my soul and my spirit. And I don't know who's listening to me today, but I just want to tell you that your children, I don't care how deep they're in addiction, I don't care how messed up it is, don't you ever stop praying and don't you ever stop reaching. I had to reach a point. We had to reach a point that we said, "I may not agree with how you're living, but you're mine and I love you. I want to eat a meal with you. I want to talk to you. I want to be on the phone with you. I want to hear from you. I will not let you not let me be in your life. I'm going to be in your life. I don't agree with what you're doing, I'm not going to fund what you're doing. But that doesn't mean that I don't want you in my house and in my life." And boy, when we…
Dr. James Dobson: A natural inclination is to strike out against those that have been embarrassed you and hurt you and wounded you.
Jentezen Franklin: That's it.
Dr. James Dobson: And it's to reject them. A truth of the matter is they never needed your love more than they need in a moment like that.
Jentezen Franklin: See, I didn't get that, Dr. Dobson. I'm ashamed to say it. It breaks my heart because I thought that my hardness, that the wrath of man would produce the righteousness of God. And never does. Only love. Love, never fails. It may take a week, it may take a month, it may take a year. In our case, about three years. It may take a lifetime, but love will never fail. The seed of love will produce a harvest in that child's life if you'll keep loving him. What do you do with a child if they come to you? I haven't known this, but I feel for people and I'm a pastor. I deal with these issues.
I have people come to me, "My child has told me they're gay. What do I do?" Do you just cut them off. Do you just, "I'm done with you. My God is so offended at the way you're living. I'm done with you." No, you love that child. You don't agree with it. And listen, sin is sin, but we don't have the right to be mean to people. The Bible never tells us to be mean and angry. It tells us to love even more in those times. And that's what God did for us. When we were estranged, when we were lost, when had no moral compass, He loved us and He loved us like we had never hurt Him. That's what Christ did on the cross. And that's what we're called to do for our own flesh and blood.
Dr. James Dobson: I'm sure a church as large as the one you minister to has a lot of people who are gay or lesbian or into other kinds of sin. And if you got them dead honest with you, they would tell you that they have been hurt. Most of them have.
Jentezen Franklin: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: By their peers who have called them names.
Jentezen Franklin: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: By their parents who haven't understood them and haven't-. Now, please, I want everybody understand, we're not condoning that lifestyle. I mean, the Bible is very clear.
Jentezen Franklin: Absolutely.
Dr. James Dobson: I don't care whether people like it or not, it's there. And it's sin, but it's no worse sin than a single person who's sleeping around. And in fact, that bothers me about when ministers say, "You're born that way and so God understands."
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: I don't believe that.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: You have to tell it like it is, you have to follow the word, but you don't have to be mean to people and you don't have to reject them and you can go on loving them. And that's what you're talking about, isn't it?
Jentezen Franklin: It is. Dr. Graham, one of his famous quotes, I know you were, I think you were at the funeral. I was at his funeral.
Dr. James Dobson: I was, yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: And I was so honored to be there. But they mentioned, or somebody did in one of the meetings there that one of his most famous quotes was, "We're to let God judge. We're to love and let God judge and let the holy spirit convict." And that's the thing. Let the holy spirit do his work. But the way that we reach them is to love them.
Dr. James Dobson: You remember during that funeral, what I considered to be the most emotional moment. And it was all emotional, Billy Graham and Ruth's children each spoke. And one of them was, I think it was Ruth.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Who got up and she said, "I went into sin and I many mistakes and I got into a bad marriage and it fell apart. And then I fell in love with somebody else and I got married and I didn't think my family would ever have anything to do with me again. And I felt so sinful and so saturated by not only sin, but my stupidity." I'm paraphrasing what she said. And then she tells about coming home to see her parents. And as she walked into the front yard, Billy Graham came out and he opened his arms and said, "Welcome home."
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah. She said, her dad, the greatest evangelist, the most famous preacher in the world was standing there with his arms, welcoming the prodigal home. The longer you live, the older you get, the more you realize that love never fails. If people know you love them, they're going to come back to that love. And I just want to encourage parents. One of the things that we talk about in the book is where Peter came to Jesus and said, "How many times do I forgive? How many times?" And he said, "Seven times, is that enough, Lord?" And Jesus said, "Seven times 70 in a day." And I've got a line in the book that says, "Forgiveness is not about keeping score, it's about losing count."
Dr. James Dobson: That's a chapter in the book in the fact.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah, We try to say, "Well, I'm going to keep score with this person and see how they do." But forgiveness is not about keeping score, it's about losing count. And the other big thing that I'd like to say today is sometimes it takes the worst things done to you to bring out the best in you.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Jentezen Franklin: In New Zealand, there's 40% of the birds that can't fly. They don't have wings because there's no predators on that island. And when there's no adversity, they never use the ability of their wings to fly. And a lot of times when God allows adversity to come into your life, it's to bring out the best in you. You're never going to fly and soar in your faith until you go through the adversity. That's where the wings are developed. That's where the strength, that's where you learn how to pray. That's where you learn how to use the word of God like a sword. That's where you learn how to hold on and see your family saved.
Dr. James Dobson: Let's go back to a comment you made in the book. And I think we've already mentioned it, but your acknowledgement that everybody will go through hurt. There's nobody. I mean, Jesus himself, considering his hurt and rejection in pain. And the one that can hurt you the most is the one you love the most. And what do you do? You spend the rest of your life hating? Wanting to strike back, attempting to hurt the other? I think it was Dr. Arch Hart who came here to this broadcast. He said, "Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me." Our inclination is to try to hurt that person who has hurt you. But love is what God would have us to do.
Jentezen Franklin: When I think about the fact that what Christ did for us on the cross. He said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." I asked a person, "Why can't you forgive this person?" And I'll never forget the answer they said, "Because I want vengeance." And I thought that was so truthful. The real issue of why we don't want to release a person is because we really want them to pay. But here's the thing, vengeance is not evil. Vengeance is not wrong. God said, "Vengeance is mine." There's martyrs in before the altar in heaven that are crying out, "Avenge our blood." So, if vengeance is sin, then there's sin in heaven, because they're asking for vengeance. The point is this, he said, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay." So when you forgive somebody, it's not like the wrong that they've done is just done away with. You relinquish it and put it in God's hands, "That's God's business. I'm going to let it go." And that's what I believe so many people need to hear is He's a just God.
Dr. James Dobson: The title of the book is, Love Like You've Never Been Hurt. Wonderful title by Jentezen Franklin. Cherise helped you write this book, didn't she?
Jentezen Franklin: She did. Yeah. It's the only book we've ever written together.
Dr. James Dobson: I just now saw that. Is that right.
Jentezen Franklin: Yeah, she sure did.
Dr. James Dobson: I hope our listeners will get a copy of this because it's universal. Like we said, it's everybody. Jentezen, I do feel like I've known you a long, long time, but it hadn't been that long. But I love you like a brother. And I appreciate you coming to be with us. That was a wonderful message today. And I hope it's reached out there and touched the very person who's hurting the worst and didn't think they'd ever be an answer. Blessings to your brother. May He continue to bless your wonderful ministry.
Jentezen Franklin: Thank you so much, Dr. Dobson, you are loved.
Roger Marsh: Wow. What an incredibly powerful and convicting conclusion to this two-part conversation between Dr. Dobson and Pastor Jentezen Franklin here on Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, and we hope that you have been encouraged these past couple of days and reminded of God's steadfast love and forgiveness. Jesus never said that loving our neighbors or forgiving our loved ones would be easy, but he did command us to do both of those things. And he promised that he would be with us every step of the way.
Now, if you want to learn more about Jentezen Franklin, his books, and his ministry, please visit our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. And if you missed any of this two part broadcast either today or yesterday, remember you can also find those installments there as well. Just go to drjamesdobson.org/broadcast, or you can give us a call. Our number is (877) 732 6825. That's (877) 732 6825. Thanks again for listening today. I'm Roger Marsh, and for all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, I hope you'll join us again next time for an another addition of Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.