Have you ever noticed how we hear something powerful and immediately think, Someone else really needs to hear this?
Not us, of course. It’s always a brother-in-law. A cousin. A neighbor. That person on Facebook. The one who doesn’t get it.
I’ve watched this play out for years in churches, classrooms, therapy offices, and living rooms. The preacher is talking about loving your neighbor, about humility, about owning your own mess, and someone leans over and yells, “Amen. Preach it, brother.” Then later, they ask for the recording so they can send it to a relative who “needs it.” Rarely do we pause and think: Maybe this is for me.
I grew up around churches, and every now and then I still find myself back in one. One of my favorites was a church some of my family attend, a United Baptist Church, which has always felt like a bit of an oxymoron to me. Baptists aren’t exactly famous for being united.
This particular congregation carried a strong holiness influence. If you’ve ever been in that world, you know the style. The preacher doesn’t just preach. He performs cardio. Thirty minutes in, he’s soaked through his shirt, pacing, pointing, sweating, probably burning three pounds while delivering a sermon on righteousness. Arms flying. Voice rising and falling. The whole thing feels part revival, part CrossFit.
And the crowd is right there with him. “Amen!” “Tell it!” “Preach it, brother!”
But what always struck me wasn’t the energy. It was the direction of it. Every nod, every shout, every affirmation seemed aimed outward. Toward sinners. Toward society. Toward people who weren’t in the room. The sermon became a kind of spiritual ammunition. Something to deploy against others. Very little of it seemed to land inward.
That pattern isn’t limited to churches. I see it all the time in counseling, especially in couples work. I’ll be talking about communication, listening, or emotional responsibility, and both partners quietly assume I’m talking to the other one. One spouse nods, thinking, I hope you’re hearing this. Meanwhile, the other is doing the exact same thing. It’s almost predictable. Rarely does either pause or ask, What part of this applies to me?
We see it everywhere now. In our polarized culture, we’ve become experts at spotting flaws in other people’s thinking while remaining strangely blind to our own. We collect memes instead of insights. Tropes instead of curiosity. Labels instead of listening. And when we feel uncertain or insecure, we often look for someone we believe is beneath us… morally, intellectually, politically, so we can feel taller by comparison.
Psychology has a name for this. Social comparison theory tells us that when our sense of self feels shaky, we instinctively compare downward. It gives us a temporary boost. So does projection, where we place onto others the very qualities we struggle to admit in ourselves. It’s easier to flip the mirror outward than to sit with what we see when it points back at us.
From my sixty-plus years on this earth, here’s something I’ve come to believe: people on the far right and people on the far left often have more in common than they realize. Both tend to struggle with genuine self-examination. Both prefer certainty over curiosity. Both find comfort in tight in-groups that reward loyalty and punish nuance. And both have a hard time sitting in the gray. Because gray is uncomfortable. Gray requires humility. Gray asks us to admit we might be wrong, or at least incomplete. Gray forces us to hold complexity and to recognize that there are sinners and heroes on both sides, that even our perceived enemies occasionally get something right.
Certainty feels safer. Certainty gives structure and earns applause from your tribe. But we cannot grow with certainty. Insecurity sits underneath much of this. Insecurity about who we are. Insecurity about belonging. Insecurity about how we’ll be perceived by our group if we step out of line and say something generous about the “other side.”
For some people, offering even a small kindness toward their perceived opponents feels like betrayal. Yet real strength shows up differently. Real strength can say, “My side doesn’t have a monopoly on truth.” Real strength can acknowledge complexity without collapsing into cynicism. Real strength can be seen in the soul’s mirror before grabbing a megaphone.
There’s an old line attributed to Jesus about noticing the speck in your neighbor’s eye while ignoring the plank in your own. I don’t think he was just making a moral point. I think he was offering a psychological one. We are wired to externalize. Growth begins when we resist that wiring.
So, the next time you hear something profound, whether it’s from a preacher, a podcast, a friend, or a stranger online, try this small experiment. Before forwarding it to someone else, sit with it. Ask where it applies to you. Let it land.
Because the hard truth is this: the sermon probably isn’t meant for your cousin. Or your political opposite. Or that guy on social media. It’s meant for the person listening. It was meant for you.
And that’s where the real work starts.
Dr. Wesley