“I just don’t understand”: What it says about me

“I just don’t understand how…”

I heard it again this week from someone else. This is after hearing it more times than I could count with someone else’s conflict.

Sure, there are times when this phrase fits in an argument. I could’ve used it, say, when my son this morning initially refused to clean off the stovetop because he only put the grease there, not the crumbs.

This was after I had been cleaning up others’ messes for about an hour while he slept before school.

I may have flipped my lid…?

This is an occasion where I could see myself saying (or may have indirectly said?), I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how you do not see yourself responsible for being your brother’s/sister’s/I-don’t-care-who’s keeper to clean up their few crumbs, yet see me as responsible for yours.

But I digress.

“I just don’t understand” how you could be that dumb

I’ve recently heard “I just don’t understand” in contexts like this:

I just don’t understand why this person doesn’t want my feedback.

Man, I don’t understand how someone can’t just be responsible for themselves.

I just don’t understand how all those idiots can vote for [name].

Really?! I don’t understand how someone can be a true Christian/American/thoughtful human and support [whatever].

So if you will allow my two cents: In general, “I just don’t understand” doesn’t feel like a waving banner of emotional maturity. For us. For our kids.

And it is killing us–as a nation, and even as a Church.

Because We’ve Been Understood

Allow me one Scriptural defense. In Philippians 2, catch the source of our compassion for others: It’s Jesus’ compassion and understanding of us.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 

complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

What if Jesus had just been like, I just don’t understand how you could [insert disgusting or just reprehensible weakness]. 

It’s our intimate, I’ve-lived-this knowledge of Jesus’ own sympathy with us that helps us walk a mile in someone else’s Chuck Taylors. We’ve felt this God-man who is “not…unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).

(Not to be confused with the Jack Handy quote: “Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes.” Forgive me, people. It’s Friday.)

Jesus gets us. He climbed into our skin.

“Can you really not see it?!”

My husband pointed out to me once that if we can’t see how someone else CANNOT SEE something (hello, the underwear lying next to the hamper? The toilet paper sitting on top of the holder?), it could be a sign it’s a God-given area of strength for us.

If you can’t figure out how a person in poverty can’t show up for a job–maybe it’s a sign you haven’t had parents who struggled to remain employed. That you’ve never known illiteracy or life without private transportation or mental illness or the vise of addiction.

I confess that for a few years in Africa, I had thoughts like this. (Spoiler: Still have them.)

When I saw the grocery-store stocker snoozing, perched on a crate in the aisle, I thought: lazy.

But what if, along with the maybe-or-maybe-not paycheck, I was the one turning over on the ground at night in a noisy, dangerous neighborhood? What if I served 12 hours as a night guard as my second job while attending classes during the morning for a better shot at providing for my kids?

Could that person actually be hardworking, and caught in a moment of exhaustion? (Picture me dozing in church during my first trimester.)

See, my swift judgment—maybe sweetly called “discernment” or righteous indignation—has prevented me at times from witnessing God’s beauty and glory in others.

I’m talking the breadth of his image as expressed in a robust, diverse Church, drinking in his wide mercy right along with me. A beauty different from God’s Western, female, middle-class, Caucasian image in me.

What’s some behavior or belief you just can’t understand?

Now, when I catch “I just don’t understand” about to fly out of my mouth–I think, Shoot. Haven’t even tried. Or at least not hard enough.

Maybe I could think, Jesus, thanks for “getting” me. No matter what. And, How can I raise kids who “get” everybody else?

How can I listen to you better?

And in a season where so often I hear “I just can’t understand” the people who watch Fox or CNN, or vote red or blue, or protest or don’t:

If we can’t understand?

For goodness’ sake. Let’s try.

Like this post? Check out

• Navigating Political Polarization in Your Family
• Spiritual Life Skills: 10 Ways to Teach Compassion (with book list!)
• End Racial Discrimination. Start at Home, with These Ideas
• Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Living in Community