All my life, at least as far as i’m concerned, i’ve felt misunderstood. What is even more interesting is that among many Christians i have met, i don’t know it but i’m fairly certain, many also feel largely misunderstood. What is up with that? It seems no matter how much i try, other people just don’t get me, and i’m left feeling pretty sad. Can you relate?
What started this ponderance upon being misunderstood actually began in a different conversation concerning belonging and connecting, and even though most say they belong and connect, at least somewhere, by far and large, if you’re allowed to ask and given an honest answer, those same people can’t actually tell what belonging and connecting mean, and they themselves don’t actually feel like they belong anywhere. Why? After many conversations i’ve also concluded that more people than i imagine feel largely misunderstood. There’s grief in it. The unbelonging and unconnected quietly suffer repeated longing for a connection that almost happened but didn’t. It’s kind of like being witnessed but without translation.
The phrase “the weight of being misunderstood” captures one of the quietest, heaviest burdens a person can carry. It’s not dramatic or loud like anger or grief — one author describe it as more like an invisible backpack you never asked for, one that grows more dense every time you realize your words, actions, or intentions landed somewhere entirely different from where you meant them to. Even in a room full of people, sometimes it feels like there’s this private exile where no one quite sees the version of you that actually exists. The more you try to clarify, the more tangled it all gets — i think it’s like trying to untie a knot with gloves on. And to make matters worse, people tend to fill silences with their own assumptions, fears, or stories, and your reality gets overwritten. We can try and reframe ourselves but our reframing doesn’t erase the immediate, human cost: the loneliness, the fatigue, and the temptation to just go quiet forever. i have been that lonely, tired person who just went quiet for a large part of my life. Yet God intervenes, He steps in. Thank you Jesus.
Being misunderstood comes with weights not wings. What will we do with that? Because being indifferent doesn’t actually solve the problem, and caring too much just makes us needy and will break us in half eventually. Being misunderstood is actually quite painful, it strikes at our core need to be seen, known, and accepted for who we really are, and when we aren’t seen, it triggers a whole cascade of difficult feelings to deal with. If our identity is not in Christ, well, then, who are you?
There is another side to the weight of being misunderstood that is strictly within our own responsibility and control, and that is when being misunderstood drives an addiction in us to be seen, the desire to be recognized and respected, to be important, to be admired and celebrated beyond us being wounded, it now becomes a driving need. We can be led by the Spirit, Luke 4, or be driven by darkness, Luke 8:29. Scripture says in Matthew 6 that “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly”, and when we turn the weight of being misunderstood into taking action for ourselves it can be very destructive. Kathryn Kulman once said, “We want the reward without acting in secret before God; we want the platform without the prayer life, we want the nobility without brokenness, and honor without humility.” Sitting in our sad place feeling alone and misunderstood is one thing, but when we decide to m-a-k-e people notice us, m-a-k-e people listen, and m-a-k-e them understand, little by little our desperation begins to sink our boat. Think! Leah was unloved and overlooked, Hagar was cast out and forgotten, Rahab was labeled by her past. All were misunderstood. It hurt. It gave them grief. But God has a better idea.
Maybe our propensity for feeling misunderstood is why God is also known as El Roi, God who sees me. The Biblical Counseling Coalition has this to say: “Over and over again, in the grand narrative of the Bible, God reveals Himself as the God who sees us personally and intimately, but the first time He reassures a struggler with this truth, she uses a new name for Him that seals this attribute as an unchangeable part of our understanding of God: El Roi.
Through Hagar’s story of pain and desperation, found in Genesis 16, God reveals Himself to be the One who knows us intimately, seeing our sorrows and struggles and caring about the specific details of our lives in ways that move Him. For Hagar, when life was as desperate as it could get, God saw her. It is more important that God sees us than all the platforms and titles in the universe. It is more important God understands us than if the whole world suddenly understood. For Hagar this was not the “seeing” like merely being observed, but rather, this was a “seeing” of inestimable, limitless love. God saw Hagar and Hagar knew she was seen. God saw her for who she was and God El Roi was gracious and kind to her by making her to know she was seen. Her despair of being completely unknown had turned into something amazing and new. El Roi, God who sees me made Himself known to her.
When she realized the King of the Universe knew her and saw her, she no longer needed to carry the invisible backpack full of the weight of being misunderstood. You know of course, on some low level, we are choosing to let the backpack ride. She saw with new eyes, her heart was strengthened, and courage replaced her bitterness, fear, and disappointment.
Don’t even let yourself blow off Hagar’s story because it’s Old Testament. Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”. Let us take courage from the story of Hagar and her encounter with El Roi, God who sees me. Hagar’s hope can become ours by the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.
And here’s a great angle to see this. Jesus was foreshadowed in Hagars story that she was seen by El Roi, and then Jesus came to us and got eye to eye with all mankind, all at once. For the first time in history God came to us and got eyelevel for one of several reason but this one in particular: so we would know God sees us. Jesus foreshadowed in Genesis 16 as being El Roi for one person, and then Jesus, getting eye level with us, being El Roi once and for all forever in the New Testament. Do you see it?
What if we decided that it was enough for us to be seen and understood by God, even if we’ve been misunderstood all our lives? God doesn’t misunderstand us, He sees us perfectly and clearly and loves us regardless of all the reasons we think He shouldn’t. It’s your lucky day! God didn’t ask you if it was ok to understand you and get eye to eye with you and love you beyond the vanishing point.
Would you be willing for God to break through a dark place in your life? Would you be willing to give up that invisible backpack of all your reasons to isolate, be sad and overwhelmed in feeling so completely misunderstood, there sitting on the back porch, staring at the garden and beyond, just wishing things were different? God can take your burden. Let…It….Go! Give Him your long woundedness of being misunderstood. Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
i’ll go with you on getting free if you want cause i’m in the same boat. Let us daily live in the reality that we are seen and known by Jesus, He’s the one who truly matters the most. El Roi, God who sees me.
I’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.