15.3 - When Truth Meets Resistance
(Based on John 15:18–27)
Preparing for the Storm
The night air carried his words.
If you've never walked through a vineyard at night, it's hard to imagine the quiet—the way each footstep snaps over pruned branches. He let us walk wordlessly for minutes, so that what he had just said could work its way deep into our being. The stars were out, but no one was looking up. We were all watching him—waiting for something easier to hear than what came next.
“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first” (15:18).
It wasn’t a threat. It was preparation—the kind good leaders give before the storm hits. Jesus wasn’t trying to scare us. He was inoculating us. Expect resistance, he was saying. Don’t draw false conclusions when it comes. We know now how powerful it is to name a challenge before it comes—something psychologists call cognitive framing. Jesus was doing that long before the term existed.
Expectation Management for the Soul
Preparation steadies the soul.”
I think now about how brilliant that was. Today, we’d call it expectation management or a tabletop drill. During my career at Marsh, our consultants would teach schools and companies how to run them, walking them through what to do when alarms sounded. Jesus was doing the same thing, but at the level of the soul. He was walking us through a spiritual emergency plan: Here’s what happens when truth meets misunderstanding. Here’s how you’ll stand when it does.
As a consultant, I had to learn to do the same—tell people the truth early, rather than cushioning it with hope or spinning it to sound good. We all want to believe things will go smoothly, but honesty, spoken in time, saves more pain than optimism ever can.
From David’s Lament to Jesus’ Love
What Jesus was saying wasn’t unlike what David sang three thousand years earlier. In Psalm 69, he poured out his loneliness: “I am a stranger to my brothers… they hated me without cause” (69:8,4). He was a man trying to live faithfully, yet he was being crushed for it. Jesus knew that song well; he quoted it that night (15:25). But where David asked God to erase his enemies, Jesus took a different turn—he prayed for his.
I’ve prayed both ways myself. Haven’t you? First, for the problem to vanish, the money to appear, the pain to leave. Then later, for the courage to face it differently. It’s strange how grace rewrites our prayers before it rewrites our world. That same tension—wanting relief but being shaped instead—shows up not only in prayer, but in how we handle those who oppose us.
“It’s strange how grace rewrites our prayers before it rewrites our world.”
The Subtle Faces of Hatred
That longing for transformation—for enemies to become friends—is where the real challenge begins. Because hatred doesn’t always come in the form of a fist, sometimes it’s just a cold dismissal or the quiet shutting of a door. Other times, it’s a misunderstanding that isolates you from the people you love. We still divide ourselves the same way people did then—into sides that glare across a line neither will cross. Democrats and Republicans. Pro-choice and pro-life. Protestant and Catholic. Baptist and Methodist.
I’ve seen it at dinner tables, church meetings, and scrolling headlines—the same reflex to choose sides, to defend, to dig in, to prove rightness louder than love.
Jesus didn’t condemn that reaction; he named it. “They have seen my works and yet they hate both me and my Father” (15:24). He knew that truth threatens the tidy systems we live by. When light hits the corners, we have two choices: open our eyes or shield them. The greater our fear of change, the harder we fight to keep it dark.
The Spirit of Truth Still Speaks
The same breath through time.
That’s why his words still sting. The Spirit of Truth isn’t some ghostly force hovering outside us; it’s the quiet presence that rises within, if we train ourselves to listen in our times of silence (15:26). The Spirit, our inner voice, doesn’t shout—it nudges. It questions when we’d rather not. It’s the voice that steadies you when you know you’re right to speak up, but your knees still shake. Of course, the Spirit is more than just our inner voice—but often, it begins there, in the quiet nudge we might otherwise ignore.
The Greeks once believed emotions came from possessing spirits. Eros, the god of Love. Nike, the god of victory. Phobos, the god of fear. Since then, we've learned that what moves us often comes from within, but that doesn’t make it less divine. The breath of the Creator and the breath within us are not two different winds. When truth stirs your conscience, when grace interrupts your anger, when the right words come at just the right moment—that’s the same Spirit moving through the ages, reminding us who we are.
“The breath of the Creator and the breath within us are not two different winds.”
From Insight to Character
Each time we notice the Spirit’s nudge and act on it, the insight becomes habit, habit becomes character. That’s the process—the truth moving from spark to substance, from awareness to action. It’s what John meant when he wrote of the Word becoming flesh.
The Real Witness
Jesus ended his comments not with a warning, but with trust:
“You will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (15:27).
He was saying, You’ve seen enough of love to recognize it when it rises in you again. That’s the real witness. As I read these words today, I think back to that night—the vines heavy with silence, the stars holding their breath as he spoke. The air itself seemed to know the weight of his words. David’s song ended in lament; Jesus’ in love. That’s the line we’re still learning to walk. The same God who heard David’s cries is still listening when truth costs us something.
So when the world misunderstands you for following the quiet voice of truth, don’t panic. You’re not broken; you’re in good company. David sang through it. Jesus walked through it. We all will. The hatred is not proof you’ve lost your way; it’s the wind pressing against a ship that’s still moving forward.
Resistance means you’re still moving.
“The hatred is not proof you’ve lost your way; it’s the wind pressing against a ship that’s still moving forward.”
To my grandchildren, and theirs:
When the world pushes back against the truth you carry, don’t dig in and demonize. Let resistance shape your courage, not your bitterness. Listen for that inner voice—it will never flatter you, but it will always steady you. You might hear it when you’re about to speak in anger, or when a stranger’s kindness stops you cold. Don’t dismiss it; that’s how the timeless truth still reaches through the noise of our messy, busy lives.
And when you speak or act from that place, know this: even if you stand alone, you are never truly alone. The same Spirit that spoke through the disciples spoke through your Grandfather and will speak in you still.
Living the Lesson
Truth isn’t learned by agreement alone; it’s practiced in the tension of everyday life.
Practice: Listening for the Spirit of Truth
This week, notice when resistance shows up. It might not be dramatic—maybe just a tightening in your chest when someone challenges you, or a quiet urge to defend yourself. When it happens, pause. Ask, What is being exposed here that I’d rather not see? That’s usually where truth begins its work.
In your next conversation, meeting, or moment of conflict, practice “tabletop honesty.” Speak what is true and necessary, without embroidery or edge. Let clarity do what comfort can’t. Jesus didn’t shield his friends from reality; he steadied them for it.
And finally, make room for silence. Even five minutes a day. Sit, breathe, and listen until the noise inside you softens. The Spirit of Truth rarely arrives with answers—it arrives as awareness. Keep company with that awareness long enough, and it will begin to shape your words, your tone, and your courage.
Key Takeaways
Expect resistance; it means you’re alive to truth.
Jesus prepared his followers through honesty, not illusion.
Grace matures our prayers from relief-seeking to transformation.
Division is inevitable; love is optional—but powerful.
The Spirit’s whisper, when followed, turns awareness into character.
