Can God's Love Be Real? What If My Real Dad Was Just Abusive?

This episode opens with Candace welcoming pastor Francis Chan for the first of a six-week series built around his book Beloved and the theme of God's love. The two share history going back to Candace's teenage years at Cornerstone Church, and that context shapes the conversation from the start. Francis has written several books, including Crazy Love, and Beloved is the anchor for everything this season covers.

A lot of this episode focuses on Francis's early life. His mother died when he was born, his father gave him up, and he was raised by his grandmother in Hong Kong before being returned to his dad at age five. Francis remembers arriving in a home where he felt like an interruption, not speaking English, with older siblings who didn't know what to do with him. His stepmother died in a car accident when he was seven, and his father died when he was twelve. Francis connects that history directly to the reason he wrote Beloved: accepting a holy, sovereign, judging God came naturally to him, but believing that God personally loved him was something else entirely.

Candace comes to the conversation from a different starting point. Growing up with a loving earthly father, she says she absorbed God's love almost by default and never stopped to think too deeply about whether it was real or not. She reflects that believing something and actually sitting inside it aren't the same thing. Francis responds that this is its own kind of distance, and that he sometimes tells his own children he worries they'll miss out on the particular dependence on God that came from having no one else

to rely on. The episode closes with a listener theology question from Vicky about Moses interceding when God threatens to destroy the Israelites. Vicky asks how a sovereign God who knows everything can be genuinely angry about things He already knew would happen, and whether Moses actually changed the outcome. Francis points to Isaiah 55, acknowledges the tension honestly, and draws out what the passage teaches about prayer, intercession, and how scripture uses narrative to communicate what neat answers alone can't.

Connect with Candace and Francis

Candace on Instagram @candacecbure

Follow the Podcast on Instagram @candacecameronburepodcast

Follow the Podcast on TikTok @ccbpodcast

Francis on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/DWT8kswCPMj/

Francis on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@CrazyLoveMinistries

Website: https://www.crazylove.org/

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