Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
All right. We are excited. Everybody is with us today. I am Ben.
I'm Spencer.
And we're joined by Les Kronk, the other half of Laura Kronk.
How deep.
Yeah, yeah. It was the only matter of time before we got you here.
He's a busy, busy man, so we had to finagle his schedule to get him here.
I appreciate your flexibility.
Oh, man, if you've ever seen me stretch, you know that I have no flexibility.
So I wouldn't have hurt my back a few years back if I had more flexibility.
So we are in our new series on the spiritual gifts.
And last week we had a conversation with Brian Qualls from the Salvation Army about how the foundation of everything is love God and love other people.
And he says that the foundation, if you're going to operate in any sort of spiritual capacity, we're talking about healing and tongues and prophecy and deliverance ministry and everything that kind of goes with that, it has to come from a foundation of love God and love other people.
Is this foundation isn't right? Nothing else is going to work, which then carries into the next piece.
When you say you love God and love other people, the only way to actually love God is to actually be in relationship with God.
And so we were like, well, you really talk about what does it mean to actually hear the voice of God?
Because I think sometimes when we say hear the voice of God, we're like, I was walking down the street and there was a burning bush.
And a voice said, the black ground you're standing on is holy. And I was like, it's actually a McDonald's parking lot. I'm not sure that it's fit qualifiers.
And how many times have we really wished that would be the case? It's like, I'd really like a burning bush right now.
But that's not really the case. That's not really how it works. And that's not to discount. There are people who have those moments.
In fact, when we were doing the women through church history, I was talking about the lady from the Muslim lady, Bilkis.
And she was talking about how Jesus actually showed up in a physical manifestation for her conversion.
So like these type of things happen. And currently in Afghanistan and a lot of these places that are struggling under a lot of persecution,
Muslims actually talk about that in the desert and they actually have Jesus show up and they say, my followers are coming in a couple of days.
And so these Christians show up and they're like, oh, yeah, he told me he told you about me. So these are things happening today.
So like I don't want to discount like those things happening because they do happen. Absolutely. But I don't think that they happen all the time.
It's not the rule for the churches and for our relationships that we're used to.
And I think generally God speaks in a much more subtle way. And we're meant to more have a life in tune with him.
And so with that in mind, I want to step back and I want to go back to and talk about some things in scripture as like hearing the voice of God.
And like my first story that I always think of when we talk about hearing the voice of God is actually the story of Samuel and Eli.
So if you're not familiar with that story, it's in first Samuel and Samuel is the son of Hannah.
And and she he is dedicated to the temple because she's been praying for a son forever.
And she says that she's going to dedicate her son to ministry.
And so he is now apprenticing under Eli and his very corrupt children.
As Samuel is growing up, he is going to sleep and he hears somebody call Samuel and he runs and he asks Eli, hey, what do you want?
He's had to say anything, go back to bed. It sounds very much like a conversation I'd have with my five year old.
Yeah, I didn't say anything. I heard a sound. I'm sure you did.
What any chance the sound was you, James? Yeah, it's pretty good.
She had the same conversations. But if he came four times, I'd be like, he's also calling my name.
I'd be like, God's probably calling your name, which is actually what Eli realizes.
And Samuel calls out and God starts to tell him about the plans of what he's going to actually be unfolding in Israel.
And I think sometimes being raised in Sunday school, this is the kind of conversation we expect God to have with us when we say, hear the voice of God.
That's what you want it to be. Yeah. That level of clarity. Yeah.
There's no ambiguity there. No. But I don't think that's necessarily what we actually get.
And that's not to say that we don't have those moments because when I was moving back up to Alaska,
there was a very clear moment where I'm not sure that God spoke audibly, but he may as well have.
Because it was very clear, like I can actually recount the entire conversation of what God told me and what I said to him and what he said back to me in the entire conversation,
that it was very clear like he had a plan of what we needed to do. But I don't think it was audible, but it might as well have been.
Well, to describe that, it's hard to put that in terms. We think of audible, the voice, a loud voice that you're going to hear.
In my brain, that's exactly what it sounds like. It is like you and I talking right now. Yeah. I'm hearing that voice and yet there's no sound.
Yeah. And yet it is crystal clear in your mind. Yeah. And that isn't always, that's one of the ways that you get to hear from God.
And it's good to have that kind of experience. I think of Elijah where he's up on the mountain and the wind, the fire comes, storms come, all that.
God's not in it. And it's still a small voice. And it actually ties back over to Psalm, in Psalms where it says, we still know that I'm God.
If you actually look at the verses before that, it's talking about the chaos of the world.
He's like, there's mountains that are going to crumble, oceans are going to rise, there's wars, all this stuff. And then you get to 46, 10, and it says, be still and know that I am God.
Like the world around us can just be absolutely chaotic. And what we still have to do is take time to be still, know that he is God and listen to his voice.
Quiet the noise. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think one of the great missteps that I've heard in, and I'm going to pick on Pentecostals just a little bit because I go to a Pentecostal church now, so I feel like I'm allowed to.
Is I allowed to? Yeah. Is I've heard people talk about, they're like, you really, when you want to learn things about God, you need to just sit and talk to God.
And I was like, okay, yes. But when you're learning to hear the voice of God, you need to know the word of God so that you know who's talking.
And I actually think that if you believe, because there's going to be people who are listening who don't necessarily believe that God speaks in that way, that he only speaks to the word of God, like the written Bible.
That's okay. We're going to disagree because experience. But if that's how God is speaking to you, that's great.
Like you should lean into that. But Pentecostal conservative alike, knowing and embracing the word of God, knowing the character of God throughout the Bible,
is going to be incredibly important in hearing the voice of God because you're going to hear voices in your life one way or another.
And the only way to differentiate is this God or is this the world? Is this Satan? Is this the flesh? To quote from Paul, is how does this compare to the word of God and the heart of God throughout the word of God?
Yeah. And getting to know someone's voice takes time. Yeah. So we're all married here, right? At least I think we're all married.
That's when I left home this morning. At the time of this publishing, we'll see.
But the first time I met Lindsay, who now is my wife, the next time I saw her, I probably would not have been able to pick her voice out of the crowd.
But then as I got to know her more now, we've been married nine years now, it's like I walk into a room and I don't even have to see that she's there.
I can hear her voice and make that out of the crowd. But that takes time. It's not like that didn't come overnight. That takes time.
And the same can be said with a relationship with a father or guardian or parent or whatever.
Like I walk into a room, I can recognize my dad's voice or I can recognize my mom's voice.
Yeah, but it wasn't always that way. So my kids are a little bit younger than yours and much younger than yours.
But when I first brought James home, he did not care about anything that didn't have boobs because their baby's breastfeed.
Hopefully this isn't shocking for people who are listening. Like most of what they care about is sleeping, pooping and eating. That's it.
And so when he found out that dad doesn't have food, he was much less interested.
I'm done with you.
Yeah, unless you do not have what I need. Where is the one who has the milk?
And but as he grew older, you know, and especially as we got into like different types of food, what I started to notice is that when I would enter into a room, he didn't care.
He was looking for mom. He was looking for the smell, the sound of mom.
But you start getting a month in and I would come in, I'd start talking and he would kind of move his head a little bit to where I am.
And then he gets a little older, more talking and he starts to now I would talk and he gets that little grin on his face because he recognizes who entered the room.
Now to the point where James and I have conversations, not always intelligible. Like sometimes he says things I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what that means.
But and that's not even where our relationship is going to end. We're going to continue to grow. He's going to continue to grow.
He's going to be able to share with me like his unique ideas. I'm going to be able to give him like ideas and talk back.
I actually wrote about this in If Anybody Cares. I'm actually writing a book, but I wrote about this in my first chapter about my experience with my son.
I think the scary thing that I see with the church is many of us in the church global never get beyond the point where we recognize God walked in the room.
Yeah. Jesus said my sheep know my voice. It comes from a relationship.
Yeah, we have to have that relationship. We have to you and Lyndon built that relationship. You know her voice.
James is you have that relationship and that comes from time and that comes from time and the word to build that relationship. That's what we have to do.
And everything that we hear from God has to accord with that word.
And sometimes we hear that voice. We don't even realize we're hearing that voice. Right. And it gets instilled in us.
So when Lindsay was pregnant with our daughter, like I would I would talk to the baby and baby still in the womb.
And then when when Denver was born, I walked into the nursery and asked the nurse how she was doing and Denver just flipped her head around and just just she's like, I know that voice.
I know that voice. I know that from somewhere. And she hasn't listened since.
Pretty much. If you know if you know my kid now, you'd be like, yeah, she's so good.
My daughter is she's either going to rule the world or burden or end up in prison. One of the two. That's that's probably the two options.
I have a man. Oh, man. She's a Spitfire.
Knowing that voice and listening to that voice and obeying that voice, there are all the different. Yeah.
And then there's a lot of to your point, like relationship and practice and like putting into practice, learning how to hear the voice.
I know that sounds really strange, but like you can't learn somebody's voice without spending time with it.
Yeah, there's a book Dallas Willard. I don't know if you guys are familiar with him.
He is was a writer and philosopher and theologian. Yeah.
And he wrote a book called Hearing Hearing the Voice, Hearing God's Voice, Hearing the Voice or Hearing God's Voice is one of those two.
And he just go walks through some very practical steps of developing a practice of listening to God and and conversing with God and what some people's experience and like how that has been and what his personal experience has been.
And I think it's an incredibly helpful book. You're probably not going to like everything in it.
That's pretty normal, but it's an incredibly helpful book because I was I was reading John Mark Comer's recent book, Practicing the Way.
And you and I were have a discussion about this before you were preaching this last week.
But he was talking about bringing an apprentice and basically being a student of Jesus, choosing to be a follower of Jesus, not not simply being a fan, but actually being a disciple of.
He told me to comment about the disciple is not a verb, it's a noun.
Yeah. So you can't actually disciple somebody.
Somebody has to choose to be a disciple. Yeah.
Side note, the Dallas Woolard book is called Hearing God, Hearing God.
Thank you. So that that will I will edit that all out and I'll sound very into.
No, I'm just kidding. But he was talking about how disciple is a noun and not a verb.
And so you don't actually like we say, who are you discipling?
That's a weird thing to say. That'd be like saying, who are you Christianing?
Somebody is a Christian and then you're feeding into their life.
Or you're or you're helping them to develop and like pastors we've talked about are built to equip the body for service.
But ultimately, each person in the body is responsible for choosing to be a disciple.
And so then he says, he says one of the reasons he calls it practicing the way is because you don't know what you're doing yet.
And so the only way to get better is to practice, put things into practice.
In fact, he takes it from Jesus's statement in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, if somebody hears these words of mine and puts them into practice.
They're like a person who built their house on solid foundation.
It's interesting to me, I think that people want to jump to what I want to call the the fancy or the the engaging stuff, the exciting stuff.
We talk about walking on water, turning water into wine, feeding the five thousand blind having sight, the deaf hearing.
But we forget about Jesus withdrew to lonely places.
Right. Like there's there's a good portion of the Bible where it says Jesus withdrew, Jesus withdrew and Jesus spent all night praying, communing with God.
Now, I have this suspicion that if Jesus Christ, God made flesh, thinks it's important to commune with God, it might be important for you and me.
No question. Yeah, that comes back to that relationship.
And the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is is the perfect relationship that we have an example to look to.
And but Jesus, as flesh, needed that time to build that relationship, to tune in to that voice.
You know, he could hear the Father better than anyone, but he did it.
He still needed that time. Yeah.
I mean, bringing this back to just as an example, as married married individuals here, like if I never spent any time with my wife, would our relationship get better?
No, no, no.
And if anybody's listening and they're like, well, it depends.
I was like, no, there's no it depends on this situation.
Like, no, not until you're older.
But there you go, Ben. You're welcome.
But if you have a relationship, yeah, just I got to fill in less because he was looking confused.
I was letting it go.
It was not directed at you.
But as we get older, I mean, as we spend more time in relationship with individuals, it takes more and more time to have that relationship go deeper and deeper.
It's kind of like an inverted pyramid. Yeah. Right.
Like, I'm friendly with a lot of people. Yeah, I am.
I am like have passing knowledge of less. Not less. Sorry.
But your name is less. So that doesn't help.
But there's only a few people that I like on my top rung.
The deeper I get in relationship, the fewer people there are.
And in order to go into that next deeper portion of relationship requires so much more to get there.
I mean, you're right.
Like, it's an inverted. It's like it's not going to require the same amount of effort to go from zero to one as it is from one to two.
Yeah. And I can add having been in a relationship for 50 years, married for over 45, Laura's and my relationship is amazingly close.
There's our communication level, our understanding, our personal space is it's absolutely amazing on how we just communicate and we connect and we bonded.
We don't need the it comes from spending all that time together.
Yeah, it does.
And so no matter what's going on, there are no there's no walls.
There's no boundaries between us. There's nothing that's unshareable.
Because we've been through all that. Yeah.
And that's what our relationship and I've and I've learned this the hard way many a time in my relationship with the Lord to the intimacy is very similar.
We can't have any walls and barriers between us.
And when we go through a difficult time in a crisis, either in our personal relationship or relationship with the Lord, once that is torn down and you've broken through that,
you're that much closer and that much closer.
And I can tell you, being this close at this point in time, it's phenomenal.
I mean, we have an amazing relationship after all these years.
That's what we have to work on for the Lord, too.
Yeah. So frequently in the Bible, I hopefully it's not breaking anybody's brain who's listening that God speaks in the Bible.
And he spoke in the Old Testament, he spoke in the New Testament and all throughout church history, there's many a cases of people, people talking about God speaking.
Right. Yeah. Even into, like I said, modern day Afghanistan, like Jesus is literally showing up for people. Right.
So the reality is you can you can have this perspective that God is not currently speaking, but most of the evidence doesn't fall on your side.
So you have to figure out, OK, is God not speaking or am I not listening, which is usually the bigger problem.
I have been especially with my Sabbath practice and different things over the last few years, I've been focusing more on learning how to listen to God in my prayer time.
Talk less, listen more. What does God actually want to say into the situation?
Not what do I think needs to be done? Yeah. Turns out his ideas are better than mine.
I found that to be true. You found his ideas are better than mine.
Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the Old Testament, like there's there's stories and I really wish I knew how God spoke.
So you have got coming to Abraham and saying, I need you to go out to this place.
OK, was that an audible voice? Was that an impression? Did he send him a letter?
You know, there's no real indication in the text. It says God spoke to Abraham.
I don't know exactly what that means. Yeah. You know, he came to Noah and he says, you need to build an ark.
And like, what was that? Was that a vision? Was that a dream?
You know, sometimes we have visions and dreams like you have Joseph being sent in a dream about Mary. Right.
You have Jacob having a dream and where there's the angels ascending and descending.
Joseph was another. Well, both Joseph's. Yeah, both Joseph's Joseph in Egypt.
Egypt's in the Old Testament was the other one. Yeah.
God makes it. He knows us very well. He knows who we are and he makes it personal.
He's going to speak in a language that you understand. Yeah.
He is not going to give me visions or examples and pictures of out on a golf course playing golf because that's not something I do.
OK, so he's going to speak in something that makes sense to me.
Any visions I've had, dreams I've had, it is going to be in something that's meaningful to me.
There are some people that they you want a confirmation of what you're feeling from is from the Lord.
And you're going to get that in the way that you seek out and look for that. Yeah.
If I need to seek counsel and I want to talk to you guys about, you know, this is what I'm feeling.
And that's what I normally do is seek wise counsel. Then that wise counsel is going to give you what the Lord they're feeling the Lord's onto it.
Each one of us has our way of listening and hearing.
And it's going to be it's going to be fairly clear and specific in a language, be it pictures, be it words, be it dreams that you're going to understand.
Yeah. Henry Blackby, we've referenced experience of God's study in the past.
He has the seven realities learning to hear and do the will of God.
And so funny thing about Henry Blackby as a Pentecostal is that he's a Southern Baptist or was a Southern Baptist.
He unfortunately passed recently. But if you are if you are a non Pentecostal who is listening or even a Pentecostal,
I think there's a lot that is valuable in the experience in God series because he talks about God speaks through the word and circumstances by the Holy Spirit,
through the word circumstances, the church and like the relationships around you.
And one of the things that he cautions in there, which I completely agree is when you take one of these things and they don't line up with any of the others.
So God's not going to speak to one of what about knowing the word of God.
God's not going to speak to you something that's complete opposition to the character of God in the Bible.
And there would have to be some really, really extreme examples.
For example, when you have Abraham taking Isaac to the top of the mountain, God is doing something very specific with Abraham.
Most of us aren't going to be called to go to climb a mountain and sacrifice our son.
Yeah. Don't think that's on the agenda. That's not really on the agenda.
That's not really what's happening. But God is telling Abraham's agenda.
You know, it wasn't. At some point, we'll we'll get into that story because it's a really like what God is doing.
There's a very interesting and it's and it's there's some really great imagery and things that God is teaching Abraham.
But that's not what most of us are going to get.
And so generally, God's not going to call you to do something that's outside of what he is doing.
And if he does, I guarantee you it's going to be loud and specific because God is doing something very specific.
Yes. So by like knowing the word of God, it's like so if somebody says, well, God told me that I need to go and rob this convenience store.
I'd be like, no, he did not. No, he did not. Right.
Like there is a way to test the word. And I think that as people call to be kingdom of priests to the world,
royal priesthood, that is our responsibility to learn the voice of God and also test that we're actually hearing the voice of God.
I doubt God's going to get mad at you that you're testing to make sure you heard him right.
I don't get annoyed because James comes back and he's like, OK, I want to make sure that I understood you correctly.
I get annoyed when he's like, OK, I know what I'm supposed to do.
And I was like, I'm not going to do it. You know, and even then I don't get super annoyed because he's a five year old.
He's learning. Right. And maybe. So what's our excuse? What's our excuse?
I mean, can we be can we be perfectly honest? A lot of the church are toddlers. Yeah.
I don't want I don't I'm not trying to be mean. No, that's fine. That's just where we're at.
And God loves you desperately. But he also wants you to grow up.
But don't grow up too fast. There's a process in growing up.
Like just because you're a toddler today, grow into an adult tomorrow.
I mean, I had to convince my five year old this morning that cake is not breakfast.
But pancakes are much different than the flavoring a little more sugar.
Yeah. So I had to convince her. I was like, no, we need to eat some real quote unquote real food.
Yeah. Just cake. But if you make it into a cupcake and you take the the frosting off, now you've got a muffin, which is breakfast.
Now, now we're here to help.
I'm going to I'm going to start giving giving Denver her talking points for you in the morning.
I don't know. She doesn't need it. She seems to be pretty good.
But no, you're right. Like she like that's one. And could you eat it for breakfast? Yes.
Is it going to be good for you? No, no.
This is one of those things also where you come into like Paul's thing.
Like everything is permissible, but not everything's beneficial.
Just because you can eat cake for breakfast doesn't mean that you should.
Yeah. Once in a while, it probably be fine.
But if you eat cake for breakfast every day, I got news for you.
There's a big thing called diabetes. But this is what we on its way for you.
This is what we do as believers. We were like, OK, I'm going to have that thing that looks good and delicious for breakfast.
Maybe there's something else we need that's actually going to sustain us longer.
That's going to be healthier for us. That's going to maybe enact change in our life.
Because, I mean, let's let's be real. Like breakfast is a bad example for me because I like I like sausage, eggs, that type stuff.
But let's let's be real. If it come lunchtime, if it's like, hey, have a nice salad or have a delicious piece of cake.
Like my gut is saying my taste buds are saying, hey, that cake looks really good right now.
Yeah. But my my stomach, my guts like no go for the salad. That's going to be way better.
And so what we we do that where we see what's appealing to the eye, just like just like Eve did.
Adam and Eve did in the garden. We're like this fruit is appealing.
And then took of it. And we've had problems ever since.
So I'll be really careful with I'm about to say, because I think somebody could take one I'm about to say and run the wrong way with it.
But when God's with you and you're going to lunch and you say I have cake and I have salad.
But your long term plan is that you need to run a marathon.
And God says, no, you need to eat the salad. I know the cake looks delicious, but it won't prepare you for what's coming.
Sometimes we in the in the prophetic and in the in the spiritual gifts, we're looking for the cake.
And we forget that we need to actually eat the salad.
We'll pray for healing. We're like, I don't understand why God didn't do something here.
And he knows what's coming and he knows what it's preparing you for.
Now, the reason I want to specify this is I think somebody could hear this and say, oh, I'm sick because God's choosing not to heal me for my own good.
That's not what I want to say, because I'm not God. I don't sit in that chair.
I think that we believe that God's going to heal every time. God's going to move every time.
We believe in the goodness of God. And when he doesn't, we know that he's still good.
But there are things that I have learned in chaos with God walking with me that prepared me for something that was coming.
Right. I've talked on the podcast a couple of times about my church, church.
I'm going to call it trauma. Yeah. The church, one of the churches that I served in that was like incredibly unhealthy.
And it was a long time that God didn't release us from being there.
Like I wanted to leave and but God was very clear to me that God wasn't letting us leave.
Now, on the flip side, God did eventually release us. And then I was stubborn and stayed.
That didn't end up well either. But the reality is that I know that because I stayed in that situation where I was doing some things,
it actually prepared me that five years, five, seven years later, I ran into a situation that because I had been in that situation.
Yeah. I handled completely differently than I would have otherwise.
And it wasn't that God caused it. But what he did do was he took something that I was right,
right in the middle of and he used it for my good and for the good of the kingdom in the future that I'm already going to be in this situation.
Let's learn something while we're here. Yeah. I can give you many examples of that in my little bit longer life than you guys.
And I've learned those lessons. I'll even say the hard way, but probably the one I will share is regarding my wife,
who has had lots of health issues over time and we prayed for healing continually and and it hasn't happened the way we wanted it to.
And yet looking back in her conversations with the Lord and where she's at now, it's like, OK, would you have rather I healed you right then?
Or would you or were the hundred other miracles, a little miracles along the way more important?
And who she is today as a person and as a, you know, amazing human being is because of that process and that growth.
And so it was it was, you know, was it easy along the way? No. Does it change faith in God? I pray for healing every single time.
And God and I've argued when he hasn't done it. I lose. But and he also knows that I trust him.
Well, he's totally fine with that argument. He is exactly afraid to say that. I don't like how this worked out.
It's not I didn't like that this person just passed away. Yeah, that doesn't work well for me, but not my call.
And I trust him because he's got right. Yeah. And there's so many things that like there's no way for us to actually see all the facets that God does.
And I think to your point, especially what you're talking about with Lauren and like the health stuff,
because you've prayed for other people, you saw them get healed. You've seen God do it. So it's not like you're not confused. Can God do it?
There is there is Dominique brought it up. But there's a there's a section in and that I thought that they illustrated really well in The Chosen in the TV show
where Nathaniel is talking about like, why are all these people like I'm even part of facilitating all these people's healing. What about me?
Yeah. And Jesus, you know, Dallas obviously wrote it, but like as the character of Jesus, answer him in that in that story.
And like that's just by the way, don't take that as doctrine. That's just a illustration of a way that you can interpret it.
Dallas is trying to help us understand, like understand a biblical idea of how do you how do you deal with suffering, knowing God can heal all things.
But here's the thing. We as parents let our kids quote unquote suffer. Right.
Because like, OK, so James, the other day, he did not want to eat his yogurt, but he wanted to go and have another piece of cheese. Right.
Now you're like, OK, what's the big deal? Because the kids basically made of cheese at this point. Right.
Like this way, he's basically made of cheese and we needed some different types of protein, different types of different things.
So yogurt and then there's some other things on his plate that we needed to eat.
So we say, hey, this is this is your food. And he I mean, the way you heard him talk, you would think that we were torturing him.
It's not fair. You're unfair is what he said.
You know, and I said, we're actually very fair considering we bought all the food and we're preparing the food and we're feeding you.
You have more than enough. And he's like, and he cries. That's the end of the world. Right.
Yep. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm ashamed of it, but I'm not too proud to admit that that's definitely been me and God at times.
I'm like, you don't get it, God, this situation, you know.
And yet, if in that moment he'd given me cake, then I would never be spiritually where I am today.
We we see on, I'll say three dimensions, we barely see on two dimensions to the time.
God sees on a hundred different dimensions over a timeline we can't fathom.
And so there's so many situations and I've I've got examples as well.
But we were this happened here and I didn't know.
I mean, I never understood why that happened. And I struggled with it.
Twenty years later, I look back and go, oh, wow. Yeah.
Because where am I at now? And you can just see the threads all tied together over this big, huge, complex maze that we don't understand.
And it just what it does is just grounds you deeper in understanding who God is and leaning into that and listening to that.
And that helps you trust his voice and know his voice.
So going back to the Bible, there is in the beginning, God creates this garden and he tells man to go and fill it.
Man and woman together, go fill, be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth, fill it, you know, expand the garden.
Doesn't end well. I don't know if you've read Genesis three.
It doesn't end well. And then in in the Mosaic covenant, when God comes to Moses and they're at Sinai, he says, now you're going to actually create a space and I'm going to fill that space.
And what says when they actually created the the Mishka, the temple in the desert, that fire falls down, the people fall down on joyful faces and they say the Lord is good, his love endures forever.
That actually happens one other time in the in the Old Testament happens in Chronicles when Solomon opens up the permanent temple.
Fire comes down again, the people fall and they say the Lord is good, his love endures forever.
There's something about the presence of God. They create a space and God fills it.
Yeah. In the New Testament, in the Book of Acts, God opens up a new temple at Shavua, what we call Pentecost, where he now has the people of God built together into a temple and he fills them with the Spirit of God.
Yeah. And there's this inherent invitation in the text that God says, if you create a space in your life for me, I'm going to come in and I'm going to fill it.
And so when we talk about hearing the voice of God, I think it could be really difficult for people because they're like, what does that mean?
Sometimes people hear God in impressions. Sometimes they hear him in pictures. Sometimes they have dreams. Sometimes people hear him audibly.
Sometimes people hear him in their brain. There's a lot of different ways that people hear God because God is a masterful communicator and we're all kind of different.
Correct. The three of us in this room right here, very different people.
Yeah. God's going to speak differently to all of us. Sometimes there's going to be overlap.
Yeah. But the only way to guarantee to actually be able to hear from God is you got to practice and create space.
Correct. There is a couple of practices. I'm going to lay out a couple of things and see what you guys have to say of some ideas about how do people create space in their life.
Finding a way to set your phone aside, away, off, and going out and being able to sit somewhere that you don't have somebody to talk to and you don't have stuff to play with.
And you can take the Bible. You can take maybe a journal and a place that you can write.
But I want you to go out there and be there for an hour just quietly, an hour before you start even reading the Bible.
Like you need to just sit there and get your brain to stop talking. This is the thing for me because my brain won't stop talking.
And then you start to press in to God and start to talk and listen.
You might be surprised what you actually hear at that point.
So we're in Alaska. A lot of people haunt. And if you're listening and you're like, oh man, that's awful. I'm sorry. That's Alaska. That's how it goes.
But I had some family up deer hunting this last year. And I got one friend set up in a spot to look for some deer. First thing he does is down on his phone.
And he's like, oh yeah, I'm just watching. And I'm like, not for deer. You're not. Right. He's just out there down on his phone.
And it was one of those things where I was like, we were up on this ridge. We were overlooking this valley. It was gorgeous.
Perfect spot. It was gorgeous. It was beautiful. The scenery was good. Over the over the valley. You could see the you could see some some of the ocean.
Like it was just gorgeous out. And he's looking at a head buried in his phone. Yeah. All right.
We miss the splendor, the glory when we don't set when we don't take time to set things aside to be intentional.
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like if I if I take my wife out to dinner and I'm just looking at my phone the whole time.
Yeah. We're going to have some fun conversation when we get home.
But and vice versa. Like I've I've had moments where I've been hanging out at home and then my daughter's called me out on it and been like, dad, can you put your phone down and play a game with me?
Mm hmm. Like absolutely. I can. Right. Yeah. Or can you stop that project and come and play with me?
One of our children, probably our oldest many years ago, but he was about probably four years old.
And his mom had walked into the room and he was trying to tell her something. She wasn't paying attention.
And he says, listen to me with your face, with your face. He wanted her to want her attention.
And that is what God wants. It's like, listen to me with your face. OK, let's put this stuff down and let's pay attention.
And I said, OK, you're so right on. I some of the most transformational times in my life were a lot of years ago.
I had a pastor that we were challenging each other to draw into God.
And so we met at the church at six a.m. and spent an hour there together every day of the week for prayer.
And it was individual just hanging out with God like you're talking. No distractions, nothing else.
I've practiced that many a time in my life when I've needed to. Even here, I can't tell you how many mornings.
You know, it's been years since I've done it. But when I was a lot more involved in church leadership here early in the morning and spending an hour at the altar.
And that was transformational for me. That's what helped me understand, build that relationship so I could hear from God.
And I was at a phone conversation. There's tons of good resources I can help you draw closer to God.
But the problem is, is you can't silence everything on your phone. No. Right.
So I mean, so even iPhone has this function where if I'm texting Ben and it says Ben has notification silence, it will be like, do you want to send this one to him anyways?
Like, he gives me that option where it's like, oh, yeah, I want to dig his phone anyways, even though he has a silence for some reason.
So you can't fully get away from everything.
And so and while while there are still great resources, I use the Bible app all the time on my phone, especially for listening to the Bible.
I take notes on my phone all the time. Like a great tool. There's great tools.
Yeah. But there's so many other things with it that it is worth just setting aside and finding time to do that every once in a while.
Yeah. So I'm going to I'm going to say this and see what you guys think about this.
I was thinking about the answer. Why doesn't God just speak very plainly?
And I think the reality from my life and what I've experienced is he's speaking deeper truths than English can convey.
Does that make sense? Yes, it does. He is speaking deeper truths and just saying something to me in English would convey because he's speaking to my soul, not to my ears or my brain.
Does that make sense? Yeah. The spirit knows the deep things of God. Yeah.
And and by the way, I love the story from the road to Emmaus because your dad was recently writing about that.
And they said, don't you remember how our hearts burned within us? Yeah.
So I was doing a doing some reading into a new book that I got called Leviticus Parashah Companion from Rabbi David Foreman.
And yes, I said Leviticus. And it was has been a blast.
But as I was reading and God was kind of illuminating some things in the reading, so I was I'd had my phone off.
I was just reading through highlighting, writing, writing notes. My heart was burning. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like I was it was very clear God was talking and I was catching some things that I have to sit with because they're they're radically changing some things that I have been doing.
Yeah. Right. That's what learning to hear the voice of God is. And that's why it's so important when you are wanting to walk as a spiritual being walking in with the movement of the spirit, because next week we're going to be talking about the fruit of the spirit.
What is this demonstrative things about the fruit of the spirit? Yeah.
If you're going to be walking with the power of the Holy Spirit, you have to love God and love other people. The only way you can learn to do that is by listening to the voice of God and also hearing how he feels about other people, because how he feels about them is going to radically change the way you treat them.
And then coming into next week, that's going to actually start to produce fruit in your life. Yeah. That shows that you're actually doing those things.
I made a statement to just click on God, teeing us up for next week's episode, right? That based on how you love other people, I know exactly how you feel about God, which may be overstating a little bit.
I don't necessarily think it is though, but it's also not. Yeah. Yeah, because Jesus ties those two commands together. Yeah. I've heard it taught where people have been like, OK, let's talk about the loving God portion and let's talk about the loving people portion.
And then you jump over to the book of James and James does the exact opposite. And James 2, where he's talking about, I will show you my face by my good deeds. That comes right after right after talk about prejudices and favoritism.
Yeah. You treat the well-dressed person different than you treat the poorly dressed person. So James is building off of that saying, OK, I will show you my face by how I treat everybody around me.
And so you can't separate those two out. Like you can't say you can't say, OK, I love God, but you know, there's some people I love. There's some people I don't love.
With that said, there's people I've had disagreements with. There's been people who have who have said mean things to me and my family.
There's been people who, you know, who have just hurled insults are with. We've all been there. And what does the Lord call us to do? Forgive and love. Yeah.
And so we have to lean into that because if we are creatures made in God's image, OK, we are reflecting the glory of God. It is actually an insult to God for me to say I hate Ben.
Yeah. Lord Zach is an attitude. Yeah. And it's not just a feeling, it's an attitude. And you're correct. And how we treat other people shows that we have that love in us or not.
So as we close up here, I want to give out just a few resources because we're kind of skimming a stone across a conversation that likely you're not having.
And so we're just trying to crack open the door for you to have this conversation about how to hear the voice of God.
So I'm going to suggest a couple and see if you guys have a couple that you can suggest as well. We talked about experiencing God from Henry Blackby. Yes.
We have Hearing God by Dallas Willard. And then I'm going to recommend somebody on the Pentecostal side. Translating God by Sean Bowles is a good book.
All of those are from very different backgrounds. So if you read all of those, you're going to have a much you're going to have a lot of different perspectives on hearing that.
And I don't think that it's bad to have multiple perspectives on this. I agree. I've read quite a bit on it.
Sean Bowles is one that's meaningful to me. And you need to have some different perspectives to help understand what's going to make most sense to you.
That's the same way God speaks to us all a little differently. We understand we learn differently. Yeah.
So with that being said, if you have any thoughts or anything about what we talked about today, our Q&A is going to be coming up after the series in James.
So you can start writing your questions now. We won't make less come back and answer random questions, but we're really glad you're here.
I think we are going to have you on later in the series for where we talk about prophetic word. Excellent.
I promise. So we're really looking forward to that. Other than that, till next time. Yeah, till next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
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