How to Hear God | Week 2: God Speaks in Scripture

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Well, hey, guys, it's great to have you tune in with us.

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My name is Tim and I'm the community pastor of Crossroads

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Mason.

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It's a community in northern Cincinnati.

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In fact, that's where I am right now.

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And you may not know about who Crossroads is, but we are one

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church with multiple physical locations all around Cincinnati,

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down into central Kentucky and with people all around the

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country who are streaming and checking stuff out.

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And if you don't know who we are, we have really three

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objectives: We want us to know God, get connect with other

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people, and make an impact in our world together.

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And hey, you've joined us in the middle of this series called

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How to Hear God.

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And we're not talking about some philosophical, ethereal, how we

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hear God.

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We're not talking about

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some, (deep character voice) "Tim, thou must doeth this and that."

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I'm talking about the practical, nitty gritty, tangible ways

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that people hear from God everyday.

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Father, I thank you for your faithfulness.

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I thank you that I've cried out to you many, many times.

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You've pushed through the noise to break through.

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Show me your goodness, your kindness, your faithfulness, your

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power, Lord.

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I need more and more of you, God.

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So, I come before you to say that, ask you, bring more of you,

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your spirit, your power.

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More of who you are, God.

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I pray all this because of who I see you to be in Jesus.

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Amen

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This place is built, it's run by great, great leaders

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So, if you're a leader in here or if you have an interest in

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being a leader, we have an awesome event coming up on August

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24th.

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I just want to thank you, because we at Crossroads prayed for

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this and Jesus prayed for this.

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And you're an answer to prayer.

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You are.

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You're in your position because people have been praying for

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you.

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You're a huge, huge blessing.

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And I want to encourage you that you are a qualified shepherd.

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God has called you for a season like this for people like that.

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It's the nitty gritty of spiritual formation with other people

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that makes us feel like we're having an impact on the world.

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The Leader Summit is going to be great.

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Listen, if you're leading people around here, you should have

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It's coming up on August 24th.

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For more information, go to Crossroads.net/leadersummit.

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Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Tim and I'm the community pastor at Crossroads

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Pastor at Mason, we're in northern Cincinnati.

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You're like, "Where the heck are you?".

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We're right here at our Crossroads Mason location.

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And if you live in northern Cincinnati, I want you to know we'd

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love to have you here.

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We'd love to introduce you to some people here in our building

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and get to know some folks.

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And a small way we can say thanks for coming, I want to give you

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a little gift, one of these Crossroads tumblers.

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So if you find me and come here, I'll snag you one of these or

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you can actually go to our welcome center and get connected

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with someone in our atrium.

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You know, we've got a lot that's happening around here.

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You might be streaming from five or 10 miles away.

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I want to invite you into the amazing things that are happening

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here, things like a concert we have called Hillsong Young and

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Free that's coming up in September.

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Or this 5k, 10k race called the We Run Race in October where

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we're going to race, have some fun.

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And in so doing, raise money to build this amazing playground

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for kids with special needs right across the street from our

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You know, also, you might be a parent saying, "I want to help my

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kids grow.

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I want them to know about God.".

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We've got a great place to do that here.

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It's called Kids Club and all the stuff we have a kids club we

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say is safe, fun, and welcoming.

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So we'd love to invite your kids.

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And all those things are great ways that you can get connected.

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And so if you want more different information, you can go to

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Crossroads.net/Mason.

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And if you don't live in the northern Cincinnati area, that's

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You can just go to Crossroads.net/locations.

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You get connected with any location that's in and around greater

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Cincinnati, down into central Kentucky.

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And if you live nationwide somewhere across the United States,

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go to Crossroads.net/anywhere.

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We want to help all of us plug into relationships with other

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people.

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That's when the good stuff starts happening.

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One of the best ways we actually help people get connected is

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this thing we do annually, it's called the Journey.

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You may say, "What's a journey?".

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It's not just an 80s band.

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The Journey is actually something that we do where everybody

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who's part of Crossroads gets involved, adults, students, kids.

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And we do three things.

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We listen to a weekend message.

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We do individual challenges.

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And third, most importantly, we get into a small group to

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discuss it.

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And this year's Journey, it's called the Play and Purpose

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It's saying, "Hey, we've got to be high on play.

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Having fun, having rest and high on purpose in our lives.".

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And I think this topic is going to push all of us.

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And I think the best part for all of us here is getting into

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community.

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If you live in the northern Cincinnati area, I'd love to just

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help plug you into relationships and small groups of people.

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And we want to do that with you no matter where you live.

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If you want more information, just go to Crossroads.net/journey.

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We're going to be starting that in September, and we want to

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help you get connected here in coming weeks.

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Well, you know, there's a word that I heard growing up and in my

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early 20s and I thought that's a dirty word, it's the word

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submission.

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But until someone defined it, that's actually when my

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perspective changed.

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They said, "Tim, submission is simply making yourself sub to a

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larger mission.".

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And I thought, I can get behind that.

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That's really good.

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See God asks for our submission all the time.

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He says, "Hey, I want to be sub to the mission with your

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marriage, with your dating relationships, with your

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friendships, with your parenting.".

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He also says, "Be sub to my mission with your money.".

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And my wife and I, we made that decision with our finances some

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years ago.

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And we've seen amazing things happen through our giving.

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Quite honestly, though, the most amazing things have been

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happening in us through our giving when we have put ourselves

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sub to God's mission.

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You have an opportunity to do that right now.

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You can go to Crossroads.net/give

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and help fuel this amazing mission that God's doing through our

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church and also see growth in yourself.

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Hey, we're in the middle of this series called How to Hear God.

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And now we're going to hear one person's story about how they

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are hearing God.

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One of the ways that God speaks most frequently to me is through

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reading the Bible, through Scripture.

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I am a big, big time reader.

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I'm a writer.

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I like words.

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I get caught up in stories and narratives.

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And so I love to read Scripture because although the Bible's

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divided up into little books, it's really just one huge

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narrative about God rescuing us from ourselves, from our bad

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choices.

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Oftentimes I see myself in other characters or in what God has

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done in the past, and it gives me a framework for what He may

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be doing now.

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As I got into Scripture, I started to hear from God.

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I would -- I would not hear his voice audibly, but things that

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are happening in the story or specific words in the page would

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have to jump out and get me.

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And I perceive that to be God speaking to me.

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And the more that I acted on those things, the more that I saw

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God do more things in my life.

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And it really just pulled me into the Bible completely.

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I used to have a science background, and so if you do an

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experiment and you keep getting the same result, you start to

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think like this is actually true.

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This is how this thing works.

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You mix these two chemicals and this happens.

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So I kind of approached the Bible in a similar way.

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God says, try something.

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I go and try it.

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And when it turns out the way God says it will turn out, when it

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turns out even better than I could hope, I have to assume that

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God is speaking to me through that passage or through that

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Scripture that I have been reading that day.

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So one of the most important times that God spoke to me through

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Scripture was about five years ago.

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Me and my wife had been married for three or four years.

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And at that point, we were ready to have children.

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And it seemed like that should be a pretty easy thing to do.

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And we tried and tried and tried and like an entire year passed,

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maybe even more and we were not successful in her getting

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pregnant.

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And we began to doubt like maybe there's something wrong with us

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or maybe we waited too long.

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And God took me to a really ancient and tiny book called Joel.

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It is about a prophet named Joel who speaks to God's people.

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And one of the things he says is that God will give you back the

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years that were taken from you.

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And I feel like he said, just wait and keep trying.

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Now, I want to say that like the next day we were pregnant, but

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we waited six more months.

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And by the time Christmas rolled around, we were pregnant.

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And we're super excited.

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And I was thinking back to that Scripture: God will give you

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back the years that were taken from you.

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And then it even says he will give you even more than that.

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We found out we were pregnant at Christmas.

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We went into the first ultrasound in January and found out that

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we were having twins.

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And so the first thing I thought was like, "That's what God said

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in the book of Joel, he would give you back what was taken from

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you. And he'll give you even more than you had the first

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So not only were having one kid, we were having two.

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And I don't know how to explain that, except that I read that in

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Scripture.

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I feel like it wasn't wishful thinking.

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It wasn't, "This is what I want God to be saying to me.".

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I couldn't get it out of my head that God had pointed me to that

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Scripture that specific moment.

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It was hard to wait.

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It was hard to hold onto that promise, but it was eventually

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fulfilled about a half a year later.

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And when we found out that we were having twins, literally, the

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first thing I thought of was that Scripture and Joel and how me

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and my wife have been holding onto that promise and praying it.

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And that's what happened.

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My name is Caleb and one of the primary ways God speaks to me is

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through the Bible.

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Hey, everyone.

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You can clap for that.

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I love that story.

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I work with Caleb.

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He's awesome.

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It's great to be with you here on week two of the series that

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we're calling How to Hear God.

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We're exploring the idea that there might just be a God who has

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something to say to us.

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And if that's the case, how exactly does that go down?

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And I was at Crossroads East Side last weekend with my family.

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That's where we regularly gather as a part of Crossroads.

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And I experienced what many of you experienced, which was the

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invitation to come forward at the end of service for prayer.

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And in -- I think Chuck said something like, "Hey, sometimes we

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can hear God through the words that other people might pray for

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us. Maybe God will do that for you today.

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If you want to do that, get up out of your seat and come

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forward.".

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And it was so amazing to witness in the room that I was

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in hundreds of people at the same time got up out of their seat

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and said, "I would like to hear God.

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I'm gonna get up out of my seat and go and try to do that right

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now."

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And as I thought about that for this weekend and I learned that

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it had been repeated at every site, in every service that we

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had, I came to the understanding that today was even more

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important than I thought.

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Because today we're gonna talk about the foundational way that

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we all need to hear from God, and that is how to hear God

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through His Scripture.

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And the reason that I say it's the foundation of all other

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hearing is because it's in the context of the Bible that we get

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exposed to the language of his spirit.

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God has a language.

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I don't know if you realize this, but we actually form language

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of all different kinds in all the different groups that we are

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Maybe you have a family group text.

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And if I were not part of your family, I might not understand

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some of what goes down in that group text.

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I asked around and some of the people that I talked to said that

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they do things like this.

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Like one person told me that their group text that they have

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sends SpongeBob memes back and forth.

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That's kind of their language that they have.

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And I have a friend who tries to slip country music lyrics into

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her conversation because a couple of her friends always pick up

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on them and it's like their secret language.

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My husband and I used to be big watchers of the show called

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Friends.

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And so, of course, when we got a cat for Christmas this last

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year, I, of course, had to sing (singing) Smelly Cat, Smelly

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Cat.

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And if you don't watch Friends, you have no idea why I just sang

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that.

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That's the exact point.

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There's a language of relationship.

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There's a language that gets developed when we are exposed to

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people over a long period of time and we can communicate

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effortlessly that way.

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We actually learn that those words or that meme or that quote or

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whatever you're saying, it comes not just with those words, it

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comes with so much more.

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It comes with the whole history of that relationship.

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And it comes with all the meaning that only you know is even

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there.

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This is language just like in the Bible.

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My friends and I actually went on a trip to Asheville.

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There were four couples.

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We went to Asheville, North Carolina, and some of our language

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was crafted on that trip.

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We show up in the house that we rented and there are four

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couples who all brought food and drinks to share.

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And apparently you need two things when you do a trip like we

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were gonna do, where you're gonna hike and you're gonna raft

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and know, just have fun.

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No kids, just grownups.

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And you need beer and you need granola.

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Those were the two things that all four couples brought.

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I don't -- we didn't talk about it, but right then and there in

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the kitchen, #beer&granola was born.

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We still use that hashtag today and it recalls the whole

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experience of the trip.

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Like when we were sitting around the fire and somebody said,

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"So. what were you like in high school?".

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Because none of us knew each other then.

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So we start talking about high school.

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And one of the women said, "What did you wear to your prom?"

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And oh, a light bulb went off for me because I said I can

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actually show you because I remembered my junior prom dress was

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in a magazine ad that year for one of the big makers of prom

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dresses.

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So thank you, Google.

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Twenty seconds later, we were looking at this.

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Which one of those beauties do you think I wore to my junior

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prom?

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Sequins we're very in, but I don't want you to go to bed

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wondering so...

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Oh, yeah, baby, I brought it with me.

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Got some cammo, jewel toned head to toe sequins.

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Come on, this is awesome.

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So my friends did what you're doing is -- Thank you.

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They snorted out their beer and dropped their granola on the

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ground because they were laughing so hard.

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And they said, "No, you did not wear that dress.".

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And I said, "Oh, yes, I did.".

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And the legend of the prom dress was born.

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You cannot imagine how many times that picture showed up somehow

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in the context of this group of friends.

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How can you resist that?

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It became part of the fabric of our relationship.

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It's the way that we talk to each other and it's baked in all

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kinds of good, meaning.

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That prom, it actually happened to be one of the more formative

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nights of my entire teenage life.

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They know that about me and now they know what I wore.

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When we expose ourself to the Bible, that is exactly the way

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that it should feel with God

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We meet him in the course of history.

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We get to see what he's been like.

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We get to know his character.

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We get to see what He cares about, though even some of the exact

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words that appear over and over and over again.

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And they start to sink in in such a way that we can now see a

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little bit better, hear a little bit clearer in our own life

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about what He might be doing and definitely hear better what He

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is saying.

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I'm passionate about this because this is the thing that has

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unlocked and exploded the voice of God in my own life over a

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long period of time, and I still get excited about it.

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If we cannot get excited about hearing the voice of God, I don't

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-- I get excited about that.

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I find that it still amazes me and it still draws me in and it

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still makes me want to come back for more.

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And that's what I hope today will do for all of us, is leave us

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wanting something more from God, wanting more of his voice.

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The same thing that got us up out of our seats last week, I hope

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will propel us today to actually start to read the Bible in a

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new way.

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I knew that the Bible had a phrase for this kind of life, and

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it's called being led by the spirit.

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When we learn the language of God, we actually open up a whole

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life that the Bible calls being led by the spirit, because his

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spirit is speaking.

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And if we know his language, we can be led by that spirit on a

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daily basis.

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This is actually the life promised to anyone who wants to be a

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follower of Jesus.

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And sometimes I feel like I have settled and that we have

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settled for something that's far, far less than that.

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I knew that this happened in my life.

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I knew this dynamic of hearing God through Scripture was

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happening in my life.

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And so in preparation for this weekend, I thought, you know

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what? I'm just going to take a note anytime I hear that

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happening naturally.

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I'm just going to open a note on my phone.

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I'm going to make a quick: What is it?

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What do I hear?

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What's going on?

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Just to remind myself.

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And I started compiling this note and I didn't really look a lot

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I would just add to it over the last probably I would say about

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eight weeks, maybe about two months.

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And so I had this open and I would add to it and I was doing

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this little experiment, just hoping to maybe get a couple of

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examples that felt, you know, real and timely for me in my

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And what I found was, whoa, something I did not expect.

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I found the richness and the frequency with which it was

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happening was a surprise even to me who knew what was

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happening.

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It really did surprise me.

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And there were three categories of ways that God was speaking to

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And I'm going to take you through each of those categories for a

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chunk of our time together today.

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They are: God was trying to lead me.

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This has to be the most common thing that I hear is that we want

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God to lead us.

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We want we want direction from him.

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Well that was happening.

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Lead me.

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The other thing that I noticed is that he was trying to help me

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learn, learn and grow and mature.

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And the last category was he was trying to lift me up.

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He was just trying to encourage me.

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And every single example as I went back to kind of compile them,

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I notice every single one fit into one of these categories,

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some fit in to more than one.

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And the first one was lead.

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So I'm a pastor and people talk to me about how they feel about

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And this has to be the most common thing that somebody wants

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I want that.

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I want God's direction for my life.

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And usually we mean that in kind of big picture ways, like what

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am I going to do and what relationship and what job and where

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am I going to go?

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And those are great questions to ask God.

00:31:02

But rather what I saw over the last handful of weeks are tiny

00:31:07

ways that he was trying to intercept me, to lead me every

00:31:11

single day, even in ways that I didn't suspect that he would

00:31:15

even care about.

00:31:16

One of those examples happened when I was pulling in my

00:31:19

driveway.

00:31:20

So I drive a big Expedition because I have four kids.

00:31:23

They got to fit in something.

00:31:24

They've got to fit in something.

00:31:25

So and my driveway is like a one lane until you get to the top

00:31:28

where it widens out so you can kind of swing into the garage.

00:31:31

So I'm driving and I have to maneuver kind of weirdly because we

00:31:35

had an extra car sitting in the -- at the top of the driveway.

00:31:38

So I have to kind of swing around and back up to get the

00:31:40

Expedition in the garage.

00:31:42

And so I'm doing this.

00:31:43

And as I'm doing this awkward backing up and turning around

00:31:46

thing, I hear in my mind: the good you ought to do.

00:31:53

Those words just flashed through my head in such a way that I

00:31:56

couldn't ignore them.

00:31:57

The good you ought to do.

00:31:59

And God knew I would instantly recognize it from my reading the

00:32:03

day before in the book of James.

00:32:05

James 4:17, says:.

00:32:14

Now, why would God say this to me?

00:32:16

Because the car that I had to maneuver around it was a car that

00:32:21

three months earlier we had decided to donate to the Wheels

00:32:25

Ministry here at Crossroads, and we had never followed through.

00:32:31

And God cared about that.

00:32:32

And he was trying to lead me in the right direction.

00:32:37

Why didn't I?

00:32:38

I don't know, why wouldn't you have the title, the guy's

00:32:41

email, the plates are expired.

00:32:44

All of the -- the getting it over to 45 minutes away.

00:32:47

All the reasons that I had God demolished with that one phrase:

00:32:53

The good you ought to do.

00:32:56

And within 10 days, we had gotten rid of that car that had been

00:33:00

sitting in our driveway for three months because I realized God

00:33:03

cares about this.

00:33:05

He's got someone's name on this car and I'm out of line with

00:33:10

what he wants.

00:33:11

So he wants to lead me someplace new.

00:33:13

I had all kinds of examples in this category.

00:33:16

I wish I could tell you all the stories.

00:33:18

I had trouble picking which ones because there were so many.

00:33:21

Just a couple other quick ones I had where I felt super weary at

00:33:25

the -- right at the beginning when I first started taking this

00:33:27

note on my phone.

00:33:29

I was feeling very weary.

00:33:30

I'm in school and my spring semester ran straight into my summer

00:33:34

semester and I had no break.

00:33:35

And I was just -- I didn't want to cram anything else in my

00:33:37

brain. I was just weary.

00:33:40

And he led me out of that weariness through a story that I read

00:33:45

in the Book of Exodus about how he provided in the desert for

00:33:48

the nation of Israel.

00:33:53

My daughter asked me a question one day, "Mom, if church, we can

00:33:56

seize church on the computer.

00:33:59

Why do we have to go?".

00:34:02

And I thought, "I can see why she would be asking that

00:34:05

question."

00:34:06

And there's an answer that I had just been reading in the book

00:34:11

of Hebrews and I was able to talk to her about that and why it

00:34:16

matters that we actually gather together and what God does

00:34:19

uniquely when we do.

00:34:22

I also avoided a fight with my husband at the outlet mall.

00:34:28

You men get very grumpy at outlet malls, may I just say.

00:34:32

And my husband was no different.

00:34:34

He doesn't like rugs and candles and suitcases as much as I do.

00:34:38

And he got super grumpy, said something snarky, and just as I

00:34:41

was about to respond, bam! Intercepted

00:34:45

by God.

00:34:46

Totally changed my response to him, totally changed it.

00:34:49

How many of us wish we could rewind and have a do over in one of

00:34:54

our relationships and how we responded to someone?

00:34:56

It doesn't happen all the time, but it did happen that day

00:35:00

because God had access to me, quick access where I would

00:35:06

immediately recognize his language.

00:35:11

So what do I do after this happens?

00:35:15

Well, I follow.

00:35:17

That's what we're actually called, we're followers of Jesus.

00:35:22

And anyone who wants to hear the voice of God, the best thing we

00:35:25

can do when we hear it is to follow where the spirit is

00:35:29

leading.

00:35:30

That's what his job is.

00:35:31

It turns out the spirit has a job, in John 14:26 that says this:

00:35:46

That's exactly what was going on.

00:35:48

He was trying to lead me and he would bring to remembrance his

00:35:52

words that came with all the context that I knew that they had

00:35:59

and all of our relationship together.

00:36:03

The second thing I noticed is that he was trying to help me

00:36:05

learn.

00:36:06

Now, someday I'd like to be a grown up, but I'm not, I guess

00:36:12

yet.

00:36:13

We all have growing to do.

00:36:15

And he was trying to help me learn.

00:36:17

This is another category of my notes.

00:36:19

And I was on Instagram one day.

00:36:21

I'm sure you never spend any time scrolling Instagram like I do.

00:36:24

And I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw a meme and it

00:36:27

stopped me because I don't know, I guess I'm a pastor.

00:36:31

I'm interested in spiritual sounding things.

00:36:33

And so I just stopped and considered this for a moment.

00:36:36

And this is the meme that I found.

00:36:38

I know you've heard this sentiment, this spiritual sentiment

00:36:40

that everything happens for a reason.

00:36:43

That's a very popular thought.

00:36:45

And just as I was considering it and doing a little head tilt

00:36:48

about what I really thought about it, what I heard was, "Don't

00:36:53

be blown around."

00:36:57

I had to search this one by the word blown because I couldn't

00:37:00

quite remember where it was, but that's what I do.

00:37:03

I know that's God.

00:37:04

I know it is.

00:37:05

I know that's from the Bible.

00:37:07

This time I couldn't quite remember where.

00:37:09

So I got on to a search function and I searched the word blown.

00:37:13

And here's what I found.

00:37:14

This is absolutely -- this is absolutely what he was saying.

00:37:27

Do you know how many spiritual means you scroll by on a regular

00:37:31

basis?

00:37:32

Do we have a grid for which one of those is right?

00:37:37

What's true?

00:37:38

What's just making us feel better in the moment?

00:37:40

God wants to intercept us and teach us how to recognize his

00:37:45

truth.

00:37:46

I started collecting memes with this sentiment because I

00:37:49

realized, "Oh, I hear this all the time.

00:37:51

Oh, everything happens for a reason.

00:37:52

That sounds really nice, right?"

00:37:54

Well, what if that reason is physics?

00:37:57

That's what one of them says, "Everything happens for a reason

00:38:00

and it's physics.".

00:38:02

Or what if someday everything is going to make perfect sense?

00:38:08

So I can just believe that everything happens for a reason.

00:38:12

Is it?

00:38:14

My life experience certainly does not bear out that someday

00:38:18

everything will make perfect sense.

00:38:21

Is that true?

00:38:23

And if so, what part of that is true

00:38:25

Or maybe this one is the closest to truth of all, and the truth

00:38:29

is sometimes you're just stupid and you make bad decisions.

00:38:35

That might be the truth for me.

00:38:36

That might be the closest one to the truth.

00:38:38

And lastly, maybe this is all for not and actually nothing

00:38:44

happens for a reason.

00:38:45

It just doesn't.

00:38:48

It took me no time at all to collect these, and I kept going

00:38:52

back to the verse that God doesn't want for me to blow around

00:38:56

in the wind.

00:38:57

He doesn't want for me to be led astray at some moment where I

00:39:01

can't figure out which one of those is closer to the truth.

00:39:04

He wants to help me learn.

00:39:07

And unfortunately, he also wants to help me learn about myself.

00:39:12

And the reason I say unfortunately is because sometimes it isn't

00:39:16

very pretty.

00:39:18

Like this, as I was driving onto my street one day, I -- you

00:39:23

know, I just kind of glanced up.

00:39:24

Nothing, doing nothing, just kind of caught a glimpse of a

00:39:28

neighbor's house.

00:39:29

And the woman who lives there, I was like, "I really do not like

00:39:34

her."

00:39:36

This is what's going on in my head.

00:39:38

All I did was catch a glimpse of the poor lady's house.

00:39:41

And in my inner dialogue here's what's happening.

00:39:45

Boy, she's really frowny.

00:39:47

I like smiley people, she's super frowny.

00:39:51

And, you know, she has this nervous energy.

00:39:55

She always makes me feel uneasy, like I can never just feel

00:39:58

at ease when I'm around her.

00:39:59

She's not very pleasant.

00:40:01

She just kind of don't like to see her.

00:40:04

You get it.

00:40:05

Right in the middle of this terrible train of thought I hear

00:40:10

three words, harassed and helpless.

00:40:15

And this one really got me, you all, it really got me.

00:40:20

Instant change.

00:40:23

It was an instant change.

00:40:25

I could -- if I could draw it for you, it would be like a flood

00:40:28

that, like, rushed over me from head to toe.

00:40:31

It was an instantaneous change because God knew that I might not

00:40:36

be able to write this Scripture down for you word for word, but

00:40:39

I would know it.

00:40:41

And here's what it was, Matthew 9:36-37:

00:41:07

That one hurt because I like to think of myself as a nice

00:41:11

person, as somebody who cares about other people and actually

00:41:15

wants to love them.

00:41:17

And right in the middle, I realized I've got to see this about

00:41:22

myself.

00:41:24

And man, God loves this person and maybe I could join him in

00:41:28

loving her instead of driving by her house, having terrible

00:41:32

thoughts that I just affirm in myself.

00:41:39

The last thing I noticed was that God was trying to encourage

00:41:43

And after that interaction, I need a little encouragement.

00:41:48

But that was the other major category that I noticed.

00:41:52

And sometimes the voice of God trying to encourage me through

00:41:57

Scripture was just a quick one.

00:41:59

Like sitting at a stoplight or walking into a meeting or

00:42:04

One of my favorite verses, which I only really thought about

00:42:08

today was that I heard several times was: I can do all things

00:42:14

through Christ who strengthens me.

00:42:15

And that would pop up sometimes.

00:42:17

And then actually this just happened earlier, but I was thinking

00:42:21

of it and it was on my note because I was speaking somewhere

00:42:24

else.

00:42:25

And every time I speak or maybe almost every time I speak

00:42:31

anywhere, I will remember suddenly Psalm 45:1.

00:42:36

And it's part of my history with God.

00:42:38

It's part of our shorthand.

00:42:40

It's part of the way that maybe you text your friends an

00:42:44

abbreviation or a phrase or something like that.

00:42:46

And God knows that I know this verse because it's part of our

00:42:51

history together.

00:42:53

Psalm 45:1 I read the week before I ever spoke at Crossroads for

00:42:57

the very first time, and it says:

00:43:07

God knows me, he knows I like to write.

00:43:10

He knows I love words and I'm actually very comfortable with

00:43:12

them on paper.

00:43:16

And this verse will often come back to me as his shorthand to

00:43:21

encourage me before I speak, to say,.

00:43:24

"Hey, I've got you, you've got this, it's all good.

00:43:29

It's all good.

00:43:30

Just as comfortable as you feel writing, you've got

00:43:33

it. You should feel just as comfortable speaking.".

00:43:37

And he still uses that because he knows it will take me all the

00:43:40

way back to the very first time.

00:43:44

The other shorthand, I like to think of this one, honest to

00:43:48

goodness, as like sort of a prom dress that I have with God.

00:43:53

This next one is definitely part of our history together.

00:43:56

And think about it, this is how you encourage your friends,

00:43:59

If one of your friends is like really low about something or

00:44:03

they're very worried about something, what are you going to do?

00:44:06

You're going to say something like, I know you.

00:44:11

I know what you're like.

00:44:12

You're gonna be fine.

00:44:13

You've got this.

00:44:14

Or maybe you do have some words of wisdom for them because you

00:44:18

know them.

00:44:20

That's how we encourage each other.

00:44:22

And God uses Psalm 139 for me a lot because it's my favorite

00:44:27

Psalm.

00:44:28

It has been for as many years as I can remember reading the

00:44:31

Bible.

00:44:32

It's always been my favorite Psalm.

00:44:34

And I don't know about you, but I have a bad place.

00:44:37

Do you have like a mental, emotional sort of bad place?

00:44:40

If you go into a bad place in your head, what does that look

00:44:44

like for you?

00:44:45

For me, my bad place is: you're alone.

00:44:51

No one knows you.

00:44:56

No other moms and very few other moms have as many kids.

00:44:59

You're by yourself.

00:45:01

No other women really do what you do.

00:45:03

You're alone.

00:45:05

That's my bad place.

00:45:09

Psalm 139:.

00:45:41

Sometimes all I hear is, "Ali, I know you.".

00:45:48

And it immediately takes me back to Psalm 139 and I'll read it

00:45:53

and I'll remember I have a God who knows me.

00:45:55

He'll just say, "I know you."

00:46:00

We have a prom dress because we have a history and we have a

00:46:03

fabric and there's a foundation and he can draw on it because

00:46:07

I've exposed myself to the Bible just enough to have learned

00:46:11

some of the ways that he might try to talk to me.

00:46:17

In those three buckets, in the three different categories that I

00:46:20

discovered as I sort of compiled this note: Lead, Learn, and

00:46:27

Lift Up.

00:46:28

I was thinking about those kind of after the fact.

00:46:30

I'd already seen it.

00:46:32

I'd drawn them out.

00:46:33

I had written them down and I was like, oh, I like it it, you

00:46:37

I had encouraged at first, but, you know, three L's are better.

00:46:42

And I've looked at those and I thought to myself, "Oh, that's

00:46:48

what every good dad does for their kid."

00:46:54

Whether you have a good dad or you have a bad dad or anywhere in

00:46:58

between, I think we can agree that good dads want to lead their

00:47:02

kids, that good dads want their kids to learn.

00:47:06

They want them to grow and mature and grow up in all ways.

00:47:10

And good dads always want to be the voice of encouragement for

00:47:15

their children.

00:47:16

Always.

00:47:18

Isn't it funny, I later thought, as I was thinking about this,

00:47:22

that Romans 8:14 says:.

00:47:25

.

00:47:33

As we learn his language, we open ourselves up to be led by his

00:47:37

spirit in some way it happens that in that leading we end up

00:47:41

feeling like we're part of the family.

00:47:43

We end up feeling like we have a God who knows us, who loves us,

00:47:46

who includes us in his plans.

00:47:48

And this is the way that it happens.

00:47:51

And friends, I do believe that God speaks in many other ways.

00:47:54

I love seeing all the videos that people send in about how God

00:47:58

speaks to them.

00:47:59

I, too, have experienced God speaking in many other ways.

00:48:02

But I will tell you what, none of them I would ever be as sure,

00:48:08

as confident, and as rock solid as I feel when he can take me

00:48:12

into His Word and I can understand him there.

00:48:16

I think that many of us spend our lives reading billboards and

00:48:20

reading -- wanting quotes, spiritual quotes and also sifting

00:48:24

our own thoughts or hoping that God will speak to us in some

00:48:28

way that we could ever understand while we overlook the very

00:48:31

way that a good father told us to go and learn.

00:48:39

Jesus actually affirmed this.

00:48:40

He says the goal of Scripture is not perfect

00:48:42

knowledge, definitely not perfect knowledge.

00:48:45

It is instead to find Him.

00:48:49

Listen to this interaction he had in the Book of John 5.

00:48:53

He's talking to some Pharisees and these are religious leaders.

00:48:56

Not just any kind of religious leaders.

00:48:58

These guys literally had the Hebrew scriptures memorized word

00:49:02

It was part of how you became a Pharisee.

00:49:04

They knew the scriptures.

00:49:06

I mean, they knew the scriptures.

00:49:10

And Jesus says to them:.

00:49:29

Jesus says it's not about how well you know, the scriptures,

00:49:32

it's about can you see through them and understand who I am?

00:49:36

He was called the word who became flesh.

00:49:39

He is the word of God.

00:49:41

And all the life that we could ever want begins with a

00:49:44

relationship with him.

00:49:46

He criticized these religious people because they had everything

00:49:50

memorized and yet they didn't recognize Him.

00:49:53

And they were using the Scriptures to the wrong end and they

00:49:57

missed it.

00:49:59

The Bible exists to point us to Jesus.

00:50:03

It's Him we're looking for.

00:50:05

Better one verse, seriously, better one verse that leads you to

00:50:09

him than knowledge of all kinds of all different books and all

00:50:14

different concepts in the Bible.

00:50:15

Better one verse that you actually encounter Him.

00:50:21

And I'm passionate about it because this is -- this is life.

00:50:24

This feels like life to me.

00:50:26

This -- His voice feels like it's leading me to life, that's

00:50:30

being given by the Father through His Son and unlocked through

00:50:34

the voice of His Spirit for you and me here and now.

00:50:38

It feels like life.

00:50:41

So how do we start?

00:50:43

How do we get to the point where we can actually hear God

00:50:46

through His Word?

00:50:47

Well, I'm so glad you asked.

00:50:51

There is no substitute for exposure and time.

00:50:57

Just like in any other relationship that we have, there is no

00:51:00

substitute for time spent together and just repeated exposure

00:51:05

to get to know the language that you're gonna develop together.

00:51:09

There is no substitute for that.

00:51:12

The other thing I think that we can do is we can agree here and

00:51:15

now today to drop our story about the Bible.

00:51:20

I actually do think that this would help because I've had this

00:51:22

story, many of you either have or have had this story about the

00:51:26

Bible and it goes like this:

00:51:29

The Bible is so boring.

00:51:31

Oh, it's so boring.

00:51:33

It's so hard to understand.

00:51:35

Sometimes I don't even know what I'm reading.

00:51:37

It's so frustrating when I get stuck on something I don't know

00:51:40

and I don't know the guy and I can't remember the date and

00:51:42

what -- Who's the king?

00:51:43

And it's just so frustrating.

00:51:46

And I think part of the reason is we get caught up in that and

00:51:51

we could instead begin to read it in community.

00:51:55

Maybe sometimes one thing someone else has said to me is enough

00:51:59

to get me over the hump of understanding the thing I just read.

00:52:02

It's so helpful to do it in community.

00:52:05

And we actually have an app where you can do just that.

00:52:08

And part of my job, because I really care a lot about this, is I

00:52:12

get to pick the Scriptures that appear in the app.

00:52:16

And so I've put some in there, especially this next week, to

00:52:20

address some of the things that we've talked about today.

00:52:22

There's some chapters from the Book of John where Jesus talks

00:52:25

about the Holy Spirit and how he's going to connect with his

00:52:28

disciples and all of how that works.

00:52:30

And I love those chapters.

00:52:32

And there's some other things you're going to encounter over the

00:52:34

next couple of weeks in there that I've picked on purpose.

00:52:38

And it's so cool to read it in community, because if you don't

00:52:43

understand something or you have a question, probably someone

00:52:46

else has journaled and had that question and maybe someone else

00:52:49

is asking or answering that question.

00:52:52

And sometimes we can actually help each other understand.

00:52:59

A win for me would be if in 40 days you said to me, "Ali, I feel

00:53:05

about the Bible like you started to feel about water."

00:53:09

This is a gallon of water.

00:53:11

And a couple of years ago, I started to drink a gallon of water

00:53:15

a day just because one of my kids said, "Let's do something for

00:53:19

Lent."

00:53:20

Usually, you know, as tradition goes, you give something up.

00:53:23

And I thought, I think I'm going to take something on as opposed

00:53:27

to giving something up.

00:53:28

See, I knew in my head that the experts, medical experts say

00:53:34

that my body should have a certain amount of water every day.

00:53:37

I knew what that was and I just didn't want to do it.

00:53:42

I don't like it.

00:53:43

It doesn't taste very good.

00:53:44

It's kind of a pain to carry something around and it makes me

00:53:48

pee all the time and that's sort of annoying.

00:53:50

And so I you know what?

00:53:52

I know what's good for me.

00:53:53

And also, I don't care.

00:53:55

I just don't want to do it.

00:53:57

Totally my attitude.

00:53:59

I'll just drink my Diet Coke at lunch and have a glass of wine

00:54:02

after work or something, that was pretty much where I was.

00:54:05

Nice, right?

00:54:06

So I took on a gallon of water a day for 40 days.

00:54:10

And a year and a half later, I was still carrying around this

00:54:13

gallon of water to which my co-worker said, "You and all the 20

00:54:18

year old guys that work out at Gold's Gym are the only people

00:54:20

that carry around a gallon of water.".

00:54:22

And I was like, I don't care.

00:54:23

It's working for me because I was seeing there's an X factor

00:54:28

here.

00:54:29

There's some things that are happening to me that I can't put my

00:54:32

finger on, but I know they're the water.

00:54:34

I know they are.

00:54:36

I didn't -- I thought my skin was fine.

00:54:37

Apparently, it could have been better.

00:54:39

My skin started to look better.

00:54:41

I -- My nails were different.

00:54:43

I felt different.

00:54:44

I woke up. One

00:54:45

of the weirdest things is I would wake up easier in the

00:54:47

morning.

00:54:48

I was like, "Why do I feel better?".

00:54:50

It took me a while to notice that one and that is -- that is so

00:54:54

what I want for a new life to take hold through reading the

00:54:58

Bible, for me, for you, for all of us.

00:55:01

Because it takes a while of constant exposure to start to notice

00:55:06

that things feel different.

00:55:11

I wish I could tell you it was a one and done, but it's not.

00:55:13

And so in 40 days, if you feel about reading the Bible like I

00:55:18

felt about drinking a gallon of water, then this will have been

00:55:21

So I'm going to pray for us.

00:55:25

Father, thank you for Your Word.

00:55:27

Thank you that we can find You there and that Your voice is

00:55:30

loudest when we meet you there.

00:55:32

Please teach us Your language and help us to be able to hear

00:55:35

Your voice.

00:55:37

In Jesus name, I pray.

00:55:38

Aman.

00:55:40

All right.

00:55:41

Thanks, everyone, we'll see you next week.

00:55:44

Thanks for tuning in with us today.

00:55:45

Hey, if you want any more information about Crossroads, how you

00:55:48

can get plugged in, take next steps, it's really simple.

00:55:51

Just go to Crossroads.net

00:55:53

and in the bottom right hand of your screen you can click our

00:55:56

chat button and get connected with a person.

00:55:59

It's a real person who will answer your questions.

00:56:02

Hey, we'll see you next week for week three of How to Hear God.

	Worship	1:54
	Community Life	12:56
	Message	20:58

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