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Transcript

Becoming A Friend of God: Part 4 · The God Who Sees You Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: How much deeper can we go in our prayer life and in our knowing God if we listen to Him?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: If we really want to know His heart.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in those conversations with someone where you're talking and all of a sudden you realize like this person's not really listening to me?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you're sharing something important and their eye contact isn't with you, or they're just they're thinking about the next thing they're gonna say.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you realize, I don't think that they're actually in this conversation.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're not actually listening to me.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be so sad and frustrating, right?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to wonder if sometimes we do this with God.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't listen to him, we're not um paying attention to him, and and so our minds are distracted and we're just thinking about the next thing we're gonna say.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, friends that um they don't, good friends don't talk like at each other, right?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They talk to each other, and that's how it needs to be with God.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, friends don't give each other big lists or just only big life updates, but not sharing the small details.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Friends share everything with each other, little things and big things, and and friends choose to listen, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: They choose to take the time to look you in the eye.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember um when I had taken a prayer class um at my church, and this wasn't the one that I taught.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: This was a different one that I had gone to.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they had brought up this concept of listening prayer.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is actually at the time just completely new to me.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had never heard about this before.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in all the time that I had prayed to God, I spent a lot of time talking at him, but I had never truly listened to him and been still.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to like practice this skill, I remember.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually um went out to coffee with my dad and I said, Hey, I'm I want to like practice this listening prayer.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he at the time had pain in his hip and his knee.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, for years he had had been having this pain.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I wanted to kind of practice and I said, I want to pray over your hip and your knee, um, but I I'm not sure how to do this listening prayer.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just try?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so both him and I just just sat there and um and we listened.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was overcome with emotion of what God showed me that day.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: He gave this picture of real love over my dad.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was this like um feeling of I'm so proud of you.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm feeling what God's feeling to my dad, and I'm just I start crying because the emotion that God gave me in that moment was overwhelming.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it moved me to tears, and I could barely pray and choke out the words of what I was feeling from God.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I tell you this story because I had spent years just talking at God and not listening to him.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then it took this class that I went to to talk about listening prayer, where I said, Oh, I actually want to listen to what God has to say.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just talk at him.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how much deeper can we go in our prayer life and in our knowing God if we listen to him, if we really want to know his heart?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 55, 8 through 9 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: We know that God has these higher thoughts than us, right?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks on a whole different level.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to wonder, is it possible to know his thoughts?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it possible to really listen and hear his thoughts?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, for us, that is possible.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love how um Paul communicates this in 1 Corinthians 2, 10 through 12, where he says, but it was to us that God revealed these things by his spirit, for his spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: No one can know a person's thoughts except that person's own spirit, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit, and we have received God's spirit, not the world's spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And verse 16 goes on to say, for who can know the Lord's thoughts?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows enough to teach him?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to um rush past that because I think that's truly astounding.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have the spirit of God in us, we have access to God's thoughts.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we pray, we have access to those deep secrets of God.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in that moment when I prayed over my dad, um, God didn't necessarily heal his hip that day, but it was this miraculous spiritual healing that took place because God spoke this sense of pride and love over my dad, and that was what my dad needed to hear in that moment.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it all started with listening to what God had to say.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: A good friend actually listens to the thoughts of their friend and takes them to heart.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 29, um, 12 through 13 says this in those days when you pray, I will listen.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I will be found by you, says the Lord.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's a God that listens to us.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, how much more should we have the desire as his friends to listen to him, right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this has so many implications for our life and practically how we can go about our days.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the one thing that I would say to you is if you've been spending your whole prayer life talking at God, try listening.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Try hearing what he has to say.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us, friends.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, uh, thank you for the chance to take a moment and stop and listen to you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it's uncomfortable for us to be still and to not have any distractions and to actually hear your voice.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that this week, as we go forward, we can take those moments and sit in stillness with you and see what you have to say.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be the friend that just talks at you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be the friend that gives you a to-do list and treats you like a genie, Lord.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We want to listen.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be at your feet listening to you to what you have to say.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be there when you bring the spiritual healing into a situation.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cover us and give us those listening ears.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Help our ears to be open to you, God.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: In your name.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, friends.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see you next week as we dive more into becoming a friend of God.