Hearing God's Voice After Hours

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Masculine Journey After Hours. A time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. And we're in the middle of just an exceptional topic. I wish we had a bump.

We could have played yours. No, I'm teaching you. It's water under the bridge.

Hey, you got that one right. I did. Mining for fruit. Yeah, we're not mining for fruit this particular show. And I did have something additional wrong in the last show. If you listen to the first, the radio show, now we're in the after hours.

But it's born ultimatum, not born supremacy. Not that anyone out there probably knew other than Andy, but I wanted to go ahead and say that. But the topic we are talking about today, Jim, is yours. Second week in a row. That's a big achievement. And so tell us about that. I'm pretty sure he's not going for three, but we'll see.

Maybe. This is, and you can take your pick. This is hearing from God, hearing God's voice. We are talking about talking to God. Listening to God.

Listening to God. And sadly, most people in prayer are 90% of talking to God. And I resemble that remark. And 10% of listening.

But the reverse would be a much wiser course. And I guess I can just keep talking. Yeah, because you have the first quote. We're going to start with my clip. We are.

Yes, we are. Is pretty self-explanatory. It's Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the well. One thing to look for, you'll hear, well, if I could read my own writing, you felt unworthy, Jesus saying that. That is a pretty big gap between that sentence and what came before, which is Jesus telling the woman all about her husbands. And it takes her from being cocky and angry to being broken, which often is a necessity to actually hear what God is speaking to us. So we're ready to play.

I'm here to break those barriers. And the time is coming when neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. So where am I supposed to go when I need God? I've never received anything from God, but I couldn't thank Him even if I did.

Anywhere. God is spirit. And the time is coming and is now here. That it won't matter where you worship, but only that you do it in spirit and truth.

Heart and mind, that, that is the kind of worshiper He's looking for. It won't matter where you're from or what you've done. Do you believe what I'm telling you? Until the Messiah comes and explains everything and sorts this mess out, including me, I don't trust in anyone. You're wrong when you say that you've never received anything from God. This Messiah you speak of, I am He, but you felt unworthy. Why are you doing this?

It would be good if you believed me. You picked the wrong person. I came to Samaria just to meet you.

Do you think it's an accident that I'm, I'm here in the middle of the day? I am rejected by others. I know, but not by the Messiah. That, uh, I guess I could have just said when the dramatic music started, discovering the gap, that is such a, well, it's always been a favorite verse of mine of Jesus's stories, but the, what you get from the chosen version fills it out to the point where I cannot watch that entire scene without getting choked up. And the point is, of that is that she had screwed up so much in her life, she did not feel like God would have anything to do with her, and she didn't want anything to do with God. She did indicate that, you know, that was other people's fault for the way they treated her during that time, but everybody out there is at one point or another, been hurting and felt like, and many, many of us feel like our self-inflicted wounds have separated us from God, and we can't talk to Jesus, we can't talk to God, but he makes it very clear in this passage that he's spirit, we can do it, as we pointed out before, 24-7, every day of every year of our life. And if we feel unworthy to, we're not, we won't hear from God if we don't think we will, or we'll hear from him very little, and those will normally be dramatic. I was hearing from God when I was still, I'd always believed in God, but I never really thought I'd hear from him, and even when I was far from him, there would be times. But if we're seeking him, seeking the relationship with God that he wants with us, then we're going to hear from him a lot more often, and we'll have his peace, and we'll hear from God, and we'll have his peace and comfort in these tough times.

It got cut off because I hit the two-minute limit, but right after this, she is overjoyed and said, he told me everything I've ever done, and goes rushing to the village, dropping her water, and telling others about him, and I think that is an ultimate outcome to us hearing from him. So, for those that aren't familiar with the story, or just heard it a little bit, why was it such a big deal, A, that Jesus is in Samaria, and B, that he's talking to the woman at the well? Well, Jesus is Jewish. This is probably one Robby should start setting up, because he knows it intimately, but basically, Jesus is Jewish, Jews do not have anything to do with Samaritans, they're half-breed rejects, they live in the wrong place, they worship the wrong place.

They're actually considered worse, culturally, than those that are not Jewish at all. I mean, they're at the very bottom of the, of what's going on, and when they first meet, she's saying, you shouldn't be talking to me, I'll make you unclean by giving you water. I mean, it's really, she recognizes that it's taboo for him to talk to her, and yet he engages her, and brings her to a point where she loves him, and is excited about having that relationship. Yeah, it's another, lack of a better term, Jesus picking a fight against the culture. Yeah. Right? You know, that he says, I don't care what the culture says.

Being a woman is awful, he's not even supposed to talk to women. Right, that back in that time, that would not be appropriate, right? And so there's a lot going on there, but it's Jesus battling for the heart. Yeah, and just on the point of him being in Samaria, none of his disciples, at least on the chosen part, but probably the real life, Samaria was really, it's a shorter way to get to Galilee, where they were headed, but it was through Samaria. Usually they went like 15 or 20 miles out to the east, around it, and they're just, he directly wanted to go through there for a reason, he had an appointment to meet her, a divine appointment. Yeah, and keeping in mind that, you know, it's not a 20 minute drive, you know, 20 miles is a significant walk. Right, yeah. Good times on a donkey.

Yeah, or sandals in the desert, yeah. So Andy, you're actually up with the next clip, and it's from the Bourne Automatum, and to be very honest, it says right here on the computer, Bourne Automatum, I just didn't read it. You didn't read?

Okay. I just didn't read, I just didn't read. We can't blame it on the eyes now, because you know, they're fixed.

They're fixed. Yeah, it's the attention span. So yeah, this is from, this is from the Bourne Automatum, and this is a scene where Jason Bourne is this CIA operative, and the CIA has got an unethical or unlawful program going, and there's this journalist that's been reporting on it, and Jason Bourne knows about it, and he's trying to protect him, and he gives him a phone so he can kind of give him directions, because they're being followed by this CIA group, and really it's just a scene. It's pretty visual, but you should be able to pick it up.

You'll hear Jason Bourne talking to Ross, that's his, the journalist, and then you'll see here these CIA director and talking to his team as they're monitoring this guy, and they're trying to catch him and get to him, because he's considered the informant, or they're trying to find out who's informant is, and I'll talk a little bit more about the spiritual mapping to that when we get back. We have to move. Answer your phone. You got a visual?

Where the hell is he, people? Do exactly as I say. Need you to move up to your right. First escalator on the right.

Tie your chute, tie your chute right now, tie your chute. Wait. Wait. I'm gonna walk by you, I want you to move along the far wall to your left in four, three, two, one. Stand up. That's it.

You cannot afford to lose this guy, people. All right, that line, you're on, it's good. Stay on that line.

Stay on that line. Oh, the bin man, I think he's one of them. Garbage man?

Negative. Oh, Jesus. Jesus, he's reaching for something. Oh, God, he's gotta go. Stay on the line. He's gotta go. Stay on the line, you're on.

Do not deviate. Okay, there he is. Here he goes. Here he goes. Tell grab team A, go.

He's still talking with somebody. Get an instruction, Jimmy. Get me the conversation. Lock the box.

Lock the box. Moving grab team C. Hurry, Ross. We gotta move. Okay, move through this crowd.

Move through this crowd. Get on cover right now. Get in the store.

There's someone on your tail. Get in the store. We're gonna proceed out the east exit, that's to your right, as you come into the store. Head into the liquor store in front of you. Go into the back and lock the door.

Mobile form's down. This guy's got help. Tell me when the asset's in the nest. Get me a feed in there.

I want grab team C in there. Tell me what's going on. Where's Jason Bourne? He's picking us apart. Do you think he's his source?

He's gotta be. So it's probably hard to follow there, but really you have Jason Bourne just talking. I mean, it's like the voice of God to us at times. Now these guys weren't close.

They weren't friends. It's not like the relationship we have with God, but there's some parallels to the direction God wants to give us as his children. You know, he's just constantly telling him, you know, what turn to make, you know, go up the escalator, tie your shoes, those kinds of things. But I, you know, some of them are like spot on, wait, wait, well, how many times do we need to just slow down and wait on God?

We've talked about it a lot. Be still and know that I'm God and, and there's, there's just a lot to that. I think in my spiritual walk, um, that's one thing I've done.

I used to be so much, just jump out there, get go again. It goes back to that kind of orphan spirit. I've got to control everything myself and why wait on God when I can go do things myself and you know, ask for his blessing after the fact.

But that weight really means a lot. Um, you know, the, the guy from the CIA is talking about born and the Ross, he says he's talking to somebody, this guy's got help. It's evident that he's got help. It should be evident that we got help, that we have our father helping us. And then at the end, near the end, you hear born, um, you hear that scuffle born's fighting for him to protect him.

Well, what you don't see in that scene is he goes on and that he get the, the Ross actually gets killed because he didn't follow the directions. And that's what we are when we don't follow directions. But it all comes out of relationship of hearing God. If you try to, um, you know, you, you know, like Jim said, the relational part of it is foundational, but what relation do you have where you don't have bi-directional communication? What kind of, what kind of, um, relation can you expect between a husband and wife, a father and a child, mother and a child, whatever. I mean, you've got to have that relational aspect to it. And anyway, I just think, I thought that was a cool clip on learning to listen and that's still a difficult time to, I mean, I still, I know I hear from God on a regular basis, but I know that I probably could do it a lot more by getting still and listening. So question, when do you guys find it harder to listen to God when you're in a sense of urgency? Or, you know, it's just everyday kind of thing? Well, yes, that's right.

That's right. The text, the textbook answer, at least from the guys at Wild at Heart is that that urgency, that pressure on you, that's going to be hard to hear. So learn to hear on the things where there's less pressure on it and you begin to be accustomed to hearing that voice. And then when you enter those times of pressure that you can fall back on what you know, you've heard it before.

My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. That's good advice, but where do you struggle? I mean, I definitely struggle with the part of trying to get an answer when I really, you know, in that urgent space, that urgent place, not space, but I guess it's easier now because I think just in my growth and my spiritual walk that I feel like I have so much more trust in the relationship that things aren't just as urgent anyway. But knowing who you are takes a lot of that pressure off. But with that being said, I would much rather make decisions in a non-urgent or need to know right now type of environment. Yeah. And if you ask God about your non-urgent issues, maybe avoid some of the urgent issues. Yeah, that's true too. Was that unavoidable or unavoidable suffering is kind of the byproduct of that?

Yeah, that's directly from that particular topic. I actually would go a different direction, but that's not unusual, figuring into the you're nuts. But unlike, you know, Rodney said yes, because I think when the ox gets horribly in the ditch, like when I was crushed between the two cars, it wasn't hard at all to hear from him because that was all you got. I mean, and I know that my fallback will be, and I would imagine everybody's will be that if something truly horrific happens to you, he comes in loud and clear, like you just can't even believe.

You won't have any trouble. Now, when you're going to him with something that you feel like is urgent, you know, that's another story altogether, you know. But true urgent issues, there's no doubt in my mind that you won't have a struggle like, I wonder if that was, you know, you're going to know when it's really, really, you know, something tragic just happened to your wife or your, you know, one of your children or something like that.

He's got a special comfort that there's no doubt in my mind. But my agenda being urgent, you know, those are a bit challenging. And then the other one is actually, for me, my biggest struggle.

And it's just the moment by moment, what I'm really hoping, you know, to take this lesson from Jimmy Stewart, and literally, you know, have him there with me in the mundane. Yeah. You guys answered the question I asked, I want to ask it differently, though. It wasn't about hearing God, about listening to God. When do you find it more difficult to listen for God, is really the question I meant to ask.

Right. It's not about that at the second part, it's in the everyday thing, right? When something feels urgent, yeah, I definitely want to lean into him, then because I'm out of my own answers, potentially, right, but I don't ask him about the stuff just daily that I really need to ask him about. I'm getting better at it, right? And life's becoming less urgent at times and more avoidable suffering, right? I'm having less of that, hopefully. But it's in those everyday decisions.

You know, I mean, if I asked him, am I going to hamburger every day at lunch, I'm probably going to deal with other issues. If I don't listen at some point, right, I'm going to deal with some health stuff. My answer didn't change, okay, between hearing and listening.

And it's not it is both, but it's when I'm at the extreme of both. If God is the only way I'm getting out of this dramatic, terrible situation, listening, well, depends on how you define them, but and it's done different ways, but that doesn't matter. I'm hearing and listening. Or when I am at peace and reflecting on God, and I'm in, I know I'm in his presence. That's if I don't fall asleep, I'm hearing or listening. Yeah. At that time. There's definitely a difference.

For any of you that's been married, I promise if you talk to your wife, there's times that you hear, but there's a lot of times you don't listen. That's a very myopic attitude. It is very myopic. Yes, it is. That's one of those almost absolutes. Yeah. Yeah. That's the distinction I make between it is I may hear, but am I really truly listening? You know, and that's a different thing. Andy, you got something you want to add? I jump over to obedience myself.

That's the first place I go. I'm hearing this. It's like, okay, are we going to obey? Are we going to do what God says to do? And that comes back to our carol saying, know the word, then you know what to really go to obey.

Another textbook answer from Wild at Heart, but I think I've found it to be true as well. This is, I mean, this is Robby's talk that I'm getting into here, I think for the next, but the whole idea of, and it's what Rodney was talking about with the obey, but it's the whole idea of surrender. Am I willing to hear yes or no on whatever I'm asking? A lot of times it's God should buy this house or not or whatever. If you've got your mind made up, you're not going to hear, you know, God's voice.

You're going to hear your own and it's going to get in the way. And I find myself, because God's proven himself over time, much more comfortable with surrendering that and going with it because I realized he really is the smartest guy in the room and I'm not. Yeah.

For me, I think a lot of it was orphan spirit to begin with. You know, I just really, I'm going to do it my way and if it didn't work, I'll ask God and live my life way too long that way. I think becomes more now is I still kind of have this belief, you know, God's got a lot going on.

I'll just, you know, and it's silly. Right. But you know, I don't think to ask him when I should as much and that's getting better and I think that'll grow over time. But it's being more thoughtful about, okay, before I make the decision, before I jump in the pool, God, is this a good idea?

You might not want to. Yeah. For me, it's a lifetime of habit.

Yeah. Always made the decision for myself. I never looked to God. And then I come to Christ and I'm like, oh, there's another option other than just me. And there usually is. And I just forget. And then how hard is it after I've already made a decision on something? Oh, yeah, God, what should I do?

I can't hear anything. I've already made my decision. I'm going down the road. So like you say, learning to do it earlier first is it's hard, but it helps. Yeah. I want to avoid the, hey, God, can you help me bail out of this particular thing?

I promise I'll learn from it and it won't ever happen again. Well, I actually, David, did you have something you want to say? You just had that look on your face. That's just my look. Okay.

Okay. No problem. It's my face.

It's just your face. Well, thank you. We appreciate you being a guest again this week, by the way.

I appreciate you guys having me. You know, I know it's an old, old, old, old, old, old, old dreams and yes, I know it's an old movie and I'm not going to ruin anything in it for you. You know, uh, but in this particular clips towards the end of the movie, when everything's starting to make sense, when it, when it all kind of comes clear, the whole journey that he's been on, that Ray's been on through the process and his wife and the people around him that don't understand what they're doing. You know, now it makes sense at the end, but in the middle it sure wouldn't have right.

It looked like a bunch of crazy activity, crazy decisions. And then it kind of comes to fruition. And so let's listen to this clip where Ray kind of figures out what the voice has been telling him and why, and then we'll come back and talk about it. If you build it, he will come. I only saw him years later when he was worn down by life. Look at him, he's got his whole life in front of him and I'm not even a glint in his eye.

What do I say to him? Why don't you introduce him to his granddaughter? Hi, I just wanted to thank you folks for putting up this field, letting us play here. I'm John Kinsella, I'm Ray, my wife, Annie, this is my daughter, Karen, Karen, this is my, this is John. Hi, John. Hi, Karen. Well, we're going to let you two talk. Hey, Dad, you want to have a catch?

I'd like that. Yeah, that was a six minute clip to try to cut down into two minutes. And so there's a lot that I had to take out, but the part that I focused on, and the whole point of this movie, once you've seen it, and you go through all these things that don't make sense, you know, the first one is if you build it, he will come in, like, I have no clue what that is. And so he goes and he, he kidnaps a sports reporter guy, and it's like, okay, this makes no sense. But then it becomes clear a little bit more, right.

And along the way, then eases pain, and he goes and gets this, this doctor who ends up stepping back in time and playing baseball. You know, and there's just pieces of the journey that Ray's just obedient on, to use your word, right? And he's just obedient going, I don't know what this feels right.

It feels like this is bigger and deeper than me. And the whole goal of this whole movie of this whole journey was deleting back to the Father, in this case, to his natural father, right, and in our case, to our natural father mean God, not our earthly father, right, but to our natural father, and the whole point of the journey is to lead us into deeper relationship. Jim, you talked about watching the chosen clip and being moved. And that was a great clip.

It really was an awesome clip. Even though I've seen this movie a handful of times, I was still moved to tears watching it yesterday. And it was one of those things that we talk about on the show of saying, okay, God, why? Right, you know, but you have Ray that only knew his dad in later years when life had kind of beat him down, you know, and you don't know a whole lot about the relationship, but you do know that it wasn't what he had hoped it would be, you know, and so God was reminding me of, you know, when I was born, I was not expected. It was a surprise accident, whatever you want to call it.

I don't feel like an accident, but I was not expected, right. And my dad was 49, you know, and then by the time I was 12, he'd had a stroke and couldn't talk and couldn't do things and had to do a fair amount to help take care of him. And so, you know, I'd hear these stories of my dad playing against the Harlem go trotters, you know, back in the day or writing rodeo and all these cool things and some really cool things about my dad, but I never got to know him in that way, and so my heart really moved to Ray being able to spend some time with his dad playing catch.

As much as my dad loved baseball, I never played catch with him, so I'm looking forward to the day in heaven when my dad and I can play catch with my shoulders good enough and he can throw. We're going to have a great time, but anyway. I wanted to do the contrast of these two when we snuck it in, but God gives you a lot of details or He gives you very little and leads you on between those two clips. So don't expect one or the other when God speaks. Yeah, it's and. Yeah, it's and. Well thank you for listening this week. Go to masculinejourney.org to look up any upcoming events. We do have the boot camp coming up for advanced. Also we have more. We'll talk with you next week. This is the truth network.