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Overview
Welcome back to the Weird Souls Are We Podcast! Ep 5
We’re going to talk about:
- How to Listen to God
- Ways God Talks to Us
- How to Listen to Others
- Active Listening
In EP 6 we’ll talk about how to Talk about God and to others
Bible Verses:
John 10:14-16
Are you a Weird Soul? Weird Souls live a Jesus-centered life in modern culture.
Got Questions? Leave a comment.
Transcript
I everyone! welcome to weird souls are we the podcast where we talk about how to be more like Jesus in a modern day culture I’m Shannan Davis and today we’re going to be talking about one of our buckets listen now if you aren’t really sure what I’m talking about go back to episode three where I kind of outline the mentality behind buckets and the ones that we’ll be talking about but the whole concept is our faith is not a checklist and there are different aspects of who we are and how we live
that we need to fill up on Jesus and then overflow into others and so one of those categories that I kind of came up with is listen uh listen is such an important part both listening to God listening to others just being able to listen and hear and understand what you’re hearing and there are many different aspects so we’re going to start more on our relationship with God’s side of things of listening now listening is important because this is a key part in building relationships and as we’ve talked about relationship is
what our faith is all about God created us for relationships so listening is how we start building that relationship we’ve all interacted with people that like to talk more about themselves than listening to others and you just kind of get tired with that after a while and and fade off so developing that ability to listen is a key part of any relationship so how do we listen as far as a relationship with God uh there are two kind of key ways that we listen to him one is Through the Bible and the other is the holy spirit so the Bible is
probably the most commonly accepted way across all forms and flavors of Christianity I believe that the Bible is 100 true it is God’s word it is living and breathing and so the Bible has so many layers to it uh kind of like an onion there’s the aspect of the historical piece it lets us know who Jesus was how he lived all all of that kind of thing but there’s also the big story of God starting in Genesis all the way through the end what God has been doing and working on since we messed it up as humans and sin entered and how
he’s orchestrating that then there’s the aspect of Christian Life like how am I supposed to live my life and all of that tie-ins of Faith from when God first set apart the Israelites up till Jesus coming to fulfill all of those laws and then how are we supposed to live on the other side of the Resurrection but the most important piece in understanding the Bible and actually hearing what God is trying to tell you at any given moment of life is consistency uh consistency is key for any relationship really but listening being able to hear
God and what he is trying to tell you or what he wants you to learn or hear in a moment of life is about consistency and that means showing up regularly um it means reading your Bible regularly I know as a kid I always wanted God to be kind of like okay this is the thing and I want I wanted to be able to look in the Bible and find the answers or get a specific nugget of wisdom for myself or what I was going through but the thing is if you’re not consistently showing up you’re not going to be able to know when you hit that nugget that
God wants you to do it’s that whole that my sheep know my voice concept that if we are not consistently listening to what God has to say at any given point we’re not necessarily going to be able to hear him well when we actually need to hear him and so it’s that consistency of showing up the consistency of showing up and reading your Bible also helps you start connecting dots so there are things that I’ve read many many times throughout my life of following Jesus that didn’t make any difference to me it
just seemed like scripture but at that one moment that I actually needed to hear what I was hearing in that not only uh did the consistency help me but it helped me connect dots help me see that oh this is happening here because of something I’ve read in a different part or oh this thing connects to this thing that connects to this thing and that’s how God works or that’s how God shows up or that is what God is saying to me and recently I decided to start reading about Moses again because it had been a
while since I’ve really read that I studied it in Bible many many years ago and so it was always kind of like a study text kind of vibe for me and I was like you know what I’m really going to just read it as part of my daily devotional and then I just kind of kept going so now I’m in Deuteronomy I actually made it through Leviticus I think it’s the first time I’ve truly sat down and just read Leviticus um as a open like okay God what can I learn and in this process I’ve been like oh I did not realize certain things were
said in this section of the Bible that connect all the way over to the New Testament and how Jesus was living or I didn’t even realize how things within that scripture connected and the thing honestly that has been hitting me hard that never would have hit for me prior to being a parent even is just how repetitive that scripture is and any parent out there listening knows if God views us as his children there’s a reason you’re repetitive your kids don’t listen to you and that has just struck me so much how
repetitive uh Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy all those books are God says the same thing over and over and over and over again and I mean Moses was the one that we believe wrote all of those books uh so Moses is repeating a lot but I think the reason all of that made it into the Bible is because we’re God’s children he knew we weren’t going to listen like he’s telling him like if you do this then this is gonna be what you get if you do this this is going to be your consequence and he 100 knew all of
this was going to happen it wasn’t I mean it was kind of prophetic to the Israelites at that moment but we know it was God being like hey I know you’re going to not listen to me I know you’re going to disobey me I know you’re going to do all these things that kids do and every parent out there knows where kids do it and that’s why God was repeating himself over and over and over again and like hey you need to keep saying these things so you remember it because I know you’re going to forget as soon as you
stop doing it and that’s what happened and that’s something that I am really understanding and seeing as part of God in this moment that when I was like a teenager I probably never would have connected to God in that way because I wasn’t a parent like I hung out with kids and stuff I babysat things of that nature children’s ministry but I didn’t understand God as a parent like I do now because I am a parent and so that’s just part of the living breathing concept of the Bible and why consistency with going
and reading helps us hear and understand better who God is and develop that aspect of our relationship now the holy spirit is something that if you grew up in a non-denominational church uh the Holy Spirit was kind of always this thing that it’s like we know he exists we talk about them occasionally we don’t really understand what that has to do with us or feel like he really impacts us all that much other than maybe a a cozy cozy feeling from God every now and then like that’s kind of the mentality I grew up with the Holy
Spirit I don’t know that it was because it was specifically talked about maybe it’s because we didn’t specifically talk about the Holy Spirit a lot growing up it was a lot of God and Jesus but we never really dove into that third part of the Trinity and it’s something that I’m trying to lean more into and kind of catch up in my understanding of God as the Holy Spirit uh but there are a lot of different ways that God can speak to us through the holy spirit for me a primary way is kind of just that gut feeling like I think a
lot of women get that gut feeling from God that it’s like I can’t explain it but I know this thing I know this thing to be true whether it is in God leaning on our intuition or us just having connected with God regularly and consistently through relationship that we can say I just know this isn’t part of God’s truth um or I just know that this is not the best choice even if it’s a good choice or things of that nature so for me I I lean a lot on just that okay compared to what the truth I know about
God to be I don’t think this is part of God’s truth or the best choice that God would have me pick some other ways uh it doesn’t happen as much now but especially before I was married I don’t know if it’s because I was able to kind of just sleep and then it was easier to remember dreams but dreams used to be a really big way that I felt like God spoke to me and connected with me uh occasionally I still have dreams that I’m like okay I think that was kind of a message from God and I try and kind of
analyze it and stuff but I used to have so many dreams all the time and I’d write them all down I still have journals filled with dreams that I would then be like okay so what was what did this mean how does this apply to my life things of that nature uh it’s why for a really long time Joseph was one of my favorite stories of the Bible still is but just the fact that God spoke to him in dreams the dreams took years for Joseph to really understand what they meant and just that understanding of God will tell us things that sometimes it
doesn’t make sense in that moment and sometimes it will take us years or decades to even understand what that dream meant but paying attention and looking and listening one may clue you in a little bit more in a moment as to what decisions are you making and or what decisions do you need to make that will align with how God is speaking to you and sometimes he’s telling us so that we know okay God’s working on something I don’t know when I’m going to see the end of that answer or prayer or
whatever but I know God’s working on something sometimes the Holy Spirit works also in partnership with the Bible uh sometimes it’s a matter of when we’re reading that little thing that would mean absolutely nothing to anybody else or has never stood out to us just feels like a complete like wake-up call like how have I never noticed this piece of the Bible or the scripture or whatever that I’ve read a million times before and it just never clicked to me and so sometimes the Holy Spirit Works in partnership with the
Bible that’s how it keeps living and breathing and applying to our lives regardless of what era or culture we are living in in partnership with dreams there are Visions as well and Visions feel even more like weird to those of us that grew up probably a little less Holy Spirit intense in our faith you see in Hollywood where uh in a more mystical sense Visions happen and eyes glaze over and like there’s this big prophetic answering or or talking about what they saw um Visions to me don’t have to be this super dramatic
thing even in the Bible like we see that John had a vision of heaven and Daniel had these uh visions and it’s talked about in the Bible what I’ve come to understand the holy spirit will speak to us in visions that it’s just like this little picture that pops up in your head that helps you understand or maybe see things that uh are Are Spiritual incense and not real world so Vision that stuck with me for a really long time is I was at a retreat it was in uh the middle of kind of a rough season I was feeling
tired in Ministry there’s a lot going on uh in the lives of people around me and I really wasn’t sure how I was supposed to respond or what God was calling me to do or not do in the situation and so I was at this Retreat it for a lot of people that go to this this type of retreat it it happens all over the nation but for a lot of people that go to this Retreat it’s like a spiritual Reawakening for them like it’s it’s like a a deep conversion moment a big point in their life that it’s like this is the
life-changing thing that made me understand my faith even deeper I wasn’t getting that connection necessarily but actually I wasn’t getting that kind of a connection I honestly think going on that retreat was more for me to participate in it down the road but I did get a vision um while I was at this Retreat of just me and God or it was a vision of just me and Jesus sitting in a boat in the eye of a storm everything was hurling and swirling around us but we were sitting calmly in the boat together and it was
just an assurance that even though everything around me seemed to be in chaos Jesus was still sitting there with me and I could still find peace with him and that is a vision that has just stuck with me anytime something chaotic happens I just remember that little vision of me and Jesus in a boat in the eye of a storm and that it’s going to be okay and so a vision doesn’t have to be this huge dramatic prophetic thing like what we see in the Bible a lot of times or that Hollywood likes to make it or that we
make ourselves think a vision needs to be sometimes it’s just this simple reassurance just the simple picture in your head of what is happening spiritually or what God is doing in your life to just assure you in certain ways so sometimes the Holy Spirit Works in pictures and images either while we’re awake or while we’re asleep dreams and visions and then the last kind of major way I think the Holy Spirit works and he might work in a lot of different ways I have a friend who every time she sees like a cardinal she feels like God is
speaking to her and that’s kind of like a little Holy Spirit nudge and that is a way that God works for her doesn’t apply to anybody else but her uh so there are many different ways that God might nudge you through the holy spirit that apply to you and not other people but to know those ways you have to first be foundational in God’s truth and hearing his voice so you know that this is a one Godly way and that it is the holy spirit speaking to you but the last way that the Holy Spirit I feel like majorly
talks to all of us is through others and that could be from us seeking out counsel or it could be from us just being in the presence of other Christians which is why weekend Gatherings are so important being around other Christians making sure you have those people in your life that you are giving permission to speak truth into your life that you are giving permission to hold you accountable and say yes I affirm that you are walking in a life that is following Jesus or say you know what this thing over here I don’t know
that that is the best thing for you and the Holy Spirit can speak through those people either they know that the Holy Spirit here to speaking through them and they’re like hey I feel like God is telling me I just need to say this to you or it could be in situations where somebody’s saying stuff and they don’t know the holy spirit is speaking to you they don’t know the holy spirit is using what they are saying to speak directly to you and as someone that teaches or as somebody that has spoken
in lots of different environments and stuff or written cards to people uh there are moments that people are like that that’s exactly what I needed to hear you when you said this thing like that just changed my whole my whole understanding and as a speaker there are many times people say that and I’m just like I don’t remember ever even saying those words I think every speaker has those moments where they’re like I apparently I said those things not my notes don’t remember saying it but you
heard that I those are Holy Spirit moments that’s either the Holy Spirit helped you hear something that never even got said but you needed to hear and that was the that was the environment that you were open to listening or it made something stand out especially when you’re saying the same thing right uh multiple times a day uh you the speaker said something that they weren’t really planning on and they didn’t really remember saying it in a particular way they’d never say it in that way again but God wanted you to
hear those words and that’s how it all came together and so the Holy Spirit made sure your ears were open and you were listening so sometimes it’s it’s people know they’re being used by the Holy Spirit and they say things intentionally sometimes it’s the Holy Spirit opening your ears to hear the right thing in the right way at the right moment so those are kind of the key ways I think that we can open ourselves up to listening and how God speaks to us so that we can hear him in just the right ways but as we are
listening to God it’s important that we have discernment to understand are we actually hearing from God or is this like a feeling that I’m getting or is this not at all something God would say or ask us to do and being able to understand and discern if we are hearing from God is a key part of the listening process and so there are a couple things that you can do to make sure that you are actually hearing from God like I said before the Bible is the ultimate Way for us to affirm what we’re saying God doesn’t change God will
not contradict himself and so we are not understanding something we should go back and look at God’s faithfulness and who he is throughout the whole Bible and mirror that against whatever we are going whatever we are trying to discern is this of God or is this of man and when we look at those things and compare they do not line up and say the same thing then that thing you’re trying to figure out is this of God is probably not of God and you need to realign and refocus yourself on God’s truth to
clarify it throughout all parts of your life if you’re really wanting to Deep dive on God’s wisdom and God’s understanding and how we should live Proverbs is always a great place to start when I don’t really have something that I’m like oh I really want to dive deeper into this piece of the Bible or this understanding a lot of times I’ll just read a chapter of proverbs every day it lines up with a month so whatever day it is read that chapter of proverbs and you’ll get through Proverbs in a
month and get a lot of good sayings of wisdom and understanding and how to live life so that’s always a good place to start framing what is the best way to live another way to know if what you’re hearing is from God is is it spring bringing you to intentional action even if that action is waiting so God doesn’t usually let us just sit around and do nothing our faith is action-based and he will act through us or in spite of us but there is usually an action that we have to take even if it’s patience so
there’s a difference between sitting around and doing nothing and waiting patiently on God and I think a lot of times when we’re talking to sometimes at God or praying for things to happen in our life we have to be prepared that when we hear God he’s probably going to ask us to do something and it might be that an action is to go physically do something and we have to decide are we going to be obedient or it could be that he’s telling us to wait on him which means we’re not sitting around doing
nothing we continue doing what we are doing in faith that God is also of working for something to happen in the end it doesn’t mean that we just stop doing it doesn’t mean that we’re just waiting around twiddling our thumbs not interacting with people in the world around us it means that we continue in life and faith looking for the little things while God works on the big things and so looking for and when we are listening to God seeing what the action he wants us to take usually helps us distinguish is
this action or is this response that we are feeling when we listen from God so when we are listening for God the answer that we’re hearing will help us understand if we’re actually hearing God and the actions he wants us to take will help us understand are we actually hearing from God another thing we can do is specifically ask God for wisdom in the case um if we’re not really sure am I hearing from God am I hearing my own thoughts am I hearing thoughts that aren’t my own thoughts and uh the devil’s just trying
to wheedle his way in asking God for wisdom because he says he gives wisdom graciously to anybody that asks so if you are uncertain if something is of god asking God for wisdom and then doing a lot of the different types of listening will help you verify am I hearing from God or am I hearing something that’s not of God so people Bible so going to others that you know are trusted and listening to the Bible will help you verify and seek wisdom of what God is actually trying to say to you in a given moment and then
finally halt that’s an acronym for Hungry angry lonely tired if you are feeling those things it’s usually a good moment to rest and maybe you need a Sabbath moment to just re-center yourself on God refocus on um refocus on filling up yourself and your relationships so that you aren’t trying to discern from emptiness so there’s fasting in there there is solitude but loneliness is different than Solitude and fasting is different than hunger and so if you are not in a time of intentionally giving things up
to spend that time with God AKA fasting if you are not in a time where you’re intentionally giving yourself Solitude with God to be away from people and hear from him and are actually lonely and in isolation it’s a good time even if it’s not like a regular this is my Sabbath day or whatever if you are finding yourself depleted in your relationships and in your physical humanness it is a good time to spend time with Jesus refill those buckets and then go back and say okay God I am listening I I can now focus on you please tell me
what you want me to hear now if you’re still struggling sometimes fasting gives you more time to focus on God and hear from him and maybe that is what you need to do solitude where you remove yourself from distractions and focus on God maybe that is what you need to do if you find yourself that you are being depleted of your energies uh and and that your your relationship with God it feels fuzzy and hazy right now it might be a time to re-center rest fast create Solitude things of that nature so that you can hear God better
a couple other things that we haven’t talked about that can be helpful for listening and making sure you’re hearing from God one is quiet time or Solitude whatever you want to call it but a dedicated regular consistent time where you are praying and reading your Bible I would also add journaling into that space because what journaling does is it creates a log of God’s faithfulness what you feel like you’re hearing and it puts it down there where you can then see it from a different view it’s not just
rolling around in your head it’s there on paper so then you can look at it and you can actually verify it against the truths of scripture or the truths people are speaking into your life and make sure what is in your head and heart align with God and the consistency of journaling will let you know one what are common things that I keep coming back to that maybe it’s time for me to just give that up to God or what are things that God seems to be saying to me regularly that maybe I actually need to act on it or how is God working
regularly in my life like I said for a while dreams were a big piece so I was writing those down in my journals and then verifying like okay what’s going on in life and how does this relate and how might God be speaking through these for me to act in my regular life uh right now I’m just regular journaling I’m just journaling about my day it kind of Fades into prayers as well and there’s like this ebb and flow where it’s me talking to God about regular stuff and about things I care about and things I want
him to act on and asking him like okay what what is it that I’m supposed to do and I I’m not as good about this but I try and beware when I take things to him in my journal I try to also write down how eventually I feel like he’s responding to me so that I can verify okay not only is God faithful but this is how he is speaking to me and so it’s regularly practicing some of these things some of these things of listening and seeking God that allows us to know in pinches like in moments where it’s like
okay I don’t know what to do and you just give up that little like help me God prayer uh it lets us actually hear his voice it’s it’s regular consistent practices that make it easier in moments where we do need that quick like direct line to God that we can act on him because we’ve hidden his word in his art we’ve hidden his word and our hearts and we know his voice and we can identify truth and we know how we’re supposed to act and so in those moments where it matters we can put all of this consistent practice into
practice and so as we practice listening to God more it becomes easier for us to also listen to others more and like I tell my kids we practice hard things so they can become easier and practicing listening with God and working that muscle of just being okay with quiet and being okay with uncertainty and all those hard pieces of relationship makes us better at when it’s time to be around people and exercise our relationship with people that God wants us to be in relationship with it makes it easier for us to listen to them it makes it easier
for us to be okay with silence because when we give space of Quiet Moments it allows people to say those things that they would just put on the back burner because somebody else is talking or it’s not um their thing isn’t important this other person’s thing is important but if we give people Space by being okay with quiet then maybe they feel like okay this is my opportunity to say the thing that I need to say it lets them know that they’re valuable because you’re giving them this the gift of time and and listening
that I think we’re all in I think that’s one of the weaknesses of modern day culture we’re really good about talking about ourselves or talking about things or talking in general but just the act of sitting and listening to somebody doesn’t happen as much and I think people want to be known I think all of us want to be known by somebody and when we get comfortable sitting in the silence and giving and basically saying I want to know you so tell me about yourself I think that gives value to that person in that
moment if that’s all we can give somebody is is the gift of knowing them better by listening I think that is a valuable step in relationship building and letting people know they are loved and cared by us and God in addition to the silence being curious about people I think is the other piece of listening especially in building our relationships with people is making sure that we’re being curious about them maybe they aren’t comfortable just offering up information about them so maybe we have to help them along by
prompting them to tell us more about themselves being curious about them about their day about their family where they come from how where they’re at in their faith all of these different questions to tell people that you want to know them better and deeper and giving them space to tell you about themselves helps develop those relationships and learning to be good about active listening if you’ve never heard about active listening it is this whole concept of not just letting somebody talk and hearing their words
but hearing their meanings and part of active listening is giving them space not thinking about what you’re going to say in response but actually listening and hearing what they are saying it’s the small responses of yeah okay that’s awesome great just simple little encouragements that say I am still with you and what you are saying I’m still paying attention to you making sure you’re not interrupting and the piece that I’m still trying to get used to and hearing is is the paraphrases like okay
so that’s you can you could say something like okay that’s awesome I’m so excited that this happened or that’s so cool that you’re from or that your family and you kind of just summarize what you heard them say if it’s a deeper more serious conversation saying I am so sorry that such and such or this or that happened or I’m so sorry that you experienced that or that is so interesting that this is part of your life story or whatever that situation is becoming more comfortable with saying
basically this is what I heard and I acknowledge what you heard and if the relationship is an accountability kind of relationship with another Christian and that’s the type of conversation you’re having you can give feedback you can say well in my experience this is what you should do or this is what the Bible says maybe this is the action that you’re being called to or helping them not every conversation is going to require feedback or have the expectation of feedback sometimes just acknowledging
that you heard the person is all the more feedback that you need to give but when appropriate giving them feedback as to well this is how my life and your life connect intersect or apply but that’s kind of the concept of active listening is making sure that you are acknowledging the person and and the vulnerability they’re giving in a moment um and not just trying to make them a project or something to get through or you’re distracted or on your phone or things like that but focusing in on that person and responding to them in that
moment are all key pieces of listening and building relationships I hope this helped a little bit with maybe an understanding of listening and what that means in our faith walk and life uh if you have any questions make sure to leave them in the comments uh I would challenge you to kind of what is the thing in this talk that you’re like oh I’ve never thought about that or or maybe I do talk too much about myself or maybe I need to practice this thing or try this thing I’d love to know more about what your next thing on filling up
your listening bucket is going to be and how you’re going to shut yourself to listen to God or others a little bit better so if you made it to this point you’re now officially a weirdo welcome to the club and I hope you join us next time where we’ll be talking about talking so how do we talk to God how do we talk to others without being considered a crazy weirdo instead of just a god weirdo so I hope you join us for the next episode and we’ll see you then foreign
