How to Hear God Without Freaking Out | 1 Samuel 3:1–10

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Well, hey, everybody, happy Monday. Yeah, and today

me and Wesley are the Bible Guys together. Yes, and

that's because Jeff is around the world doing great things

like Marco Polo.

Yes, he is doing a lot of traveling. Yeah.

Yeah, so Wesley, this is what is commonly now known

as the Platinum Edition thanks to your nickname.

I actually had someone come up to me and say

Platinum Edition. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. You just kind of came up

the cuff for that, you did. So that's really fun.

So so hey, this week we are the Bible Guys,

and we are in the middle of a series, actually

in the third week of series called Dangerous Prayers, and

these this week has a theme and this whole week

is our prayers of calling. Well easy for me to say,

I can't talk yet today, prayers of calling in other

words like God calling us out, yeah, and and calling

our voice and and so when we feel like God

calls us to something, that's that's the vein that these

are all in today.

Right, Yeah, this is going to be good.

Yeah, so before we jump into that, we have a

great segment today. Jeff would always say, we scour the

internet for all the best sources of news.

High quality only, high quality, only.

For our people. But the reality is is that actually

it's really just the segments of the Babylon Beach. Yes,

this is a satire news source. And so anyway, we

gave this to Wesley to read because Wesley has a

sickness with this with this topic.

Yeah, this is very near and dear to my heart.

I love the waffle house. If you know me, I

love waffles. I mean, actually I'm a waffle snob.

Are you really?

You got to get the ingredients right, you gotta have

the right mix, you gotta do all of that. I

even looked at buying a waffle house iron. Wow, And

when I saw the price of it and what you

had to do to hook it up in your house,

I quickly changed my Okay, they are expensive, are they really? Like? Yeah,

a brand new one is like over a thousand wow.

Yeah for a brand new waffle iron, Yeah, it could

be like twelve hundred bucks.

Wow.

So I'm like, you know what I think the twenty

dollars Black and Decker is okay.

And by the way, you and I share that in

common because I lived in Atlanta for ten years and

I was birthplace the birthplace, and I was and still

am a waffle House huge, huge fan, Yeah, huge fan.

In fact, every time we go to Youngstown, Ohio, there's

one in Youngstown. Yeah, and I have to go there, yeah,

because there are none in Michigan, right.

Yeah. I have frequently gone to Toledo or Perrysburg, Ohio,

to the waffle House.

That's hilarious.

All right, So this is the title. Waffle House unveils

successful brand strategy of just keeping everything the same forever.

That is the best title ever. That is the best

I ever.

Yeah, and again this is from the Babylon b It says.

Following the public relations disaster Craacker Barrel experienced this week

after it introduced its new logo, popular restaurant chain, waffle

House unveiled a successful strategy of just keeping everything the

same forever. The twenty four hour breakfast chain sought to

avoid the same backlash Cracker Barrel suffered by simply not

ever changing any of its branding, products or decor, and

instead maintaining everything exactly as it has been since nineteen

fifty five, and if you've never been to the waffle House,

it's exactly that way. Yes, we're never going to be different,

said waffle House CEO Joe Rodgers. The third. Other restaurants

may feel pressure to change the way they look, come

up with new logos, or occasionally wipe crumbs and grease

off the tables, but at waffle House, we pledge that

our customers will never have to deal with that type

of jarring change. While many popular brands have fallen to

the temptation to update their looks and products to keep

peace with the modern world, waffle House expresss expressed its

commitment to providing the same environment in services that its

customers have always known. There's no reason to try to

reinvent the will here, rogers continue. We know what we are,

Our customers know what we are. When you want to

eat a stack of pancakes, a pile of bacon, and

some grits at two am while watching a live fight

between some transients who wandered over from the truck stop,

waffle House has been and always will be the place

to go. At publishing time, waffle House had issued a

follow up statement promising that even the oil used in

the fryers of its locations would never ever be changed.

Ever ever lyric that's really good ever ever.

Yeah, and that places the class.

I'll bet you they keep that promise. Yeah.

Yeah, yes, they are amazing.

So when I go into waffle House, one of the

things I do, and I know not many people do it, yeah,

which is why I do it.

Yeah.

But there's no music in waffle house oh yeah yeah,

so at least the ones in Ohio. So, uh, it's

just silent. And they basically it's almost like they punish

people and they force you to spend the money at

the jukebox.

Yeah.

So there's a big jukebox there and uh. And so

the first thing we do is we get in there

and I make sure I have to have dollar bills

or a five or at least you know, I usually

throw a five in there because I stay for a

while and then I just have fun taking place. So

it's part of the experience for us now. And so

my son and I have been going to waffle House

gosh since he was three years old, two years old together,

sort of our thing. And one of the things we

always do is go up there and say, okay, son,

let's go.

Yeah.

And anyway, there's a there's a song on every waffle

House playlist that is called the waffle House Thank You Song.

Oh I don't know that one.

Yeah. Yeah, so it's actually it's actually it's actually by

waffle House. Yeah, and it's and it's like waffle Houses,

thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, And it's

and they're thanking you for coming to ye. And I'm like,

I'm like, you know everyone, so, I mean not not recently,

but like when we were kids, when he was a kid,

we always would play the.

Thing, so thank you. So that is hilarious, larious, And

I'm going to have to do that the next time

I go to Ohio for sure.

For sure. Yeah. And then and then you'll be sitting

there eating your offles, going really this is what they did,

Like I paid for this, yeah yeah, yeah, but it's great. Yeah. So,

but there's a lot of pressure, by the way, when

you choose the music because there's a diverse crowd in there.

It's like you have like your you know, sort of

like your cowboy country kind of folks, right, you know,

kind of like hey, walking a waffle house. Yeah, you

kind of have that crowd, which, by the way, that's

that's true, whether they had accents or not, and everybody

knows what I'm saying, right, And then you sort of

have your urban crowd, and then you have like people

like super lame people like me who want to hear

like you know, uh, you know.

Free bird things like that.

Right, It's like it's like you have you know, so

you have to like, like, what are you going to do?

So honestly, I feel pressure to pick songs that nobody

can argue with, yeah, because you know, some people are

just like, oh, I'm gonna do top forty hits or whatever,

you know, Rick D's or you know, Casey Jason, whatever

it is. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to

try to pick like literally like living on a prayer

or you know, or you know, things like that stop believing,

because I don't think the world can much argue with it,

regardless of who you like.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

So that's what I do. I try to pick super

big classes.

Chris has a strategy. So that's the waffle House strategy

right there.

Yeah, I want everybody to go, oh, thank you sir,

you know, thank you for doing that. As opposed to right.

You know, have you ever done that? Have you ever

been in a place where somebody plays their genre you're like,

let me leave right now.

Or it's like the song that has been played over

and over and over again, yeah, and you're like just stop.

It right right? Well okay, well, hey, that was a

very fun segment and and honestly it it caught me

by surprise.

Yeah, you can never go wrong with the waffle house.

Yeah. Hey, by the way, you know what else was

the surprise?

What was that?

God call him Samuel?

That was a good transition. That was good and it's terrible.

I've made it up because that's sent wasn't a surprise, yes,

but anyway, yeah, that's what we're talking about today. So

in First Samuel, chapter three, verses one through ten, Yeah,

so are you to read?

I can read?

Yeah, yeah, sorry, we never covered that. Yeah, was Jeff's

the reader?

I will be reading?

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.

So again First Samuel, chapter three, verses one through ten,

it says, meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the Lord by

assisting Eli. Now, in those days, messages from the Lord

were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon. Verse two,

one night, Eli who was almost blind by now had

gone to bed. The lamp of God had not yet

gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the tabernacle near

the ark of God. Suddenly the Lord called out Samuel. Yes,

Samuel replied, what is it. He got up and ran

to Eli here, I am, did you call me? I

didn't call you. Eli replied, Go back to bed, so

he did. Then the Lord called out again Samuel. Again.

Samuel got up and went to Eli here, I am,

did you call me? I didn't call you, my son,

Eli said, go back to bed. Samuel did not yet

know the Lord because he had never had a message

from the Lord before. So the Lord called a third time,

and once more Samuel got up and went to Eli here,

I am, did you call me? Then Eli realized it

was the Lord who was calling the boy, so he

said to Samuel go and lie down again, and if

someone calls again, say speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

So Samuel went back to bed, and the Lord came

and called as before Samuel Samuel, and Samuel replied, speak,

your servant is listening.

That's it. We're stopping there.

Huh, yeah, it's not right there. That's pretty good.

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess the dangerous prayer is saying, Okay, God,

I'm going to listen to whatever you're saying. Yeah, So

God calls and do we dare to say, okay, God,

what do you have to say?

Yeah? That can be a very tough thing, Chris, especially

when it's something that you don't want to do.

Right.

So that's a little different from the context here in

this scripture, But it's easy when it's something you want

to do. It's kind of like if God said, Chris,

preach on this this coming Sunday. Well, you normally speak,

that's something you can do. It's not a hard thing.

But what if God says, go forgive that uncle who

did something to you?

Ain't nobody got time for that and nobody lots to

do that.

So that's the question. Will you be obedient when it's

something that you don't want to do? And I even

pose that to the listeners, What is the thing right

now that God is calling you to do that you

know you should be doing that you're just not doing

because you don't want to do it. What is that thing?

Yeah? Are you willing to have the response of Samuel

and the story, which is, you know, God calls and

he's clearly calling you to do something. And in this case,

again we've not yet gotten to the story, at least

in our reading, we've not yet gotten to you know,

what God wants Samuel to do. But that does that

part doesn't matter. So the application, though, is the same.

If God says, hey, I want you to do this, Hey,

I want you to do this, and you're like, I

don't want to recognize God's voice, there has to be

a moment where you're like, Okay, I'm gonna acknowledge God

speaking right, because isn't it true? There are times where

we'll go to like, let's just say like church for instance.

We could do this almost anywhere, but church is a

good example. You walk into church, you hear a sermon,

and you feel convicted. You feel like God is nudging

you or encouraging you or challenging you something very specific,

and it's like you feel like, oh, I really need

to do that, whether it is forgiving somebody or giving

your money to something or or giving of your time

or you know, or just you know, whatever it is,

or changing a bad habit or you know, ending a

bad relationship. And if we say to ourselves I'm going

to ignore that, and then and then God just nudges

us again and you're like, nope, I'm going to ignore that.

But it's funny how we ignore things that are holy, right,

you know what I mean. It's not like we're ignoring

bad things. We're who else is going to tell you

to do something that is good or that is helpful

and that is holy, you know what I mean. We

want to ignore those things because we don't want to

do it.

But that's it. It's very much like a parent, isn't it.

It's like I'm going to ask you to do something

you don't want to do, but it's for your betterment,

it's for you, it's for the good of everybody. Trust me,

you'll thank me in the end, right. It's it's one

of those things, you know, especially when it's delayed gratification.

You know, hey, put money in your savings account. I

don't want to. It's like you'll thank me one.

Day, Yes, you'll thank me in about twenty years.

Yeah, And so it's it's one of those things where

you know, when God speaks, we have to learn not

to ignore it. Now in this particular case, for those

of you who know the story. The thing that God

asked Samuel to do was actually quite bad. It was

something Samuel, I'm sure did not want to do. Samuel

was a young man, and what he was basically saying

is he was basically saying, Hey, I'm going to bring

out all my threats, all my threats that I've given

to Eli, who, by the way, you're working for the

old man you're supposed to respect. He's the high priest

that's assigned to the temple. He's your authority. I'm just

going to let you know, Samuel, as a young man,

that I'm carrying out my threats against him because of

all the different, you know, wicked things that he's done.

And that's a whole other topic altogether. But Eli was

not obeying the Lord at the time, and even though

that he was the high priest in the temple, and

so Samuel was hearing news that he did not want

to hear. And then he had to go back and

Eli said, Okay, what did he say? And can you

imagine this young man right, like, you know, it's like

what young man would have the courage to say, Well, actually, Eli,

it was about you, right, even though I'm like, you know,

a young teenager, maybe not even a teenager yet, even

maybe like twelve years old or whatever. However Samuel was

and he's speaking to this very old man who's respected

in the community and is in charge and has been

in charge for decades, and he has to tell him, actually,

it's it's God's carrying out negative things against you.

Yeah.

But anyway, all that to say, I just think that

you know that there are times in our lives where

this is a really great parallel because you and I

we may know what got us to say, whether it's

good or bad, and we're just like God, I'm just

going to pretend like I didn't hear it. I wanna

pretend like I wasn't inspired, I wasn't moved emotionally, I

wasn't convicted. And if I just ignored long enough, I

can go back to doing what I want to do

and not doing what I don't want to do.

As if God's going to stop, well, because you don't

want to do it. You know, we kind of think

if we ignore God long enough, maybe he'll forget right.

And I'll share a personal story. And I think I've

shared this on the Bible guys before, when I was

in college and I was saving up money for a car,

and it saved up almost one thousand dollars. I don't

know why I had the money on me at that time,

but I went to a Friday night church service. I

will never forget. It wasn't my church. It was a

church in Detroit, on the west side of Detroit, not

far from Grand River, a really big church. So I

go there. I'm sitting in service, and I get this

feeling to put all of the money in the offering plate.

And I said to myself, and.

Back then, a thousand bucks might as well have been

five thousands.

Yeah, And I said to myself, no, I am not

putting my hard earned car money in this offering plate.

Then it came to me again, put the money in

the offering plate, and.

The implications of losing that money are he.

Now, just I want the audience to think about this

because I want to set the stage. I'm in college.

You know how long it takes to save up almost

one thousand dollars on a minimum wage job, and minimum

wage back then, like when I was in college, minimum

wage might have been I don't know what it was,

it like seven, yeah, like it was like seven. I

think something when I was so, I saved up all

of this money, and now God is telling me the

thing that I loved so much, the thing that I

didn't want to release or relinquish. God is saying, Okay,

give me that, and I said, no, I am not

giving that. I don't want to. But eventually, after I'm

sitting in my seat arguing with myself for a while,

I decided, you know what, God, if this is, it

keeps coming to me to put it in there. So

I put the money in the offering plate. Wow did

the sky open up? No? Was there an earthquake or

anything like that. Nope, but something did happen though. Within

thirty days, my boss came to me and said, hey, Wesley,

you're traveling back and forth at the time I was

going to Eastern Michigan. You're traveling back and forth to

east eastern Michigan. You're doing this crazy catch a cap

from the Renaissance to DTW the airport, and then you're

going from the airport via shut It was a crazy

commute I had. He said, why don't we just give

you a free company car. You just have to put

gas in it and you can use that to go

back and forth to school. Wow, why do I believe

I got the vehicle because I was obedient to God

with the money. God didn't need my money. God's not poor, right,

But me doing that was an act of obedience, and

God blessed me as a result of that active obedience.

And God used you to do what God was going

to do anyway, Yes, right, and so, but but you

get to be the one to be a part of it.

So he used your thousand dollars for whatever that church

was trying to accomplish. Yeah, yeah, and so and so yeah,

and then you then you got to witness God in action. Yeah,

So you get to see a side of God that

you know that you that you perhaps would have missed

out on. Right. So here we are, how many years later,

you're still telling the story. You know, it's so great

about it. You said it minute ago as if God's

going to stop, because there are some things where God

will not stop prodding us and nudging us. But in

that case, God would have stopped because you would have

missed out of that opportunity because that opportunity was limited, right,

It was a it was a limited window.

Yeah. The offering period was only.

So long, right, Yeah, there's only a few minutes and

so and so. So in that case, God would have

stopped because because it's like, hey, Wesley, here's an opportunity

to experience me in a richer way, to develop your faith,

to grow in faith, to you know, just have a

better relationship with me, to understand my dependability, my promises,

you know everything else, here's a chance to be a

blessing and receive blessings. And and it's this window. Yeah,

you have five minutes, yes, or lets and go right.

I mean from the time you probably thought about it

to the time you gave was probably like a couple

of minutes, right. So yeah, there there are things where

you know, when God asks, we have to understand that

it is a limited window of opportunity to either miss

out on or experience God's blessings.

Now, Chris, I gotta throw this in because I know

someone is listening and they're thinking all of this sounds

nice and the story Wesley shared that that was good. Yeah,

but how does God speak? I'm going to pose that question.

How does God speak to us? How does he communicate

to us? Is it is it going to be via

a dream? Is it going to be a gentle nudge.

Will it be a voice? Will it? How practice? Make

this super practical for people in terms of exactly how

God will communicate with him to do what he wants

to do.

Yeah, and you know, this is such a great question

for you know, this.

Is probably a bigger question that we have time for.

But yeah, but that's okay. But I think there is

a quick, andalong answer.

Yeah.

So the quick answer I think, which is not super quick,

is honestly, I think that it is a feeling more

than an audible voice. So in other words, like, but

it has clarity to it, right, So an audible voice

is clear most of the time, right, an audible voice

and that's pretty clear. Yeah, sometimes feelings are unclear. So

what I'm saying is I think God's voice is a

combination of really really powerful feelings with crystal clarity. And

I think that one of the sure ways to understand

that it's from God is when it comes out of

the blue and it has nothing to do with anything

you would have ever thought of by yourself. So, for instance,

you could be reading the Bible, you could be praying,

you could be talking with another believer, you could be

sitting in meditation by yourself. Honestly, you could be doing

just about anything and then the power of the Holy

Spirit speaks to us. And when it speaks to us,

now sometimes sometimes it could feel like an audible voice, right.

And some people would even say they've heard audible voices.

And some people would say that God speaks through dreams,

and I believe that is true. By the way, I

believe God can use dreams to speak. Although interpreting dreams

is a tricky little thing, which is why it's so

important to seek godly counsel. We don't just take, you know,

obscure things like dreams and say I know exactly what

that means, right, you know, we have to we have

to line it up with the Bible.

God is never not I think that's the key. It

must align with the Bible. You're receiving something that you

think you're receiving, and is that God? If it's against

the Bible, No, it's not God.

Because people can justify anything. Y. Yeah, I know, God

wants me to divorcer. You know. It's like it's like

it's like, well, wait a minute, let's talk about this,

because I'm not I think you're just trying to you know,

so God wants me to be happy, doesn't he. Okay,

let's talk about this, right, So you could you could actually,

you know, go down that road pretty quickly. But if

you actually seek godly counsel and you line it up

with God's word, that's the best way to understand that

God's never going to give you advice that goes against

himself or his or his will or his ways. And

so anyway, the bottom of mine is is I think

that through the power of the Holy Spirit, there's an impression,

and sometimes it comes out of the blue. It's like wow,

what a random thing. And and and then the longer

you become or the longer you are a Christian, then

the more you learn to recognize what is from God

and what is not. Yeah, right, when you agree with.

That, yeah, I agree. This just happened to my wife

and I. We were downtown at a new restaurant right

off a grashet and we were sitting there, We're eating

and minding our own business, and just as we're about

to pay, I just felt that we should pay for

the older lady who was eating by herself, like one

table away from us, just to pay for it. And

it was out of the blue Like. It wasn't like

my wife and I were like, should we pay for

that lady's food? It was literally like, huh, ma'am, can

we can we pay for her food over there? Yeah?

So it wasn't even a thought I was thinking of

y yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah yeah. And did she end up

knowing that it was you?

Here is the funny part about that, in how God works.

The other table, there was a group on the other

side they said the same thing.

Wow, So they got to her first.

They said, we felt led to pay for her food too.

So I just thought that was very interesting how everyone

just was kind of like, you know what, I'm gonna pay, No,

I'm gonna pay.

Yeah.

Just was a cool little thing.

Yeah, that's all. Yeah, that's very very cool. Well, hey,

so let's summarize by just saying that in this particular case,

Samuel does not recognize the voices from God. God's clearly

calling Samuel to do something, yes, and then Samuel in

essence ignores the fact that God is calling because he

doesn't quite understand, so he's doing it out of ignorance. Right, So,

for the believers out there who are learning to recognize

God's voice a very appropriate discussion, right, Yeah, let's learn

to lean in God's voice, listen for it, and then

say God speak your servants listening. And then for the

Christians who know God's speaking and want to ignore God's voice,

that is another direct application to this. And so we

need to learn to stop brushing off God's leading and

finally to sigh and release and just say, God speak

for your servants listening.

And he will always speak to you through his word.

That's right.

So if there's ever a lack of clarity, he will

always speak through his word to us.

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, hey, that's a great place to end,

and that's our time. So hopefully we will see you

tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,