Another Voice
What are ways that you hear the voice of God speaking to you? Bible reading? Bible study? Quiet time? Your pastor’s message? Music? A dream? A film? Nature? A friend? God is infinitely creative and He is speaking ALL of the time and we need to tune our ears to HIM however He may be speaking to us. We need to be alive with expectancy of what HE is going to say as we go about our day and learn to screen out all of the other voices.
What are these voices? We have the voice of the world (A culture that is alienated from heart of God), the flesh (our own wandering or rebellion) and the devil speaking through our thoughts? You know, the quiet whisper-like thoughts that just seem to speak in our ear at certain times. They sound just like our own thoughts but they are often sugar-coated lies from that three-fold enemy-the world, the flesh and the devil. We don’t tend to judge them or reject them but instead, through the habit of passive unbelief, we often welcome them on in. They appear to be and sound like “friends” but they are not!
When Colleen and I arrived here in Florida from Washington state within days of the 2020 election. The result was not what I had hoped and prayed for. As well as the distance, politics helped to divide many from family and friends. I was still hurting from the restaurant having to close after five years. That dream had died and a lot of money was lost. Since then I have worked at several (let’s just say “interesting”) jobs in Washington and Florida until I got the opportunity with my current employer.
These were some of the voices I heard in my thoughts... “Was this a mistake to move here? None of my kids and grandkids are anywhere close. I will never watch them play sports or all the things I dreamed of just a few years ago. My best years are all behind me.” I kind of felt like Billy Crystal’s character in City Slickers when he said “I look as good as I’m ever gonna look, I feel as good as I’m ever gonna feel and you know…it’s not all that good.”
This was Self-pitying, looking in rearview mirror kind of thinking that comes straight from the pit of hell!
So, to overcome these voices that spew out lies in my thinking I have needed to drown them out with Another louder, more powerful Voice. The voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That reminded of a movie that I had seen a few years ago called “Facing The Giants.” There is a powerful scene in the movie that illustrates the impact of having another voice in our ear. The scene shows the team sitting on the practice field with the coaches and the captain of the team expressing his doubt in their ability to beat their upcoming opponent. The coach told this player to get on the field and do the “death crawl” (basically crawling without knees touching the ground) with another player on his back.
He told him he was going to go 50 yards with a player on his back, when 30 yards was the longest the captain had ever gone before. The coach put a blindfold on him, got in his ear and coaxed him the full 100 yards of the field. He had to do this feat not by sight but by faith in the voice of the coach. Without realizing it, he wound up, not on the 50-yard-line but in the end zone!
It was Another Voice, the coach’s voice in his ear, whom the team captain respected and believed in that made the difference. He helped him move forward one painful step at a time, not looking down the field but believing and obeying that Voice above the other voices within him that begged him to quit.
That scene reminded me when I was a 17 year-old junior in high school…No, I wasn’t on the high school football team. I was a surfer living on the windward side of Oahu, in Hawaii. I was on Spring break, and I had become involved in my church’s youth group. I desired to know more of Christ but I just couldn’t seem to be able to stand up for Him, when there was so much rejection that went with it. At that time, during the Jesus Movement those who were too “into Jesus” were labeled “Jesus Freaks.” Who needed that aggravation?
As our youth group traveled to Maui during spring break we it was there that I was facing doing something I was afraid to do. Go door to door and invite strangers to a meeting where our pastor would preach and we would sing. It was hearing the voice of Christ speak through Galatians 2:20 that said to me, “Hey, you’ve tried doing this in your strength. Why don’t you relax and let’s do this together? I will be with you as we knock on doors, and we will see what happens.”
That week changed my life because I had listened to Another Voice. I respected that Voice and I trusted that Voice. I had enough of following my own voices and saw where that led me. I was ready, no I was desperate to give this a try. No perfect ride on a wave could ever match the joy I felt when I saw people come forward and want to follow Christ. They responded to His Voice speak through my pastor in the week’s last meeting! I was now hooked by and on Jesus. Let “them” whoever they are, call me a Jesus Freak. I was now “all in!”
Soon after that I wound up going to Bible college and I heard again the Lord speak to me from a message from my pastor when I heard the challenge from Jesus to “feed my sheep” from John chapter 21. This was ironic as a few years earlier my father had bought a ranch on the Big Island and it seemed like cattle, not “Jesus’ sheep” would be a biggest part of my future.
How faithful have I been to that calling? I have had seasons when I have been faithful to it and other seasons I regretfully have not been as faithful. So with God’s kind of sorrow that doesn’t produce regret but rather repentance (2 Corinthians 7:8-11) I forge ahead and return to my first love of Jesus by doing the things I did at first. (Revelations 2:4)
What does that look like? I have returned to the simplicity of reaching out to and meeting with people who want to hear the Voice of Jesus with me. I will ,by His grace, obey that Voice I first heard in Maui at 17 years old.
On weeknight evenings I am call on Zoom 5 different friends and relatives to read the Bible together during weeknights. These “Five Guys” I call them are hungry and growing in their simple trust in Jesus. Three are cousins, two friends and all are growing to follow Jesus closer and who I am praying will do the same thing with another man in their own circle of influence.
And now I have seen God answer prayer by seeing has started in a group form at my workplace now in a small group of six men twice a month during our lunch hour. We are following the simple recipe of the book of Acts that says “They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching the breaking of bread, the fellowship and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42) Together, in community my friends and I are hearing Another Voice and learning together to follow Him, our Shepherd, and do His will for our lives. The response from these guys has been incredible! I have spent most of my “ministry life” chasing people around trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do.
There are other people God has brought into my path as well, individuals whom I visit on their turf.. I am beginning to read the Bible through Facetime with my 8-year-old and 10-year-old grandsons in Texas.
The common denominator is its simplicity. I am not bragging. This is God, not Jamie. It isn’t a program I try to make happen with some cleverly created curriculum I try to write, but it is walking together with Jesus and others who want to also hear HIM and follow HIM.
As I address in this blog those who like me want to be a “legacy leavers” who are “seniors” or approaching that status, I strongly believe that we have gone through trials, heartaches and yes, even failures, that have prepared us to make a great difference in the days we are in. We are now living in an age where people are stuffed with information but are starving for wisdom!
We are not handicapped by our past, as lying, evil voices are saying to us but we have been Holy Spirit-equipped for impact! We have learned many things the hard way, and some things really can only be truly learned the “hard way!” Our Lord Himself was directed by the Father to learn in the way. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) The Bible says, “The glory of the young is their strength, but gray hair (wisdom) is the splendor of the old.’ Proverbs 29:20
For us to fulfill our destiny (as fathers and mothers who reflect the heavenly Father’s heart to our children) we MUST be willing to have our ear tuned into ANOTHER VOICE.! Then we will be able to first hear from our Shepherd and then speak His message to the many lost, wandering sheep around us. He will be drawing those-in our families, churches, workplaces and neighborhoods-to Himself when we follow Him and simply feed His sheep…and His lambs.