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How Jamie Winship Found Hope in Christ
February 27, 2025 · 1 hr 4 min
In this episode, Haley and Dustin sit down with Jamie Winship, author of Living Fearless. Jamie is a former police officer, conflict resolution expert, coach, consultant, and speaker – helping people overcome fear, find their identity in Christ, and live out their God-given purpose.
Jamie shares his hope story of how God called him to become a police officer at a young age and how God put people in his life that modeled what it means to have your identity firmly rooted in Christ. Jamie also shares encouraging stories and biblical insights on identity, overcoming fear, and living out our God-given purpose.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more
(19:29) Recognizing Emotional Experiences of God
(28:03) God's Invitation, Not Obligation
(37:44) Understanding God's Calling and Grace
(47:14) Choosing Careers and Colleges With Self-Understanding
(51:42) Moses, Elijah, and Jesus' Eternal Hope
(54:37) Seeking God's Healing and Growth
(58:53) Steps to Transformation With Christ
(01:01:47) Divine Love and Guidance Through Prayer
Jamie Winship resources :
Learn more about Jamie Winship: https://www.identityexchange.com/
Get Jamie’ book, Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God --
https://tinyurl.com/49v73cn9
Hope for the Heart resources:
Connect with Hope for the Heart on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here:
https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/donation/givehope/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=hopetalks
--------------
Bible verses mentioned in this episode
Judges 6:12 – “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him [Gideon] and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Psalm 8:4-5 – “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”
Psalm 139:7-8 – “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”
Psalm 139:13 – “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Habakkuk 2:2 -- Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
Mark 1:17 – “And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
Mark 9:7 – “Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love.
Series Hope Talks
Hope for the Heart is a worldwide biblical counseling, coaching, and caregiving ministry founded by June Hunt in 1986. We’re passionate about helping people
February 27, 2025 · 1 hr 4 min · Hope Talks
In this episode, Haley and Dustin sit down with Jamie Winship, author of Living Fearless. Jamie is a former police officer, conflict resolution expert, coach, consultant, and speaker – helping people overcome fear, find their identity in Christ, and live out their God-given purpose. Jamie shares his hope story of how God called him to become a police officer at a young age and how God put people in his life that modeled what it means to have your identity firmly rooted in Christ. Jamie also shares encouraging stories and biblical insights on identity, overcoming fear, and living out our God-given purpose. Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit. So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything. Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart. Listen in to learn more (19:29) Recognizing Emotional Experiences of God (28:03) God's Invitation, Not Obligation (37:44) Understanding God's Calling and Grace (47:14) Choosing Careers and Colleges With Self-Understanding (51:42) Moses, Elijah, and Jesus' Eternal Hope (54:37) Seeking God's Healing and Growth (58:53) Steps to Transformation With Christ (01:01:47) Divine Love and Guidance Through Prayer Jamie Winship resources : Learn more about Jamie Winship: https://www.identityexchange.com/ Get Jamie’ book, Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God -- https://tinyurl.com/49v73cn9 Hope for the Heart resources: Connect with Hope for the Heart on social! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/ Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/ Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/ Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/donation/givehope/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=hopetalks -------------- Bible verses mentioned in this episode Judges 6:12 – “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him [Gideon] and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” Psalm 8:4-5 – “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” Psalm 139:7-8 – “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Psalm 139:13 – “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Habakkuk 2:2 -- Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” Mark 1:17 – “And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Mark 9:7 – “Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. ...more Show the full description Show less In this episode, Haley and Dustin sit down with Jamie Winship, author of Living Fearless. Jamie is a former police officer, conflict resolution expert, coach, consultant, and speaker – helping people overcome fear, find their identity in Christ, and live out their God-given purpose.
Jamie shares his hope story of how God called him to become a police officer at a young age and how God put people in his life that modeled what it means to have your identity firmly rooted in Christ. Jamie also shares encouraging stories and biblical insights on identity, overcoming fear, and living out our God-given purpose.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more
(19:29) Recognizing Emotional Experiences of God
(28:03) God's Invitation, Not Obligation
(37:44) Understanding God's Calling and Grace
(47:14) Choosing Careers and Colleges With Self-Understanding
(51:42) Moses, Elijah, and Jesus' Eternal Hope
(54:37) Seeking God's Healing and Growth
(58:53) Steps to Transformation With Christ
(01:01:47) Divine Love and Guidance Through Prayer
Jamie Winship resources :
Learn more about Jamie Winship: https://www.identityexchange.com/
Get Jamie’ book, Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God --
https://tinyurl.com/49v73cn9
Hope for the Heart resources:
Connect with Hope for the Heart on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here:
https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/donation/givehope/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=hopetalks
--------------
Bible verses mentioned in this episode
Judges 6:12 – “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him [Gideon] and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Psalm 8:4-5 – “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”
Psalm 139:7-8 – “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”
Psalm 139:13 – “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Habakkuk 2:2 -- Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
Mark 1:17 – “And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
Mark 9:7 – “Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love.
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0:02 To Hope Talks. We're your hosts. I'm Hayley Scully along with Dustin Anderson, and we wanna give you every reason for hope for every challenge in life because hope means everything.0:15 Dustin, today is guest day on Hope Talks, and I am really excited for the conversation that we're gonna have with Jamie Winship. A lot of us have been reading his0:27 book, Living Fearless. Yep. Now if anybody has known me in the past, that has not always been my strongs.0:34 Fear has been part of your story.0:35 I've been living fearful a little bit at times, and so it's part of my overcoming story and something I'm so excited about. And I really love Jamie's take on this. You know, we'll tell people after the0:47 episode how they can connect in and hear more from him. But you would say, Jamie, you are a trainer and consultant.0:55 That's right. Mhmm.0:56 So through the training and consulting, you're able to get in and teach people biblical principles in some really hard spaces. So, Dustin, tell us a little bit the 1 liners on who Jamie1:08 is, and let's jump into this.1:09 Yeah. For those who don't know, Jamie Winship, he's the author of Living Fearless. It's a book about discovering our identity and exchanging the lies we believe with the truth of God's words. Fantastic book and highly1:21 recommended. He's a former police officer and conflict resolution expert. He spent decades working in high risk areas worldwide, helping people overcome fear, find their identity, and
1:33 live out their purpose. Him and his wife, Donna, also founded the Identity Exchange. That's a consulting company, we'd say, dedicated to helping individuals and organizations, again, live out their God given
1:44 identity and purpose and work through conflict resolution and things like that. But, yeah, a lot of what you do, coaching, consulting, speaking, it's on fear, prayer, hearing God, you know, identity in Christ,
1:56 conflict resolution, and transformation, things like that. So a lot of the things
2:01 We basically wanna be best friends. Jamie, we wanna be best friends with you guys. Welcome to Hope Talks. Yeah.
2:07 Thanks for having me. It's great to be here with you. Thank you.
2:10 Yeah. Yeah. And so we have some questions that we're gonna ask you to kind of explain a bit more some of the specific principles that you share and share so well. But like all of our guests, 1 of
2:22 the things we wanna ask people is what's your hope story? Because a lot of times we start teaching and training, but there's that moment where we really leaned into my hope is in Christ. And for some people, that's their
2:33 salvation moment, and it is awesome. And then some people, it's a time where they went through something a little bit different, and they are able to share, like, this is kinda how hope's sunk in for me. So what would
2:45 you say is your hope story?
2:47 Well, for me, the hope story is a journey that I'm still on, and because that's what hope is. Faith is the substance of the things we hope for, the evidence of things not yet seen. So and without that,
2:59 the scripture says it's impossible to please God. Meaning, if you're not moving in hope in situations where it doesn't look like things are working, then you're never gonna see the amazing glory and
3:10 movement of God, and that's what's worshipable and pleasing. So for me, that's always been in my life where hope came in a place where I didn't expect it, which I think is where we most need hope, right, is in the places
3:22 where it seems So I'll just combine 2, but it'll continue as we talk. But when I was raised in a very strict religious home, a lot of rules, no movies, no
3:34 secular music, that kind of thing, it was pretty dark, not necessarily because of that, but because of where we lived and the environment that we grew up in in Washington, DC, first in subsidized
3:46 housing, which was a tough environment to be in when you're young. A lot of fighting, a lot of hostility, that kind of thing. And so I would say between, you know, as much back as I can
3:58 remember and eighth grade, it was just life is lonely. It's a fight. There's not a lot of love. There's a lot of division and separation and competition and all that stuff. And I
4:10 knew my mom read us the Bible and all that kind of thing, but it just didn't ever really give me hope. And so I decided to sneak into a movie theater to see why God can't go to a movie
4:22 theater. I was just curious, because I also heard that he was omnipresent. You know? So those were like a conflict in my mind, that he's omnipresent except he can't go certain places. And as David prayed, where can I go
4:33 from your spirit into the depths of feel? Yet you are there, but apparently not a movie theater. Right. So I wanted to know why that was. So I just went to a movie and went into the theater, and I had no idea what the
4:45 movie was. Sat in the back row. Movie comes on, and it's a movie. I mean, I have back behind me up here is my police shelf. It's all my career in the police department. And the movie was about Frank
4:57 Serpico. That was the movie with Serpico. I'm not recommending the movie. I'm just saying that's what it was. K. About the real life police officer Frank Serpico, who was NYPD, and his whole amazing story.
5:09 Anyway, I'm watching the movie, and so what's happening, what was beautiful and scary at the same time, was as I'm watching the movie and the cinematography and the incredible music that's in that movie, and the
5:20 beautiful story of this guy that refused to be part of the corruption in the police department, and how strong he stood against it by himself, completely alone in his resistance to the corruption, something inside of me
5:32 just was spilling out. I mean, it was like somebody was inside of me calling my name, and I couldn't figure it out because it wasn't the right place. Like, it was
5:44 the wrong place. Like, it couldn't be God. Not the God I understood because that God wouldn't just wouldn't be there, but I cried through most of the movie. All of it. Just all of it. And so at the end of the
5:55 movie, because I'm from an independent Baptist tradition, I knew that God was involved somehow. I just didn't know how, but I knew that God was inviting me into some kind of life that was so joyful deep
6:07 down inside of me, I couldn't explain it, which I would later recall he was speaking to the identity that he knit together in my mother's womb, that depth. And so at the end of the movie, because a good independent
6:19 Baptist knows that God can't do anything unless you go forward, I went forward at the end of the movie. I just walked to the front of the theater and stood on the little stage facing back up to the projector,
6:31 crying, and I just said to the light, which was coming out of the projector, was kinda cool, I wanna be this. I know this is what I'm supposed to be. It was nothing about doing anything. It was about being that
6:43 whatever that was. And so I said to God, and I was like, if this is really you, you're more remarkable than anything I have ever even thought of. I wanna be this. And all I knew was a police
6:55 officer.
6:56 Yeah.
6:56 So when I left that theater at 14, I have never I'm 65. Not once ever changed my mind from that calling. It was the beginning of my walk with God, but it was so in the wrong place
7:08 at the wrong time and so beautiful, it just took me a while to understand God. And so until I went into the police department at age 23, I had a way to live my life, not because I
7:20 was trying to not do stuff, but because I now had a sense of being, and that being made me avoid certain things in my life because they would take away from that. So when my friends started committing larcenies and all
7:31 the small crime stuff before they got into the big stuff, I just wouldn't do it because I knew that I had been invited to be a police officer, and I would be on a polygraph 1 day. So it was very easy for me just to say
7:43 I'm not gonna participate in that. I didn't care what anyone said. I didn't feel any peer pressure. It's like, if I wasn't gonna be this, I would do this. But I'm gonna be this, so there's other things I need to do. That
7:54 drove me, and it just was so powerful in my life. And then I wanted to know the God that called me in that theater. Then I started to pursue that God. But I didn't I couldn't understand. Even though I went to church
8:06 and all that, it was still a different thing in my mind until I was going into my senior year in high school, and I played all kinds of sports, but I didn't like sports. I liked literature. But I played sports because I
8:18 wanted to stay in shape and all that stuff. Then I was injured in a wrestling tournament going into my senior year, severely injured in my right leg. Had to go into that night to have surgery. I wake up the next day in
8:29 the hospital. I'm positive I'm not going to pass a police physical when I'm 21. I'm positive the injury is too debilitating. And so I wake up, the doctor's there, I ask him, Can I pass a physical? And he said, Well,
8:41 you're not playing sports anymore. It was heartbreaking to me, not because of the sports, but because of the physical. And so I was so mad, frustrated, and this physical therapist nurse
8:53 came in, and she sat down next to me, and she looked at me, and she said, You know, your leg will heal. That's gonna heal. What's gonna hurt you in life is the anger and bitterness in your heart. She said, that's what
9:04 needs to heal. If that doesn't heal, it's not gonna matter about And then she proceeds to tell me, explain to me how Jesus wants to be the 1 that heals my heart in order that the
9:16 rest of my life can go forward. I've never had anyone talk to me like that, never. And I cussed her out. I mean, I just cussed her out. Was so mad, and she walked to the door, and she smiled at me.
9:28 She said, All right, we start tomorrow. And she came back every day, and for the first 2 days that she came back, I would just cuss her out and insult her. And she just loved me, and she forgave me. Every time I said
9:40 something, she forgave it, as if I wasn't saying anything. It was so powerful. By the fourth day when she came back, I realized that her love is greater than any anger and hostility I'll ever throw at her. That's how
9:51 fast she could absorb my hatred. But she was more powerful than me. I knew that. I understood that. And I understood, and this is for the rest of my life, that God was giving me a model
10:03 of how to be a police officer in her. And so my very first kind of salvation prayer of really like, Lord, I wanna receive everything that you have. You're the 1 in the movie theater. I know it.
10:15 You're the 1, and you're calling me into this, but you're showing me how to do it, and so can you make me a police officer like she's a nurse? That's the only way I knew how to ask. Because there were lots of healthcare
10:27 professionals in that hospital that I interacted with. Nobody was like her. And it wasn't because she was a Christian. There were other Christians. It's because she was modeling to me someone who
10:38 brought identity into their vocation. That was the first time, and I realized, man, if I could walk in a room with people cussing me out like I did to her, and love them at the level she's loving
10:50 me, this complete stranger, and keep coming back with that kind of love, It's more powerful than any force in the universe. I knew that the only way to have that, the only hope of having that, was to be
11:02 in Christ like she was. And so that's how I really came to faith in Christ was because of her, and she brought tremendous healing to my life, even though I've never known her name
11:14 and I've never seen her again. I've never been able to find her, and I have looked hard for her just to thank her because she never knew that I did any of Right? I mean, as far as I know. And so that began
11:26 a journey for me of diving deep into Christ for identity and not into vocation for identity, and also to look for models in my life that were
11:37 paradigms of what it means to be like Christ. Not read about it. Look for those people. And in my life, I've met 6. That's all. 6 that I would say were absolute life
11:49 changing models to me of how to walk out your true identity grounded in Christ in difficult vocations. So then that's been our goal is to be a
12:01 model because humans can't do what they've never seen. So that her was first. She was the first 1 that began this journey of, oh my goodness. If there's people like this in the world that I can learn from Yeah. And
12:13 then I can do that with other people, that fills my life with hope. And she hit me at 1 of the darkest times of my life. And I thought, wow. Every time someone dials 9 1 1, I could be her showing up. Wow.
12:25 I could be that kind of love and power showing up. And that's how my police career started, was modeling her, and until I had other models come into my life. So
12:36 I love the recognizing how there were other Christians there, but they didn't necessarily have the impact, but how she had obviously brought together
12:48 not just what she was doing, but who she was and who she was created to be. I think that's where a lot of us then find our passion and why maybe some of the successes or some of the
12:59 fullness of life maybe appears in different people, and there is a boldness in how they're responding to that. I do have a question I wanna go back to, but I wanted to if there was something that you wanted to
13:11 respond to before I
13:12 ask that question. Struck too by the nurse, and you'd said that there's 6 other people you've identified in your life. Like, I was just curious if there's any kind of commonality you've noticed among those people of,
13:24 like, what is it that, I don't know, behaviors? Like, what is it that kind of sticks out to you as, like, a commonality of, like, how they carry their identity in Christ or their relationship with God? Like, what
13:36 is it?
13:36 Yeah. All of the people that I'm talking about, they understood who they were. They understood uniquely who they are because most of them are still alive, And they didn't get their
13:48 identity from what they had, what they did, and what people thought about them. They were so liberated from that kind of fear based thinking that they have this kind of freedom and joy, and it's like you
14:00 see it almost immediately. Like, this person, whatever they're doing doesn't depend on how I react to them. They're gonna give this away with joy, and I think that's what I noticed first
14:12 about them. And later, when I had a greater understanding, I would ask them, Tell me who you are. And they could tell me exactly. And it wasn't like, I'm a Christian, I'm a conservative. It wasn't like that. They could
14:24 name who they were. So she was a healer, clearly a healer. But then being a nurse didn't make her a healer. She was a healer who went into the vocation of physical therapy is
14:36 what she was. The next person I met was a wrestling coach, and that guy was number 2 in the nation. That didn't matter to him 1 bit. What mattered to him was what he could do
14:48 with us, the guys on his team, what he could bring to us in terms of the capacity to meditate and have the mind of Christ. But he used wrestling as the
15:00 discipline in which to do it. And again, he was like, it wasn't whether you won or lost matches or where your ranking was and all that stuff. For him, the win was once you understand
15:12 the discipline of having the mind of Christ and living it out, none of the rest of this matters, but you will actually become more excellent in whatever you do.
15:23 Yeah.
15:24 I search for those kinds of people all the time. And then we train people, like, bring your identity to the situation. It's greater than your skill set. It's greater than how you look and all that
15:35 stuff. It's like your identity is your gift to the world. Give it. But most people don't know what their identity is, so they don't know what to give. Right. Right?
15:45 They're still leaning into cultural expectations, familial expectations. And even if they have a direction they kind of lean in, there's all these other voices, obviously, that are kind of fighting against
15:57 that lean. How can people understand, like, looking at the soul, not looking at the body or the whatever? But when you get to the soul piece, the rest of it starts to line up come
16:09 what may.
16:10 That's right. Exactly. And so imagine, the third person I met in my life overseas, I met him overseas, and he's a legend among Muslims. And they talked about him all the time. Anyway, I finally got to
16:22 meet him and asked him to mentor me, he said, no way. I don't have time for you. I'm not here to talk to Americans, all that. So I had to ask him 3 different times before he said yes, and then I spent 4 years with him.
16:33 But he asked me 1 day early on. He was watching me talk to some Muslim, and he said, he pulled me over, and he goes, he said, you don't know who you are, do you? You don't know who you are, do you? And this was I
16:45 mean, by then, I've been through the police, been recruited by the State Department, been to graduate school. I'm ordained, been through all that. I've been 5 years at that point out working in the world, in the
16:56 counterterrorism stuff. And he pulls me aside and says, I was 40. You don't know who you are, do you? Who asked you that kind of question? Yeah. Who in the world asked you that kind of question? And I said, I do know who
17:07 I am. And he said, No, you don't. And I said, How do you know? He said, Because you're imitating other people. That's all you're doing. You're just imitating other people. He said, You're imitating me. We don't need you
17:16 to imitate me. I'm already here. We need you to be who God uniquely made you to be because we don't know what to do with you otherwise. And we can't tell you who you are. You have
17:28 to come to us and say, This is who God calls me. This is who He says I am. And then once you tell us your identity, then we'll know how to use you and what we're
17:40 doing because you come and say, I'm a hand, or I'm an eye. And so it really caught me off guard, and I said, Okay, so what do I do? And he said, You need to go pray with this other guy.
17:52 And I went and prayed with the other guy. And I mean, it was the most it was the movie theater incident happening yet again at a much deeper, more clear level. But as soon as I started praying
18:04 with this guy, I knew who was in the movie theater with me. It was the Lord, of course. I like I know this voice. And when we do this with people I mean, I just did 25 police supervisors this week
18:16 from 1 department. And we start working through these hardcore, burned out, cynical, frustrated people. When we start working with them, we use neutral language. Call it when they start
18:27 listening to God, they recognize the voice. Everywhere we've done this in the world, they rec I know that voice. Yes, you do. Why? Because that voice has been talking to you your whole life. But all you hear are these
18:39 other ones, and you don't know that's still small. Then the more they concentrate on it, the more they'll go, oh my gosh. This voice has been here all along. Yes. Mhmm. Yes.
18:51 Yes. Listen to. That's why at the transfiguration and at the baptism, the command from God is listen to him. Listen to him.
18:59 Yeah. Oh, I love that. My grandma, when we weren't listening, she used to stick her finger out like this, and she'd say, now listen. And when she did that, you knew go ahead and get it zipped up real
19:11 quick because she needs you to hear what she's fixing to say. You know? And I think about that with the Lord because I tend to I have a lot of thoughts, Jamie. To me, it's discussion. My I've been told it's back
19:23 talk, but I would not treat it that harshly. I like to talk it through, but it's that. Now listen. So you mentioned the movie theater. I wanna circle back to that for a second because a lot of people
19:35 deconstruct their faith. We hear a lot of people talking about that now. A lot of people like, how do I know the voice? So tell us in your experience, that was an emotional response. I haven't
19:47 seen that movie in particular. I remember hearing, but I I haven't seen it. But you're in there. You're where you're not supposed to be. Your heart's already up a little bit. So you had an emotional experience
19:59 that now you're able to attribute to God. Other people have said, I had an emotional experience that I thought was God at church camp, but then I also I went to a music
20:11 concert, concert, and I felt the same thump in my heart, and that wasn't God. So they're able to kinda discredit this experience. Well, you have a lot of hindsight now that you're able to draw together,
20:23 you know, connecting points. But how would you explain that to people, the difference in just having an emotional experience and it being an emotional experience of God? What should they be watching for? What are they
20:34 gonna find?
20:35 It's interesting because if I was at a concert that's not considered Christian or whatever, and I had that same experience, I would immediately attribute it to God. I don't say this emotional is not God and this 1 is.
20:46 No, I think they're all God, but what are you gonna do with them? Right? So 1, because I'm in this 1 environment, like if I'm in a concert or watching a movie, and it really stirs me up, for most of us,
20:58 that is God, but we walk out of the theater and like, and that's not the end of that. Why? Because we weren't in a church service, because we weren't in a religious thing. So we don't attribute it to God because it's
21:07 outside of where we think God would do something like that. I mean, when you read the scriptures, He speaks in every way to humans, in every imaginable way. Dreams, creation, poetry, music, all of them.
21:19 We just aren't listening, or we say, He doesn't talk here. He talks over here. But there's gotta be a consistency to what happens, right? Yeah. So there's only 2 things that awaken the human heart, beauty and
21:30 suffering. Those are the only 2 things that'll really wake a heart up. Otherwise, we'll drift into formula and patterns, and we'll just live in those things. So beauty and suffering wake people are watching a movie or a
21:42 concert. This beauty affects human beings wherever they are. Whether they know what it is or not, it's because we're human and beauty wakes us up just like suffering. Beauty can wake us up and suffering can
21:54 wake us up, but we don't have to continue pursuing what it woke us up to. So if you just experience a beautiful moment, and you're like, yeah, and then it's Monday, and oh, well, then you missed. Like, you didn't
22:06 take advantage of the voice. And worse in suffering, if you don't take advantage of, like, God, what do you want me to know in this situation today? What do you want me to know? What do want me to do? And you don't
22:18 embrace the suffering and learn from It just becomes tragedy and bitterness because you don't find the beauty in So it's suffering and beauty that awaken the soul and awaken the heart.
22:30 And so once it's awakened, then humans can only make decisions out of 1 or 2 emotions. The only 2 emotions that we use to make decisions are love or fear. Those are the only 2. So
22:42 we have this experience. Let's say we have this sense in us that something's going on. Then is the motivation that's happening inside of you, is it love or fear? So, like,
22:54 we do this with middle school kids in public schools all the time. I know how to make a kid feel guilty and come forward. I know how to do it.
23:00 And
23:01 people are experts at making you feel like the whole lost world's your responsibility, and you're not a real believer unless you come forward and get going on this thing. That's fear. Yeah. God doesn't use fear
23:13 to motivate people. He only motivates with love. So initially, when I have an experience or I sense something, my question is, is the motivation of this love
23:24 or fear? If it's love, then okay, if it's love, then is it within the parameters of how I understand scripture? Is that in the scriptures? And so that's
23:36 my sort of guidelines to it. Like, would God speak to a 14 year old in a movie theater that's, you know, maybe considered not righteous or holy based on
23:48 my understanding of where Jesus would go in the scriptures? Absolutely in line. Probably more He's there than anywhere else. Right? So like, okay, He would be there to speak to me. Yes. In my deepest darkness?
24:00 Yes. So it's in the scriptures. It's loving. But more than anything else, it fills you with hope. Not obligation, not duty. It's like Jesus saying, Follow me, and I
24:12 will make you to become. Not like, Get out there and win the lost people. He doesn't talk like that. And so that sense inside of you is, Let's rise up. Let's move forward.
24:24 And what are the emotions? Love. And then what does it produce in me? Joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. It's not this
24:35 ecstatic, run around, make all these crazy commitments to God. It's not that. It's the Lord saying, I'm inviting you to follow me into this.
24:44 Right.
24:45 And if you'll follow me, I will make you to become this. Not I'm putting this yoke on you. You gotta go do it. And that's when people get hurt, is they feel something moves them, and they're too quick. They
24:57 don't say, Lord, what is that? Okay, you moved me. Okay, now Monday, we say moving from the intuitive to the rational. Have this big experience up here. Okay, now pull that thing down in the rational and walk it out.
25:09 It's gotta walk out. It's gotta make sense. It's gotta work in real life. And as Habakkuk says, You've got to be able to write it down or explain it in a way that other people understand what's happening. Yeah. All
25:21 this moves it from the right brain to the left brain, really. So when I leave that movie theater after this experience, my next thing is, okay, by the time I'm 21, I need
25:32 to be prepared to be on a polygraph. So when you move it out of the intuitive into the rational, in the intuitive, it's very quick. It's very powerful and moving. But when you bring it down to the rational, it slows way
25:43 down. And it's like, okay, now let's walk it out. Now what do we do? You need a criminal justice degree. It's real life. It's not It starts
25:51 to shape you.
25:52 That's right. But it fills you with I didn't care. Okay, I'm not gonna be able to be a police officer until I'm 23. I have 10 years. Okay, This thing ain't going away. And then it drew me closer to the Lord,
26:04 and then I would start looking for people who are like this, and then now I can see the nurse when she walks in the room. And God's like, Here we go. Here's the next thing you need to know. So I'm looking for the next
26:14 steps of what to do. So like when I'm with these police officers, we don't use emotion, but things I tell them are emotional to them. But what I want them to move in is when I'm on the
26:26 job tomorrow, what difference does it make that I have a sense of God leading me? What difference does it make in court? It has to work there, and that prevents it from being an
26:38 emotional experience or something that would mislead you.
26:42 Right. It gives you the guardrails. When we say that God's word will guide you, it's not just and we talk a lot about going to scripture. Like, this is how we start to hear it, but then that's also how we start to hear
26:54 the spirit.
26:55 So I
26:55 love what you said too about not only Christians, but nonbelievers kind of saying this is where God is, that isn't where God is. And that reminder that when we have an emotional
27:07 response in our emotions that God has given us
27:09 That's right.
27:10 Like, that is him. He's everywhere. So when we respond to the beauty of music or whatever, that is evidence of him. Right. And it's also then you listen to what what fire is
27:22 lit in you. Right. That tells you if it is flesh leading you in a wrong direction or if this is like you said, let's walk this through. And if it is, that that's where we get to choose. Those
27:34 are the decision points.
27:35 That's right.
27:35 The other thing that I love and we say all the time in Hope Talks is not an obligation.
27:40 Right.
27:40 This is an opportunity. This is not a you said it so well. This is not a yoke. This is who God is, and he created you. If he said he created you for a reason, like,
27:52 do we just throw that out with the bathwater? Like, no. We don't. Means it. And so people really walk that out is so affirming and so awesome.
28:02 That's right. The whole bible is an invitation. It's an invitation. It's not an obligation. When Jesus is inviting the young disciples to leave their nets and follow Him, He's not giving them a list of
28:14 responsibilities and expectations. He never does that to humans. God never gives humans a list of expectations. We do it to each other because we're trying to force behavior to go a certain
28:25 way. God is only inviting, and He gives us the ability to respond. Not responsibility. He gives us the ability to respond, and the expectation that we have is to expect the
28:37 Lord, as David says it. Expect the Lord. What do you expect in this situation? I expect the Lord. That's what I expect. Yeah. And whatever that however that looks.
28:46 Why do you think it's just such a given that so many people feel like it's gonna be an obligation?
28:53 Fear. Fear. Because we're taught I mean, humans only have 2 fears that are hardwired into them. The fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Those are the only 2
29:05 in our DNA fears. All other fear is learned. All other fear is learned. And so it can be unlearned. Fear can be unlearned. So I was taught early on
29:17 basically that God's disappointed in me, and that He's so mad that He had to kill His son to get the blood for his anger. And that took away some of his wrath, but he's still fairly
29:28 disappointed in me in particular because I didn't pray enough, and I didn't. And so it's hard to get that out of your head. So then what do you have to do for God? You have to pay him back. You have to earn
29:40 back his respect and his love by doing stuff for him.
29:44 You're supposed to go to church. You're supposed to serve.
29:46 Right. But then you read the Gospels, and Jesus says, I didn't come to be served. It goes against everything that I've been taught my whole life. No, you do serve, and if you don't serve, the blood of
29:58 the guilty is on you. That's very hard to get out of your system, But it's not just religious. It's a worldview, which we call the separation worldview. It's what Moses is talking about
30:10 in Genesis 3. It's the belief that you're not enough. There's not enough of anything in the world. You're not enough. There's not enough money. There's not enough time. There's not enough. And so that scarcity worldview
30:22 is taught all the time everywhere, in every government, in every country, in every religion. The thing is, like, there's not enough. You have to make yourself into enough. How? By going to the mission
30:34 field, by whatever it is you have to do. Right. And that's drilled into all of this. Our whole culture is operating this way. And so it's very hard to think that God would come to me
30:46 and say, Listen, I've never been disappointed in you, ever. I created you. I made you. I'm inviting you to be who I made you to be, which you can only do with me. I'm inviting you into that. You can
30:57 say yes or no to that. I'm inviting you to say yes, and I will invite you every day of your life until it's over. Just like the Israelites. There's the land. I'm inviting you into the land. We can't go. We're
31:09 grasshoppers. Okay? Alright. I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm gonna invite you again. And I'm gonna invite you every day until you either go like Joshua and Caleb will say yes, or until
31:21 I take you home, and I'll invite the next generation to go. But I will invite you. And you would think after 10 years of wandering around in the desert, or 20 years, they would have said, We're sick of this. We'll go.
31:33 No. They didn't, because the fear was too great. The fear was too great to go because we doubted the love of God. We doubted His capacity to
31:45 love us and take care of us and be with us even in the dark places. And so it's funny. It's not about deconstruction. It's about reading the scriptures as they actually are. The only reason a human can
31:56 love another person is because they loved Him first. That's a fact. That's a truth. So we love because he first loved us. How do we know he loved us? He demonstrated his love. It isn't just he told us. He demonstrated
32:08 his love to us. While we were his enemies, he died for us. There's the model. Yeah. There's the model. So Right. His love is to that length.
32:19 Right.
32:20 Once you can embrace at least a piece of that kind of love, and he's looking at you going, in my love, I'm inviting you to follow me, and I will make you into what you, in your own
32:31 heart, long to be because I put it there. But you can't do it without me. The good news is I want you to know this. I'm inviting you in, and I'll invite you every day of your
32:43 life. Even though you're terrified of it, I will keep inviting you until you say yes, and then we'll just take the first step. The whole scripture is you watch God just walking humans through this process. He
32:55 doesn't yank them and throw them. It's always, let's go here. Try this. Elijah, lay down and see if the birds come. Just see if they do. And if they do, well, then there's a widow I want you to meet. And if I can feed
33:07 you with birds, then I can feed you and a widow by my word. And if I can do that, then I can challenge Obadiah to do something besides hiding prophets in a cave. And if I can do that, we can go up on a mountain
33:18 and call out the whole country. It's this very beautiful process he's inviting us into. It's very methodical. It's very mysterious, but it's not crazy.
33:30 Yeah. Right? And, I mean, what else are we doing anyways?Show more
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