Discovering God's True Voice Amidst Life's Noise

Our real idea of God may be buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions, may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-promoting wow are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God. [00:03:06]

I realized I have been careful with God my whole life, and I love giving and serving, but any strength taken to an extreme is a weakness, and it really was my addiction. Also, it was the way that I felt good about myself, and it was what I did when I felt anxious about something. [00:04:49]

God gave me the gift of a depression. In fact, I remember hearing, I remember saying to him I just wish I could have a year sabbatical, a year off. Nancy called it, we were going to call it the year of me, and I was going to take a year, and my counselor at the time said, honey, I'd be happy if you took half a day once a month. [00:05:22]

What happened was when I couldn't give, the voice that I've been trying to quiet all my life got so much louder, and I found out what I really thought God was saying to me. I would sometimes have to go in a closet and make a little bed in there and stay for a day. [00:05:54]

The voice got so loud, and I would write down what this voice in my head was saying to me, and it was always things like you should do more, don't be selfish, don't disappoint anybody, don't let anybody down, why aren't you getting more, why aren't you doing more. It was always not enough, not enough. [00:06:24]

I have thought that voice was God until it got so loud that it was idiotic, ridiculous to think it was God. When it was soft enough, it was like, yeah, God is nudging me, God is, you know, he's telling me to think of others, he's telling me to do all those good things. [00:07:10]

I learned over and over again that those words weren't God's, and the way I could tell it wasn't like he said something verbally to me, but when I would think, God, I think these might not be your words, I would get this deep peace, like my whole body, my bones would just sink. [00:08:02]

He taught me to fast from the very thing, talking about Lenten fasting and feasting, to fast from the very thing that I thought he was telling me to do, which was to give to others, and for a whole year I really didn't give anything to anybody. I didn't even want to talk on the phone. [00:09:01]

He taught me to feast on the very things I thought I should fast from, like to eat, I enjoyed it a little too much, and sleeping, I would take naps every day, I would take care of myself, and he taught me to feast on the very things that I'd spent a lifetime thinking I shouldn't indulge in. [00:09:34]

I learned to rewrite my little be careful song that it starts with the father up above is looking down in love, so be careless, don't have any care about what you see, little eyes, or where you go, little feet, be careless because your father up above is looking down in love. [00:10:00]

I still have to struggle every day, well, not every day, but more many days with hearing the old voice and thinking, okay, I recognize my insides are getting churned up instead of more relaxed, and from the book I learned to ask the question, if I continue thinking this way, will it lead me closer to God or further from God. [00:10:24]

I thought I had a great handle on grace and who God was, and I knew exactly what Dallas said, I knew it in my head what was the right way, but that wasn't what was happening inside of me, and I'd spent a lifetime trying to please him and be careful with him, and he said instead, feast and be careless. [00:11:03]