Work with Purpose Conference | Hearing from God & Panel | Sept. 2025

the Lord is just so pleased with everything that’s happening um today. So, we just appreciate y’all. But I’m

wondering if God was to speak to you this week, would you know that it was

him? Would you actually recognize his voice

above all the others? And I think if we’re honest, right, don’t we all hope

that the answer to those two questions is a resounding yes.

But what I know about you is what I know about myself is that we wrestle with doubt oftent times, right? There are so

many competing voices that are happening. So many fun house marriers out there. Uh our own thoughts actually

and opinions, right? We have that filter. We have this noise of the world.

We have the opinions of others. And so, how can you actually know that it’s God

with all of that happening? And today, I just want to show you through scripture, of course, and some real stories about

how God wants to speak to us, how you can hear God’s voice, actually, how you

were designed and created to hear his voice, which is such a special thing.

And as you’ve probably gotten by now, the beautiful truth is is that he wants to speak to you about all of your life.

Yes, even your work. It matters. It is really work with purpose is what we’re

actually truly talking about today. Hence the name. And maybe some of y’all like me have

read in the Old Testament at times. Uh can be a challenge, can’t

it, for some of us? But we’ve read in it. And there’s one thing that often times leaps out to me and it’s that God

was speaking to people directly like people were hearing from God verbally. I

want you to check out this list. This is a list of 23 individuals that scripture said for sure God spoke to directly.

Plus there are prophets right that implied it’s implied that they heard directly from God. But then there are

others that it says heard indirectly from God through things like whirlwinds

and even a talking donkey. In Exodus, the assembly of Israelites,

this is hundreds of thousands to more than a million people are at the base of Mount Si. And it says that they heard

God’s voice directly, all of them, all at one time in like this booming loudspeaker kind of way. God spoke to

them. And wow, sometimes when I read about that, even when I talk about it and I

look at that and think a million people heard his voice, it’s like, why can’t we

hear like that today? Was the Old Testament like the good old days, right?

Where people were hearing so plainly from God,

but actually that’s just not the truth in the whole story. We tend to put on like rosecolored glasses oftent times

when we look back at things. You know, Cal mentioned some of it too. Like the Holy Spirit was anointing people like

bezel. That’s the story. That was your homework by the way. I’m going to imagine bezel, you know, but he was the

Holy Spirit was empowering people, anointing people. They were winning battles. They were tearing down temples,

establishing, you know, right, walls around cities. And then there were people like Bezel that the spirit came

upon. And we can just think, why not us, God? Why not now? Why not today?

God had a better plan for you and me. In the Old Testament, oftent times hearing

from God was reserved for like special people, priests, prophets, kings, right?

And then those like bezel in these unique circumstances. But then Jesus

comes and everything changes. And so fast forward in the New Testament,

hours, hours before his crucifixion, Jesus kind of previews to his disciples

this promise. And his disciples, that’s us, too. And he gives them a promise, the promise of

the Holy Spirit, which is such a cool thing. Chapters 14 and 16 in the Gospel

of John, y’all are like this movie trailer for this blockbuster that is to

come in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost. And so Jesus is

talking to them about what is going to happen. And as he is previewing this, he gives

some details on the role though of the Holy Spirit. And I want to spend some time talking about that and how the Holy

Spirit can help us. But as we review that as a group today, we’re going to have to add three words that we too

often doubt. And in your heart, that is probably why you’re here today, some of

you. And those three words are including at work,

because we want you to leave today and realize that God really does want to talk to you about your work. But as we

go along in this talk, I’m going to cue you at some points, honestly. And so we’re going to say it together,

including at work. Okay, you ready? including at work. And really, that’s

not to be cheesy. It’s so that as we repeat it throughout this time that we it starts to actually

sink in that it moves from here to here and then out to others around us because

none of this is for ourselves. Not any of this is just for us. It’s for those

around us. And so, here we go. Jesus first introduces a key role in the

Holy Spirit right here. He says, “And I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.”

See, this means that the Holy Spirit is with us, including at work. You missed your

queue. Including at work. The helper can be with us. Okay. So, just 10 verses

later, he’s talking again in John. It says, “But the helper, the Holy Spirit.” So, he tells us who is the helper. The

helper is actually the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your

remembrance all that I have for you, including at work. Thank you.

In these two verses, we learn that the Holy Spirit is going to be our helper by teaching us, right, and recalling things

for us. See, the Holy Spirit is like this um hearing from God kind of hard drive for us that it helps us recall

things when we need it. So, we can store these things. We can receive things from God and then the Holy Spirit aids us and

assists us. He helps us in this moment. Hard drives not only store, but they can

also recall millions of documents, y’all, instantly, right? You do this all the time on your computer. And the Holy

Spirit can work like this for us when it comes to hearing from God. And I’ll

never forget the first time this this happened to me at work. Uh I was struggling with a teammate. We’ll call

him Bob. Of course, that’s his name. Everyone in their 40s is named Bob. Any

anyways, Bob and I, our personalities could not

be more different. And when that’s kind of like a nice way of saying our communication styles are the absolute

opposite. Everything about us is opposite. And every time I received an email from

him, I would feel his digs. I would feel his criticism. I would actually feel

worse about myself and the work that I was doing. Ever had that happen to you?

And honestly, I just was hurt a lot of the time. If I got to the truth of it, it just hurt. And one day Bob sent me

another one of these little zinger kind of emails and I was like, “Man, enough

is enough, right?” And so I decided I was going to go and talk to our manager

and I was going to go vent to him about Bob, but our manager wasn’t around,

thank goodness. But I am like still, y’all, steaming hot mad.

And I’m like, “Okay, I’m gonna go do the next best thing. I’m going to go load about Bob uh you know by sharing my

feelings with my coworker best friend. I’m going to go talk to her about that.

And when I say I’m mad, I was walking across our entire building with a purpose.

I was going to go tell her everything that she needed to know about Bob and what he was doing. But all of a sudden

as I was walking I slowed down and I paused and I started to recall something

that we had been talking about as a team. You see what you need to know is when I joined this company I actually was not a follower of Christ. So at this

point in my journey I am learning things in scripture that I did not know. And

our team was talking about healthy conflict and this scripture was something that we were talking about. If

a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him. Work it out between the two of you.

We had been talking about this as a team. And so this pause made me think of this. And it was this Holy Spirit nudge

in my mind. And so I literally stopped, turned around, went back to my workstation and emailed Bob and asked if

he could meet one-on-one. He agreed. So we did. and I shared how those emails

had come across, like the comments, like the tone, um, and how they had really

hurt my feelings. And when I finally gave him the chance to talk, I was

completely shocked. He responded with compassion, he actually shared his intent and all

those emails and his perspective. And I realized very quickly I misunderstood

Bob. All in the matter of an instant, the Holy Spirit did this little helping hard

drive thing is it helped me recall this and put this into action because this is very practical things.

That day, Bob and I went from this really poor relationship with little to no trust to a very collaborative working

relationship that still remains today, full of love and respect. All because

the Holy Spirit nudged me and recalled something. And he can do that for you. including

at work right there. See, God’s way can give you

God’s word can give you a way forward even at work in every circumstance. But

now hard drives actually store data, right? That’s what you’re recalling. And so the Holy Spirit helps us recall

things that we input. And so make sure that you input data

worth recalling. Be careful. It’s not all coming from other people. Okay? So,

don’t allow the busyiness of life, y’all, to rob you from being in God’s

word, his inspired word. It is so critical. Sometimes, I think we just get so preoccupied that we miss the presence

of God. And don’t do that. Let this be input that’s uh worth recalling. And so

I just want to give you a combination, a quick little like insight and application that has helped me and I think it’ll help you time and time again

at work. And it’s this. Read to recall, read to receive. If you

want to hear from God, including at work, then you’re going to have to hear what his will is. And that is through his inspired word in scripture. You

don’t you want to know what he sounds like? Go into his word. There is no shortcut here or plan B. That’s just not

how this works. You’ve got to read to recall and then read to receive from him. Now, in some of your Bible

translations, you might have seen the role of the Holy Spirit listed as advocate. And I want you to know that’s not a contradiction to helper. It it’s

actually building on what Bill talked about earlier. It’s just a different way to look at that original Greek context.

And so that’s why sometimes you see helper and sometimes you see advocate. But an advocate is like a counselor,

right? Someone who speaks on our behalf. He is both helper and advocate. And the

Bible says that the advocate, this is what it says literally, will serve as the spirit of truth in our lives,

including at work. Back in 2020, I got

to experience actually both of the roles of the Holy Spirit. So, I want to tell you another story. Um, at that time, I

was VP of sales and marketing for Beatenbo Homes. And one day I got a call

from my boss that said, “Hey, I’d like for you to meet with the full board um tomorrow morning to talk about marketing

and not just for beaten homes, but for all of our new businesses that had opened at that point.” And I thought,

“No big deal, just advice. Don’t we all love when people want our opinion and our advice?” So, I was like, “Well,

yeah, of course I want to do that.” And that night, I was on my Pelon. 2020 is when everyone had a Pelaton. Now, we’re

all trying to sell them on Facebook. And so, I’m on my Pelaton and about mile two

I had this Holy Spirit nudge again, but this time it’s not recalling a scripture. It was this really clear

forward message and it said a shift is coming. And I thought, well, that is

really, really interesting. Okay. Um, but it felt like it was what I

needed to know before I even knew it. This was the Holy Spirit kind of preparing me for what was to come.

advocating for me. The next day, we brainstormed uh with the board and we agreed to form this centralized

marketing team that would serve all of the businesses, but the catch was

it would be led by a director, not a VP, a smaller team, a humbler role. And so

when I asked the group who was going to lead it, Rick Beatenbell looked at me and he said, “Hey, there’s only one

person that we think could lead that effort, and it’s you. Woo! A shift had come

for me. That would mean a demotion, you know, that that could have been a large pay cut. I’m talking like in half. I

mean, it was a choice had to be made. Remain VP sales or take this kind of

focused like lower titled role. I prayed for hours and hours with my husband and

I’ll never forget I woke up the next morning and God met me again. He had given me ideas for marketing that I had

not had the 15 or whatever years prior all of the sudden. And he told me, Gina,

it will look like less in the world, but it will be much more in the kingdom. Not more, much more in the kingdom. So I

said yes. I chose what looked like less. This is countercultural kind of obedience. These are things that lots of

people in the world, they don’t even understand when that kind of stuff happens. But I said yes. And I got to

tell you, it became more in every way. More joy, more peace, more clarity, more

vision, more impact in every area of my life. Teammate, leader, wife, mom,

friend, volunteer. It multiplied things in me. And it was just amazing because

it was the Holy Spirit helping me. He advocated for me. And then he redeemed parts of my life I didn’t even know

needed healing. That’s what he can do for you. That was all because of my work. That’s how this can be for you.

Because as you walk with God, he wants to help recall things. He wants to tell you things uh so that he can be your

helper and advocate in every area of your life, even your work. But it’s okay. Look, it’s one thing to know now

that the Holy Spirit can speak to us, but it’s another thing to actually be in the right place to be able to hear from

him. This is a big big issue. You know, to hear God from God, we must train our

ears to be able to hear from him. Jesus explicitly says in John, “My sheep hear

my voice and I know them and they follow me.” Jesus tells us we can hear his

voice. We can know that it’s him. But what experience has shown us is that

this doesn’t really happen automatically. You have to really train yourself. You have to practice these

things. Actually, when I stood on this stage the last time giving this talk, I was 24 pounds heavier than I am right

now. And uh everyone has asked me, Gino, what are you doing? You know, I want to make

sure you’re not sick. Is something happening? And you want to know what it’s that I started weight training and

I wanted this weight to drop instantly. But you know what? It didn’t. It’s actually been a year. People are just

recognizing all the effort that I’ve put in for 12 months. I have been in

training. This is how it works to hear from God. You keep showing up and he

will start to speak to you. We must train our ears. And so I just want to do

a quick little experiment. Okay, this is going to be really fun. I’m going to pay play two clips for you. And as soon as

you know the voice, I want you to raise your hand. Don’t say it out loud or anything like that. Just a nancond that

you know it. Raise your hand. Um and let us know. And if hey, if you don’t know it, just don’t raise your hand. It’s not

a big deal. We’re not Nobody’s getting a grade here, you know, or bonus based on this. So, um let’s go. Let’s play clip

one. Katie, I know that having a boyfriend may seem like the most important thing in the world right now,

but you don’t have to dumb yourself down to get guys to like you. I know. How would I know, right?

Yeah. See, interesting, right? Sounds familiar. If you’re like me, I was like, I’ve heard that voice, but I just cannot

place it. That was Tina Fay in the wildly popular movie Mean Girls. Okay,

we’re going to do it again, but we’re running out of time, so I’m going to play a really, really short clip. So the nancond you know it raise your hand.

I find I’m so excited I can barely sit still. I hold a thought in my headless.

Yeah, that’s right. It didn’t take long, did it? In no time flat, all of you raise your hands because you recognize

the voice of who? Morgan Freeman. But how did you know that voice and not the other, right? He

has narrated dozens of documentaries and films. He’s even literally played the

voice of God, right? See, the thing is, you’ve heard it over and over and over.

So, yes, it’s distinctive, but it’s actually the frequency with which you have listened to him that causes you to

recognize and hear from him without ever seeing him. Isn’t that amazing? God, the Holy Spirit

can do the same thing. It is the same with God. Your listening increases your

hearing, but you are designed to hear God’s voice. Jesus said that in scripture. that was no one else. But all

these voices are competing for your attention, aren’t they? They want to derail you from the purposes of God. And

so, really quickly, here are just some ways that you can kind of know that it’s God’s voice. You know, if it brings

shame, it is not from God. Even if it’s a godly person, if it brings shame, it

is not from God. If it’s calm, it’s God. Right? If it obsesses, it’s obsessive.

is not from God. If it’s confusing, not God. Comforting God. Uh convicting God.

Condemning or critical spirit, not God. That is not our God. Bible does that

just does not confirm him being that way. And so we’re we’re able to hear from

God. Hopefully by now you can believe that. But are you know, but how like are we actually capable of hearing him at

work? Like especially at work because most of us keep our calendars and our

minds at maximum mode. By choice, we are constantly pumping ourselves with

information, content, pinging from meeting to meeting, pinging notifications, entertainment, everything

is getting in the way. And so we have to change that and get in a position to hear from God. And you’re going to have

to silence the noise. And yeah, you can sneak away. you can find a spot, you can turn off all of

those notifications, but it comes down to simply being still, something that is

not really uh honored in our culture today. And even just starting y’all with 10 seconds of stillness will allow you

to hear from him. And then as you’re training, just like with weight training, your 10 seconds, they can turn

to 10 minutes over time. So just get still. But how do people hear from God?

I gave you some examples. This is just a list of 12 ways that I know and I have friends that have heard from God. This

is not an extensive list because if God is infinitely creative, then he could speak to his kids however he wants. I’ll

tell you there are three main ways that I have seen this play out, especially in our work. And number seven, we’ve

already talked about a couple times with the Holy Spirit nudges, like when I

had to go to Bob and talk about my hurt feelings, right, one-on-one. But that all started actually with number one

which was scripture that I was recalling. And so this you should know

that scripture is the most frequent way that God talks to people. It’s his general will for your life. And so if

you haven’t heard anything today, please hear that God wants to speak through his word. Give the Holy Spirit hard drive

something to work with in your life. But one of the clearest ways to know that you’re hearing from God rather than just

listening to your own desires or the noise of the world is to seek out wise counselors. You should do this. It says

a man of understanding will attain wise counselors. You know, these are people that have wrinkles

and scars. And they live lives though full of joy

and generosity and peace even though they have been to hell and back. Those

are the people that you need to meet with because they are battle tested in their faith and they can support you as

you learn from God. They’re like a safe place to go to and you’ll know them because they’re excellent like in both

their relationships and what they produce at work. Those are the people that you want to meet with. You know,

they walk in godly character at home and in the office. seek out those with scars

to help with your training because yeah, you can hear from God, including at your

work. This is this is a license to bring God right into your work. But look, it’s

not just me. Those are my stories, but you’re going to hear from some of our friends that are going to share from you, you know, how they’ve heard from

God in their work because this is not theory or philosophy. This is a reality for every single

believer. And so I want to welcome to the stage my friend Casey Brewer and some other Beaten Bow team members as

they kind of come and share their own story about how to hear from God. Well, thank you Gina. Such a great thing

to be able just to talk about the reality of God speaking to us in the marketplace. And as Cal said in his

talk, it’s so often that most of us tend to relegate God’s voice to the time we

spend privately or even in a worship setting on a Sunday or maybe in a

worship setting in our car, but to actually hear about God speaking to us in the marketplace for very practical

things, if we’re honest, that’s that’s a really new concept for for most of us.

And we’re excited today to unpack some real life stories to make this practical for you. So, let’s just talk about how

God’s doing that. Alyssa, let’s start with you. You’re in the hospitality industry, very busy, crazy schedules.

So, can you summarize or describe the ways that the Lord typically speaks to you? Yeah, I feel like there’s a couple

of different ways, but for me personally recently, I guess, um I feel like pictures will come up to my mind that

probably wouldn’t just have popped in my mind. Maybe like someone would call it a vision. Um also these like little nudges

that I get kind of a gut feeling as well. Pictures and nudges. All right. So,

we’re going to chat through the pictures and visions thing here in just a little bit and we’ll come back to that. But can

you describe what you said nudge? What does that what does that mean? Yeah. For me, it is something that maybe

I walk past something and I get this thought in my head that I probably wouldn’t have thought anything else of

it. Um, but then it’s an impression that I feel either in my spirit kind of like I can’t let it go until I go and do

something or I can feel it in my gut like I have this big pit until I go and do it.

So, tell us about a time when you felt that and you didn’t ignore it and you actually acted upon that. Well, it’s

kind of both because I did ignore it the first time and the Lord gave me another opportunity to circle back around um

just because he was so gracious with us. But um after an event um I had to give a

write up to one of my team members and I thought I did so good. I was clear in

the correction. I felt like I was also encouraging and I felt like she walked away um really understanding what the

correction was about and went on with my day. Check. It’s done. Great. Um, well,

the next shift she came in and she just seemed really off. And so I had kind of asked her like, “What’s going on?” And

she really said, you know, just a bad day. Um, it’s okay. And I got that

feeling that like, but I don’t think that’s true. And I was like, I’m sure it is just a bad day. So, I kind of like

tucked it down and went on with my day. And so, you ignored it. I did in the beginning.

I did. But if it’s really the Lord speaking, he’s he’s going to be faithful not to just once go, “Hey, Alyssa,”

and just, “Well, you you ignored it. Forget it.” No, that’s not how God works, right? No. And he knows we’re practicing this,

too, and we’re going to get it wrong probably more times when we get it right, too. But um just that willingness. And so, he actually gave me

another opportunity um to circle back with her by the end of the shift. And I started digging in a little bit deeper

of like what’s really going on cuz I feel like this is something more than just a bad day. and she just opened up

with me about how at her past job she had a correction and that really hurt her relationship with her manager. There

was a lot of shame in that. And I also feel like um it hit her identity. Like the correction was who she was. And so

we were able to have a conversation about how that’s just not true to her identity. And um also that our

relationship wasn’t broken just because we had this correction. And so, um, I’m so thankful that the Lord gave us that

opportunity to kind of speak into her and tell her the past things that she’s experienced does not have to be true

moving forward. So, a job performance correction led to an opportunity to speak to someone’s

identity. Wow, that’s pretty powerful story. Elliot, help us understand some ways

that the Lord speaks to you. You’re in construction, not hospitality. So, God doesn’t re relegate himself just to

hospitality. So, how does this work in the construction world? Man, I I’m a lot like Alyssa. I’m going

to get a nudge or a thought impression. It’s uh like something God’s going to put on my heart that’s real heavy, and

he will not take it away until I do something with it. What I like about what I hear both of

you saying is these these are things that happen in your day that aren’t just in your head. They they’re just enough

different that you have to pay attention to them. And you’ve trusted that the Lord is speaking. You know that now. And

both of you have acted upon that. And we’ll talk about a story here in just a minute with you, Elliot. But Justin,

I know in conversations with you, one of the ways the Lord has been faithful to speak to you is through other people

helping you realize that, man, the Lord was already speaking and maybe you just didn’t see it yet. So, I know there’s a

story you have about a work project in which you begin connecting the dots and hearing from the Lord speak. Can you

share us with us about that story? Sure. So um years ago I was tasked to go

onto a project and this project was um had a big impact on our company for both our customers and u and the company and

it was a very hard problem that nobody knew the answer to. Um and I got to work with a fellow engineer on it and um

there wasn’t a clear answer. This was something that you couldn’t just Google. Um I don’t even think AI knows it today. Like it is still a really tough problem,

right? Uh but we we tackled it and we hit wall after wall. We faced challenge

after challenge and multiple times even in conversations with with with our leader, it felt like we were about to

pull the plug. Um we we we weren’t going to be able to come up with a solution. However, every single time it felt like

we were about to pull the plug, uh we’d get a revelation, we’d try something new, and it would work. Uh eventually,

we were able to deliver something and I was I was ecstatic. I remember I was just like, “Heck yeah.” I felt like I I

really uh contributed really well to to uh to the company. And I remember going

to my leader and wanting to tell him all about it, you know, about my excitement about what we had accomplished. He had he had been walking with us through it.

And I remember telling him, “Can you remember when we almost failed here? And can you remember when we we thought we

were done and we were going to have to pull the plug and and and this and and I’m just telling them all these things like, wow, how lucky we got, right?” Um,

and at that time, every morning during our standup, we would pray. We would uh ask God to show us, you know, our leader

would lead us through that. And at that time, I was still discovering my faith. And so, I never connected that dot. And

he had a half smile on his face, I remember. And all he said was, um, hey, that’s that’s why we pray in the

morning. And it was just a simple sentence. Um, but that stuck with me and

it stirred something in me to think about the possibility that God cares about uh

our work that that that God can give us wisdom and insight into things that seem

so far off like that that he doesn’t care about technology. He doesn’t care about this project, right? He might care

about the business or the people buying the homes, but he’s not in this. And instead it it began to stir something of

why in the world wouldn’t I ask the creator of the universe to help me out with these really hard problems like

that is that’s probably a good good thing to have on your side if possible. So um stirred something in me and and

yeah it’s it was a it was a really really neat moment. What I love about that is your leader who knew you

knew the Lord and was willing to make a make a place in the business day to ask

the Lord for help and then connect the dots for the people that man Lord is he is in this. He’s already working. We’ve

sought him and he’s answering our our prayer. And I think sometimes we underestimate the value of just stopping

in the marketplace where it actually is legal to pray out loud with people who

might not know him. That’s okay. Uh maybe you shouldn’t force that, but it was the right setting in the right time

and there’s so much fruit from that. Elliot, let’s go back to you. You you

mentioned these thought impressions that you have. And so I know you have a story about a team member that you had this

thought or or this impression that maybe they were going through a difficult time and how the Lord led you in the

construction world to take a practical step to help them. Tell tell us about that experience. Yes, sir. Um,

oh, it’s been a couple years back. I had a position open on my team. Um,

and hired a guy to fill this position. It’s a very crucial role on our construction team. Um, I spend a lot of

time with this person. Uh, I consider him my right-hand man. Um, we’re

constantly walking houses together. We’re working through customer experience. we are just he would help me

keep the train on the tracks a lot of times and uh you know we spent so much

time together that uh naturally you’re going to start to get to know each other and I could just tell that he was he was

really struggling with some um identity issues and some self-worth. uh

there’s a lot of comparison going on when he would talk and so uh I could tell this was something that was heavy

on him. I wanted him to understand what a crucial role he played on our team and

how valuable he was to our success. And so uh God was just hammering me with

this and would not let it go. Um I wanted to speak into this with him but I

wanted to kind of tie it back into some scripture. Um, I’m not really a guy that’s gonna rattle off scripture. I I

just don’t have that talent. And so I did the next best thing. And I Googled it. And so uh Google scripture. I like

that. Yeah. And I was just looking for something that him and I could do together, a devotional, something like

that that would uh speak life into him, identity into him. Um I landed on a

devotional about the story of Esther. um read into it. I really liked it. Ended

up at beatenbo, you’ll hear seek wise counsel when making a decision. And so

that’s what I did. I went to our connections coordinator, had her look through it. We decided, yeah, that this

is the one. So me and this team member, we started doing this book of Esther devotional together. And

um once a week, we would get together. Hey, what’d you get away from that

lesson today? like what is God telling you through what we did today? And through that he began to that confidence

and seeing who God truly called him to be started shining through and it was

just I sometimes I wonder if it did more for me than it did for him. Wow. There’s just so much in that story,

Elliot. It’s tempting to do what I might call like pull the pin on a spiritual

grenade and drop it and run and hope that you’ve done enough. But in instead

of doing that, you you took it a step further and you you Googled, which was

that’s cool. God can use anything. And you you described yourself as maybe not

being, you know, having all the biblical talent. I think I disagree with that for you. But even without the confidence or

the depth of knowledge, maybe the Lord still nudged you, had had this thought impression you followed through on that

and found a resource that not only radically impacted a team member and brought fruit, but as you just said, was

it really for him or was it for you? Well, the Lord’s in the multiplication business. when you when you act upon

what he shows you, he’s going to bring fruit in the life of the person that you’re ministering to, but of course

it’s going to impact you. I mean, what what just a powerful story

and you went with them. I that’s the thing that sticks with me is you didn’t just say, “Here, try this.” You you

walked with him. Such a great story. Justin, I want to come back to you because as leaders, we all know how

tempting it can be to get caught up in performance. I think that was some of what you were describing earlier even

the reputation preservation wanting to make sure that people think a certain thing or way about us. So share

with us this experience you had about wrestling with this pressure of performance. Sure. So this is this is a much more

recent story around um I began to uh lead a meeting. It was uh it

was with the executive leadership of of the company and you know pretty big deal right you know we’re we’re trying to

make some big decisions there trying to understand where we’re going and we had never done that before with this with

this group of people and so I’m excited for it it’s it’s a lot of unknown so I didn’t have any pressure there was no

expectation and um yeah I kind of gave it to God like okay we’re going to see what this is and admittedly uh that

first meeting uh to my own standards right performance standards standards um at that time did not go well. I mean

there was a lot of questions we didn’t have answers for. There were um you know

just things that did that didn’t flow very well, right? And so took that back and over the course of the next few

months we would have this this meeting monthly. We’d learn a little bit more, take the feedback, understand what we

needed and just get better and better. And it never felt anything pressure. It just felt like we were going after truth

and trying to find something. um until that one day it it clicked. Um we had a

really good meeting. One time everybody was engaged. Uh there were questions

that were asked that we had answers to and even after the meeting I had uh some

folks come up to me and and just praise me like, “Hey, well done. You know, you had you had a lot of things prepared and

that meeting went really well.” And into the story, right? I nailed it. Woohoo.

We’re here. I mean I I I that pride just came in and that’s where the problem

started. So when I nailed it, I

the next meeting replaced the spirit of peace that I had with a

pressure for performance. And I began to instead of getting

excited for this meeting and and going after truth, I began to think about how

things could go wrong. And I began to instead of trusting God, began to rely on striving in my own strength. So I’d

prepare more than ever. I wanted to nail it every single time. And I wore myself

out. I made myself sick, if I’m honest. And um in that I realized that I was no

longer surrendering but I was self in self-preservation mode. Um I had traded

peace for performance and through the help of people around me uh through prayer uh I I learned that you know it

was it was time for me to give it back up to God. And in that, I mean, I found that freedom again, that that that quest

for truth, that idea that we can go into this meeting and try and truly understand what we should do. It’s not

about what those leaders think of me or or my performance or anything. Um, their feedback is valuable, but it’s us going

after this singular goal. And so, that was a pretty powerful moment. And, uh, I’m grateful for God for showing and

guiding me through that. Yeah. just just to just to lead you back to the simplicity of being with him,

listening to his voice more than the man in the mirror, that voice that seeks to

to showcase something when the Lord wants to lead us in peace into all truth as scripture says. You’ve experienced it

before and now you know what it’s like to not have that. So hopefully there’s there’s the pain and the lesson learned.

Alyssa, I want us to come back to you and kind of begin to wrap up our our time together because at the beginning you mentioned about pictures and

visions. So tell us about how you began

to hear from the Lord through pictures and visions. This is such a powerful story. Yeah. So I started at beat and bow and

about a month in we had a jump start which is basically a Bible study and it was a guest speaker. His name was Vulkar

and he came in and just so easily said we’re going to divide the room. Y’all are going to stand up and turn around

and I’m going to choose someone on this side and y’all are going to give a vision to them. And I remember being

like what in the world are we doing today? Like what is going on? So your back is turned. You only looking

at the wall. You don’t know who they’ve picked. Correct. And I I grew up in a Christian household, but this was so far out of my

comfort zone. And I knew that the Lord talked to some people, but I was like, I don’t think he’s going to talk to me in

that capacity. But Vulkar was just so open that like he’s going to talk to every single one of y’all. Just turn

around, do it. And you didn’t really have a choice if I had no choice. And so I turn around

and one by one, everyone is giving their vision. And I’m sitting here like, Lord, please show up for me right now cuz I’m

not getting anything. And sure enough, right when it was my time, I just started seeing this sunset and then an

ocean and then a sailboat and just peace, overwhelming peace just flooded me. And so it was my turn. I kind of

paint the picture to what I thought the Lord was showing me and went on with it. We turned around and the person that he

chose was none other than Rick Beatenbow, our CEO. And I just remember thinking like, “Oh man, I really hope

that was a good word for him.” and we turn around and he is crying and um

every single one of our visions had to do with an end of something. Mine was an end of a day, someone else was an end of

a season and the Lord used us to speak to him even when I did not feel like

that was possible. That’s such a powerful story. We all can relate to asking God, show me something.

Literally, you said literally anything. God, show me something. And he did. and

the healthy pressure, if you will, of not really having a choice to share, kind of put it out there for you. But it

proved to you and then to Rick that you did hear from the Lord simply by asking. You weren’t really prepared for that.

You didn’t know what was coming that day. You just showed up and got surprised with this fun exercise that

yielded a ton of fruit. And so, if you could summarize that, what did you what was the biggest takeaway? What what what

did you learn from that that you’ve been able to put into practice today? Yeah, I think there are two really big things. I think the first thing is um we’re called

for obedience. We’re not called to have all the answers. So, giving a vision or a picture that you feel like or giving a

word to someone, you don’t have to go and then explain what that means. Um and then my second takeaway is I mean, you

heard Cal say he wants to reveal his kingdom if we’re seeking him. And sometimes we can get in the way of that

because we feel like we can’t do it or he doesn’t want to reveal that to me or that’s not how he speaks to me. and we don’t even give us an opportunity to try

to hear from the Lord in different ways. And so for me that day, it put a healthy pressure on me in a very, you know, calm

situation um with trusted people that I could try something that I had never done before and there was no pressure to

perform and now that is a way that the Lord can speak to me.

Well, that’s such a powerful way just to summarize the journey that you’ve been on and so much we can take from that. So

y’all join me. Thank our panel for the time and sharing their their stories with us.

Well, what we’re going to do now is we we want to go back and revisit the the

truth that God is speaking. He wants to speak. The scripture that

was shared earlier in the day is my sheep, Jesus said, do hear my voice. and that when we listen that our hearing

increases. So what we want to do is actually stop right now in the middle of the workday

in this setting and practice what it means to actually hear the voice of God.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to ask you to kind of silence the noise where you are. Get still and we’re going

to invite the Lord through his Holy Spirit, our helper and our advocate to speak directly to us. Now, don’t worry.

I’m not going to randomly call on some of you to come up here and join me on stage. This is just between you and the

Lord. So, what I want to invite you to do is maybe it’s your notebook, maybe

it’s some other piece of paper, but take out something to write on and something to write with.

If you don’t have paper and pen, then of course you can use your phone, but we’re

going to ask you to get ready and still before the Lord. And we’re simply going to write a letter

to yourself. And this might be new, but this is really simple.

At the top of your paper, what I want you to do is begin just like any other greeting. If I was doing this, I would

say I would write, “Dear Casey,” or “My son Casey.” Because what we’re doing

is that’s the beginning of the Lord speaking to you. So write it’s from the

Lord to you. Then we’re going to ask this question.

Lord, what is it that you want to say to me today?

Or how do you see me, Lord? And tell me how you view me. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to put on some music

and we’re just going to let the Lord finish writing what you have begun.

as after a few minutes, Carrie’s going to come back on and transition us to lunch. So, right now, we just pray, Holy

Spirit, come as we’ve written our names at the top of the page. We ask you

to be faithful to speak your words individually to every single person in

the room, whether it’s the first time or the hundth time that they’ve heard your voice. We ask you now to come in power

and speak individually to every single person in the room as they write the letter to themsel from you.

Thank you, Jesus.