I truly hope that you have followed along with these devotionals as we discern the love languages God whispers to us through. Today, we will discover “the language of promptings”, as Mark Batterson explains in his book, Whisper:
The Language of Promptings
Mark Batterson starts out with an analogy to challenge our thinking:
“How do you hit a high-inside fastball going a hundred miles per hour or a wicked curveball that can break up to 17.5 inches? The twofold answer if good vision and good timing. Vision without timing takes a strike. Timing without vision swings and misses. It’s the unique combination of vision and timing that gets the hit”.
“Remember the old adage “Timing is everything”? It’s as true in life as it is in baseball, and it’s especially true when it comes to the language of promptings. God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right places and the right time, but we don’t always recognize it as such”.
A Time For Everything (cf. Ecclesiastes chapter 3)
Discerning seasons and times regarding the promptings in your life it vital. Mark details this quite well in the following statements:
“You need to know what season you’re in. If you don’t, you’ll get frustrated trying to harvest when it is time to plant or trying to plant when it’s time to let the land lie fallow”.
“Discerning the voice of God requires an internal clock that perceives His promptings”.
“Sometimes I let fear dictate my decisions. I’m afraid of feeling awkward or looking foolish, so I fail to step out in faith. Sometimes I am too preoccupied with my own problems to discern God’s promptings. But listening to those whispers and obeying them can turn any ordinary day into the adventure of a lifetime”.
“It’s not easy discerning His timing, and it’s even harder trusting it, especially when it feels as though God is a day late and a dollar short. But if your questioning His timing, perhaps it’s your watch that needs to be adjusted. You get in time with Him by getting in tune with His whisper”.
Effective Frequency
I imagine all of us want to “turn any ordinary day into the adventure of a lifetime”, and this is truly possible as we listen to the promptings of the Lord.
“Learning to discern God’s promptings takes practice. You don’t always pick up on the nuances at first. But if you give it some time, you’ll get better at hearing those subtle whispers”.
“When you get out of your comfort zone, you hear God’s voice more clearly. It’s often a door that leads to a door. Or maybe I should say, a prompting that leads to a prompting”.
“…we all have default settings that dictate a lot of what we do…so many dimensions of our lives become patterned”.
“It’s human nature to keep doing what you’ve been doing, and here’s the problem: if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten”.
“…the good news is this: a small change in a preset can have a huge change in outcome…Heeding a little prompting today can have a huge net affect tomorrow”.
“…some of the best ideas start out as goosebumps. And that’s true of the Father’s business as well. Goosebumps aren’t one of the seven love languages…, but they are a subdialect. Don’t ignore those things that give you chills. Perhaps you’re hearing from the same Holy Spirit who “warmed” the heart of John Wesley”.
Prayerfully Mark Batterson’s thoughts on discerning and listening to the language of promptings has challenged you to do something different, change a preset in life, so that you mighty amplify God’s voice. Alan’s Hirsch’s thoughts in Untamed provide an area we can foster change in the area of the Beatitudes and simplicity.
Untamed Beauty and Simplicity
Alan Hirsch amplifies the beauty of “…understanding and applying the genius of the Beatitudes to our lives”. (cf. Matthew 5:2-13; Luke 6:20-30).
“How contrary are the Beatitudes to the endemic greed and status anxiety that so easily prevail over us! How free from status anxiety is the person who lives by them! According to Jesus, it is such a person who is truly “happy” or “blessed”. But these are inversions of what our society says makes a person happy. Truly the idols have deceived us yet again. Full of blather and promise, they deliver nothing but sadness and despair”.
“The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing…This is what the word ‘poor’ as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things”. – A.W. Tozer
“Authentic missional Christianity not only reclaims and redeems culture through incarnational engagement as Jesus did, but also imperils the culture in which it manifests itself, in exactly the same way the early disciples did to the Roman Empire. When we experience deep liberation from idols by the King, we become aware that we do not have to squander and dissipate our lives on things that don’t matter”.
Prayerfully, reading those quotes urged you to prayerfully review the Beatitudes in Scripture and ask the Lord to help you creatively apply change, adjustment, to your life as you see fit. I had marked out a season of simplicity for my own discipleship this month, therefore I see amply opportunity before me. If you need some critical thought of knowledgeable motivation to make some changes, Alan Hirsch provides the following resources for your edification:
The Manifesto for Wellbeing – a national effort that couple be used for a personal challenge. Visit the following website for more information, http://www.holistequine.com/articles/36-well-being-manifesto
Alan also mentioned reading, Plan Be: Be the Change You Want to See in the World by Dave Andrews.
I trust these details will prove to be valuable as we put them in action.
Be blessed,
Pastor Michael Miano