Leslie Johnston [00:00:00]:
All right, welcome back to. Am I doing this Right? Yeah, you got to put that in. This is like your third time on the podcast, Jake. How do you not know where the mic goes?
Jake Messner [00:00:10]:
You think I'm remembering where Mike goes?
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:12]:
I'd like to just say that I've seen two. I've never seen two of these articles of clothing on you. The first would be the Abercrombie sweatshirt. Is very nice. Never seen it before. Number two, the Postal Service hat.
Jake Messner [00:00:25]:
That's not true. You've definitely seen this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:27]:
And where did that come from?
Leslie Johnston [00:00:28]:
Are you delivering a package?
Jake Messner [00:00:30]:
Definitely, dude. I used to.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:31]:
The Postal Service give you that?
Jake Messner [00:00:32]:
Yes, it actually says on the inside, it says this is. What does it say? This cap is warranted item to meet or exceed the standard of specification for the usps.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:43]:
What does that mean?
Jake Messner [00:00:44]:
It's official United States Postal Service hat. I just asked my mailman for it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:48]:
That's actually.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:49]:
You asked your own personal mail mailman for it?
Jake Messner [00:00:52]:
Yeah, at the apartment we lived in. I was like, yo, can I. Can I get a hat? Can I get a hat? Can I get a hat? Can I get a hat? Eventually he gave me a hat.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:58]:
Eventually he gave to you. That's.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:59]:
He's probably like, I got to get this kid off my back.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:01]:
This isn't necessarily an unpopular opinion, but I do think we should start with this. Just cuz I'm curious what everybody's responses would be to this. How often do you wash your water bottle?
Jake Messner [00:01:11]:
If I. If I'm just putting water in it?
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:16]:
Yeah.
Jake Messner [00:01:16]:
Never.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:18]:
Never. So your water bottle has never been. You only wash it if you've put something in it that you need to wash out the flavor.
Jake Messner [00:01:23]:
Yeah. Or anything that could, like, grow bacteria or mold. Okay, but like, I'm.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:28]:
So let's say that your water bottle has sat in a hot car for, like, three days. You're not washing it?
Jake Messner [00:01:33]:
No, that wouldn't happen. I like.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:35]:
You don't leave your water bottle in a hot car.
Jake Messner [00:01:37]:
No, because it's my bedside. My water bottle is my every. Like, my everything water bottles, my bedside water bottle, my car water bottle, my road trip water bottle.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:45]:
Never wash it.
Jake Messner [00:01:47]:
Not unless I put anything in it other than water.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:49]:
I wash mine probably once every two.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:52]:
Okay.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:53]:
In the dishwasher, but mostly because it's sitting in my sink and I don't want to have to hand wash it, so I just put it in the.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:59]:
Dish in the dishwasher. Do you. Do you hand wash your straw with a straw cleaner or do you just set it through the dishwasher.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:04]:
I just set it through the dishwasher. Unless there's something in this that is not like, like not water.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:12]:
Right.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:13]:
Then I would probably, probably do that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:15]:
I don't know, I've just, I've. I've seen.
Jake Messner [00:02:16]:
How often do you wash your water bottle?
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:18]:
Probably once a week. Unless it's sat in like a hot car or something like that. I'm terrified of like cold or something. Like, there's girls who have literally died from Stanley's.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:29]:
Yes. And honestly, I like water bottles so much. That'd probably be me.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:33]:
That probably fuels your immune system. Yeah, the mold.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:36]:
Like, I don't wash my sheets, but I wash my water bottles.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:39]:
It's not. You're not ingesting your sheets, you're ingesting water.
Jake Messner [00:02:42]:
Things that you're like crazy strict on is pretty much anything that you eat.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:46]:
Or goes in your mouth, what goes through your digestive system. That's, that's what I care about.
Jake Messner [00:02:50]:
Because your kitchen, your pots, your pans.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:52]:
Oh, yeah, I don't like.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:53]:
Morgan doesn't use sponges. She uses her hands to like.
Jake Messner [00:02:56]:
Yeah. She has like a literal net.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:58]:
My mother in law got me on my mother. Yeah. And then. And those don't. Don't hold bacteria, but they're also. There's silver in them. So it's like a self cleaning rag that. But like it's like a mesh net.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:11]:
Yeah. Pretty interesting.
Jake Messner [00:03:12]:
If you sneeze in Morgan's kitchen, she'd kill you.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:14]:
No, you can sneeze as long as you haven't recently had any gastrointestinal symptoms or touched raw chicken. Those kinds of things. I love that. Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:24]:
Oh, well, Jake, thanks for coming back on the podcast. This is third time interview style now. Jake has been on more than probably anybody. Maybe you rival Christie, but I think you might just beat her with the third.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:37]:
Well, Chrissy's been on three times and you've been on three times.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:40]:
So you and Chris, you're like an honorary co host.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:42]:
Yes.
Jake Messner [00:03:42]:
Okay, so now we're racing for four. First of four is.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:45]:
First of four gets a prize.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:47]:
But we're glad you're here. This is gonna be less of an interview of Jake and more of a conversation that actually we all had last night.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:55]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:55]:
At rooted. Rooted. If you don't know what rooted is, it's a small group thing.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:01]:
Yeah. It's like a discipleship curriculum that our whole church is going through right now.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:05]:
Yes.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:05]:
Which actually I think we might have done some episodes when we were doing it as a staffer so they might be familiar with that.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:11]:
Yeah. This is all of our second time through.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:13]:
Yeah. So. So it's like guided content over 10 weeks, but it brings up some cool things that we don't always talk about in the church. Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:20]:
Yeah. Which I love it. And part of it is, like, sharing your testimony. So a lot of people, like, we take like three a week. And that's just so cool. Cause people that I've been friends with for, like, years now, I'm like, they just said something. I had no idea.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:32]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:33]:
So we'll like, thing about rooted. But anyways, we talked last night about how do you hear from God, the Holy Spirit, all of those things. And it was such a good conversation. And honestly, why we asked Jake to come on is Jake said something that was really cool that we'll get to later in the podcast. And I literally thought today Morgan and I were going to talk about this topic. And I was like, I'm going to steal what Jake said. And then I thought, that is a horrible thing to do. Let's just bring them on.
Jake Messner [00:04:59]:
You know what's crazy? Everything I have to say has been stolen from people wiser than me.
Leslie Johnston [00:05:03]:
So, hey, nothing new under the.
Jake Messner [00:05:05]:
We should get my dad and my mom and my sister on here.
Morgan May Treuil [00:05:07]:
We actually should, because they've done a lot.
Leslie Johnston [00:05:09]:
45 people on this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:05:11]:
So I wasn't there last night, so I would. I want y' all to recap for me what were, like, the highlight things that people said for how they hear from. Or maybe like, what's your primary way of hearing from God when you think about, like, what comes most naturally?
Leslie Johnston [00:05:26]:
Well, the thing that stuck out to me from kind of what we've been learning is that you can hear from God in a bunch of different ways, but primarily you can hear God, obviously. I think the most. I was gonna say the most popular. I don't think that's the right way to say it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:05:42]:
The most popular, popular way to hear.
Jake Messner [00:05:44]:
From God, most holy way is.
Leslie Johnston [00:05:46]:
Is through people. I think people a lot of times are like instruments that God uses to speak to you. But people, your circumstances. God can actually speak to you a lot through circumstances. But one that was interesting to me was through nature and how it's actually.
Jake Messner [00:06:04]:
Yeah, that is what she said it.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:06]:
Thanks for remembering.
Jake Messner [00:06:07]:
I remember you saying. And I was like, oh, I haven't thought of that. You're talking about how God showed you that he speaks to his nature.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:13]:
What.
Jake Messner [00:06:13]:
What was. Was something about the tall trees and being still.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:17]:
Yes. Thanks for ruining it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:06:20]:
You just took the punchline.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:22]:
Stole my thunder, Jake. No, I'm just kidding. No, but exactly. I was reading that sitting outside because you do your, like, rooted reading, and it talked about how you can hear God through nature and how. But I always thought, oh, you can hear God through nature because it's beautiful outside. So then therefore, it shows God's beauty, which is really cool, or, like, how vast and deep and wide and all that. But when I was reading the actual scripture, it talked about how God, like, speaks through nature. And I was like, that feels like more than just, oh, it's so beautiful.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:57]:
God must be beautiful. And I was sitting there, and I was, like, looking around at these trees, and they were perfectly still, like, didn't move at all. And I was sitting there and I was like, okay, if God speaks through nature, like, what. What does this mean? And I felt like in that moment, God's like, you have been spinning your wheels. You've been trying to, you know, control your life. You're trying to figure out all these things on your own. And, like, maybe I'm asking you to be still. Like, these trees are, like, being perfectly still.
Leslie Johnston [00:07:29]:
And it was just one of those cool moments where I was like, oh, I feel like God spoke right after I read that, right to looking at these trees. Like, it wasn't something that I came up with. It was just a moment of like, oh, actually, God can speak through nature. If we would, like, put our phones down and actually look around.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:45]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:07:45]:
Like, I just think God's always. People are always like, God's not speaking to me. And I'm like, also, Ryder. Ryder's on the podcast right now, and he is behind the set.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:54]:
We can hear his little claws. Like.
Leslie Johnston [00:07:58]:
But I think. I just think that goes to show, like, God speaks through so many different things. Nature can even be one of them, and sometimes we just miss it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:08:06]:
Wow, that's really good.
Leslie Johnston [00:08:07]:
So what did you think, Jake?
Jake Messner [00:08:09]:
Dude, it was. It was great. It was. I. Most of the conversation we had was everyone answering that question of, how does God speak to you? And I think this is why rooted is so good. Because I think there's a lot of people, like, in the church who probably would say that they don't grasp that concept really well, and they don't feel like they've heard the voice of God before. And I. I'm like, this is the.
Jake Messner [00:08:38]:
This is the biggest plus to being a Christian. This is it, right? That the Holy Spirit now lives in us, that we get to be in constant conversation with Jesus. So it was, it was interesting hearing. I mean, there's people who were sitting in that circle who have actively heard the voice of God and then people who. This was kind of like a new concept and they're on, they're now on a journey of discovering that God is always speaking to them. Right. And, and oftentimes either they, they haven't. It's, it's like the spiritual muscle, like their spiritual muscle of listening and discerning the voice of God.
Jake Messner [00:09:12]:
They haven't developed it. They haven't even known how to develop it. Right. And so it was so dope to hear those people because I'm like, oh man. Discovering this. It's like this is the best part of being a Christian is that you are in constant prayer and communion with the Holy Spirit. He. He lives in you, he dwells in you.
Jake Messner [00:09:29]:
It's like you're on a fantastic journey. So it was really, really dope.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:33]:
Yeah. I feel like it's an eye opening experience. At whatever point this happens in your faith journey when you realize that God not only just speaks, but that he speaks specifically to you.
Jake Messner [00:09:44]:
Yes.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:45]:
Because when you read the word of God, there's no doubt that God talks. Right. Like, God talks all throughout his word.
Leslie Johnston [00:09:51]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:52]:
I think he can sense there's a baby, he wants to hear him. Because God talks. Don't present yourself. God talks all throughout his word. So it's like for the people that are listening to this and you're like, man, I've never heard God's voice. I don't know what God's voice sounds like. To be very clear and very, very direct with you, everybody has heard the voice of God because you have the word of God at your fingertips. So in that sense, it's like you're never.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:17]:
I used to have all these emotional conversations with high schoolers and youth group where they felt like they hadn't had this experience of hearing the voice of God. What they're talking about is this like extra Holy Spirit sort of God in the back seat moment. Yeah, those. And, and what's cool about God is that he's so powerful and he's so intentional with us that sometimes he will speak in those kinds of like crazy big ways, but it's not always how he speaks. And so I, I've talked to a lot of people that are like, they're, they wrestle with that. Do I even know God? If he haven't, if he hasn't spoke to me? If you have a Bible, then has spoken to you. So that's like first of all, like, take the pressure off of yourself. Don't compare your relationship with God to somebody else's relationship because you feel like you don't have burning bushes and scrolls coming out of heaven.
Morgan May Treuil [00:11:05]:
But with that being said, it is also this other really cool moment in your faith when you realize that the Holy Spirit is what takes the word of God and then, like, directly intersects it and bumps it up against your life. And you realize, like, oh, God actually does speak directly to me. And he does it in these really cool and creative ways that involve nature and the world and people. And part of that is paying attention. Because you're right. Like, sometimes we're so consumed in this and our constant content feed and even, like, our own dialogue and our own stuff, so we can miss it.
Jake Messner [00:11:42]:
Oh, yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:11:43]:
But then the other part of that is awareness of what God's saying, but also a deep knowledge of God's word. Because if you know God's word, then you're able to recognize when God is saying something outside of your Bible reading time.
Leslie Johnston [00:11:57]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:11:58]:
Because those things will always match up. Like the trees knowing his voice, stillness, that matches up with how he has revealed himself to you in your word. So you recognize that it's God's voice. It's not just like, hey, I want you to ram your car into the bumper of the car in front of you. This is the voice of God, by the way. Like, yeah, okay.
Leslie Johnston [00:12:17]:
The voice of God has to agree with scripture.
Jake Messner [00:12:20]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:20]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:12:20]:
You're hearing something that is not lining up or actually contradicts scripture.
Jake Messner [00:12:25]:
It's not the most.
Leslie Johnston [00:12:25]:
It ain't God.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:26]:
Exactly. It's not God.
Leslie Johnston [00:12:27]:
It's something else.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:28]:
It's something else. Please go see somebody. No, seriously. That's a great point. Yeah.
Jake Messner [00:12:33]:
You also have to listen, like. And this is something that when we did rooted a year ago, I was so deeply reminded of how bad I've been at being still and listening. I go to God so much in prayers, Right. Every time I drive my car, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. But I'm not giving him time to respond. And my sister said. My sister Maddie said this so well, she's like, if the devil can't get you to sin, he'll get you to be busy.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:59]:
Yeah.
Jake Messner [00:12:59]:
And I was like, oh, that's a bar. Because, man, the busyness when you are just caught up. I'm so caught up in, like, even with. With my job here with youth, I can get so caught up on the task and the task and the task and then the task that it's Sometimes it's hard for me to remind myself, jake, you need to slow down before you preach, before you go into a Tuesday night. This is something we've been really good at this year of like, hey, let's just spend 5 minutes, 10 minutes sitting and listening, not praying, listening to like God, is there a kid that I need to reach out to tonight, like put names in my, in my head and, and open up doors for us to have conversation. And he is speaking in that quiet place. He's speaking in that, listening so, so well. So every time, every time I've done rooted last time and this time it's such a good reminder to me that I need to create space to listen.
Jake Messner [00:13:45]:
That's probably my biggest, like, struggle is creating the space to listen.
Morgan May Treuil [00:13:49]:
Let me challenge that. Challenge you on that. Not, not challenging you. Let me ask you one more question about that because I feel like people are curious about this. For those who are kind of waiting into that space of, hey, I'm really asking God to intervene in my day to day. So I want to ask God, hey, give me an opportunity to pray for somebody. Give me an opportunity to do this. And they're practicing listening, but they're listening, but they're not sure what they've heard.
Morgan May Treuil [00:14:14]:
So for the person that's in like a worship service or something, and they're in a grocery store and they're asking God, hey, give me eyes to see the person that needs prayer or the person that needs encouragement, when you ask those questions of God, what makes you so sure that you're hearing right? Or does it. Does what makes you so sure that you're hearing right?
Jake Messner [00:14:35]:
Okay, I would say a couple things because this is, this is like the, the biggest high school question you always get when talking about the voice of God. Is is it the voice of God or is it my conscience? How do I know if it's the voice of God or how do I know if it's my conscience?
Morgan May Treuil [00:14:45]:
Yeah, like your intuition. Yeah, like your instinct, your, your gut.
Jake Messner [00:14:48]:
And I would say a couple things. One, the learning and discerning. The voice of God is very much like a muscle. It's very much like a muscle. And, and when you don't use it a lot, it's weak and it's hard to tell. And you're always in that conversation of is this God or is this my conscience? Is this. So one, developing that muscle. Right.
Jake Messner [00:15:08]:
Leaning into that would be the first thing. The second thing I would say is God does, like for me, speak through my conscience. It's something that he has given me. God dwells inside of me. He. He has given me my conscience. So when. When I hear, like, if I'm praying something.
Jake Messner [00:15:21]:
Dude, if I'm praying something really, really small, like, if I need to go to Home Depot or Lowe's, there's times where I'm like, God, should I go to Home Depot or Lowe's? And I will feel just a little. A little, like, whisper of, like, go to Lowe's. And this actually happened last year when I was living out in Lincoln, and I went to Lowe's, and I had a conversation with a student that I hadn't seen in months at church. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, it was that. It was. It was more of a feeling than just like, the. The voice of God.
Morgan May Treuil [00:15:49]:
So, yeah, when you say whisper, you mean, like, it's like an inclination.
Jake Messner [00:15:52]:
Yeah, it's an inclination.
Morgan May Treuil [00:15:53]:
It's like a gut feeling.
Jake Messner [00:15:54]:
Yes. And I could. I could sit there every time and be like, was that God or was that my conscience? And I would say, man, trust it. Just go with it. God will move, and then you'll be able to, like, know and learn and discern. This is the voice of God. And so that's my first thing of, like, I think people are. When we talk about hearing the voice of God, they think about, like, a.
Jake Messner [00:16:12]:
A different voice, a powerful voice coming into their mind, saying something audibly. But God will also speak through, like, your feelings and your gut feelings and your intuitions and. And he'll put thoughts into your brain. And so always, like. And the biggest thing is I say if it aligns with scripture, right? If it aligns with scripture and, like, go for it. Yeah, it's, It's. It's. It's a part of, like, learning and discerning.
Jake Messner [00:16:36]:
So when I, When I even. This happened on Tuesday, a kid was. Was asked me for small group after a Tuesday, or asked me for prayer during small group time. And the whole time he's speaking, I just get this feeling in my gut and this word in my head of like, this is spiritual warfare. This is spiritual warfare. And I can't think of, like, while he's speaking and I'm listening, that word is just coming into my mind over and over and over. And it ended up being, like, spiritual warfare. And we were able to pray over Him.
Jake Messner [00:17:05]:
Now, I could have wrestled with that and decided that, oh, this is my conscience in my mind. I don't know what the risk is to trying that. It's biblically Aligned. And it teaches me to understand the difference between, oh, my own thoughts and the actual voice of God speaking through my thoughts and speaking through, like, what I'm thinking. Because I think the Lord moves in those ways, right? That he'll just put the soft, quiet whisper of his voice or put thoughts in your brain in quiet time. And so, yeah, that's. That's what I would say. It's.
Jake Messner [00:17:36]:
It's. It's not. People are always wanting this big, grand experience. And as the Bible talks about praying without ceasing, it's just a constant conversation with what can feel like your own thoughts and your own feelings. God is instilling those in you. Right. And so that's the first thing. The other thing, just on, like, the practicing of it.
Jake Messner [00:17:55]:
I talked about this last night, like, journaling. This is not my idea. I heard this from either my youth pastor, my dad, or something. Someone that talked about when you have a question, like, God, what am. How much longer should I stay in this job? Writing that down and then just free writing your thoughts out or writing your prayers down and free writing. Like, spend time listening and free writing. And what you'll notice is a lot of times you read that back, and I'm like, man, this sounds like stuff I've heard in the Bible. This sounds like.
Jake Messner [00:18:25]:
Like God is speaking to me. And so it's almost a reminder that God is speaking to you through your thoughts.
Leslie Johnston [00:18:31]:
Yeah.
Jake Messner [00:18:32]:
So that's like, a really good tool that I've. I've used and I still use when I'm praying for, like, big things.
Leslie Johnston [00:18:38]:
I love that because I think someone said this last night at our group. They were like, how do I know? I think that's always the question. Is it my thoughts or is it God? Like, I don't know. But then when they. The minute they said that, because I always think that. I think that's the biggest thing I struggle with is like, am I coming up with this in my mind or is this actually God asking me to do something? And I just had this little realization of, like, well, if the Holy Spirit lives inside you, your thoughts can be tied with the Holy Spirit. Like, says, the Holy Spirit's sealed to you. Like, there.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:09]:
You can't. He doesn't leave. And I think to me, growing up, I was always a little bit more uncomfortable. Like, to me, Jesus, God, totally not makes sense. But, like, to me, that was comfortable. Like, I can. I. I just grew up knowing a lot more about them than I did about the Holy Spirit.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:27]:
So the Holy Spirit always felt like, kind of a woohoo thing to me. Like, I was like, I just, I.
Morgan May Treuil [00:19:32]:
Don'T know about the Holy Spirit.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:33]:
Like, I know, I know it's real. I know that he lives inside me. But to me, last night, going through all of the things that the Holy Spirit actually is, like, he's not just this, like, ethereal thing. It's like, no, he's a comforter. He's an encourager. He's an advocate. Like, the Bible lists all these things and all these attributes that the Holy Spirit is to you. So if that's the case, like, if the Holy Spirit is encouraging you, sometimes that might look like your own thoughts encouraging you.
Leslie Johnston [00:20:01]:
Or like your own thoughts about a situation or a job or a relationship. And you go, you just brush it off as like, this is my own thoughts. When it's like, no, if you're paired up with the Holy Spirit, your thoughts, not always because we are sinful, but if it aligns with scripture, it might actually be the Holy Spirit and you together. And that's a good thing. Like, you can hear from that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:21]:
Yeah, there's the Holy Spirit without and there's the Holy Spirit within. And that's the beauty of living, like post Jesus on the cross and the coming of the Holy Spirit is that you are intimately familiar with the ways of God as. As a part of that gut feeling. But it is something that constantly has to be assessed and addressed because, like, we know there's also other impulses that exist in here. So it's like the impulse to pray and then the impulse to gossip can live within the same, like, fleshy body. And there's always that question. Yeah, it was cool because we got away. Montana or not, man.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:01]:
Sorry, not Montana. Wyoming. Over the past couple days to do like a baby moon type of thing, which that must be in our generation thing because I've said that word a couple times and I feel like they think it's like, okay, so you're saying you have time and money to go away on a baby.
Jake Messner [00:21:18]:
You just want to go on a vacation? Yeah, it happens to be while you're.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:21]:
Pregnant, before the baby. While you're pregnant. But it was, it was really refreshing. Lots of places where we were didn't have service. There was lots of time away from phones and with phones put down, which.
Leslie Johnston [00:21:31]:
Yeah, we tried to play a practical joke on you yesterday and you didn't pick up.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:35]:
We were in Yellowstone yet. What was the joke? No, we can't say it on here because. Because we're. Yeah, we were in Yellowstone yesterday. And so lots of like, we had to download offline maps and the whole thing because there just, like, wasn't any service. Y' all are.
Jake Messner [00:21:47]:
Y' all are like, that's a whole cup of tea.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:49]:
But okay, so I want to hear it eventually.
Jake Messner [00:21:52]:
Yeah, you had to be there. You had to be there. You had to be there.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:56]:
But. But then it was. It was funny. There was a couple nights ago. And I will. I will say I'm one of those people where there's maybe like a handful of stories in my life where I feel like God has. Has gone above and beyond to say something specifically to me that took place in this really, you know, outside of my body, outside of my ability to deny move of the Holy Spirit. But most oftentimes it's that subtle nudge that you're talking about.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:22]:
And the other night, it was. It was cool. We were. We were kind of already sensitive to just like stillness and not being on our phone so much. And I woke up with like a tickle in my throat or something. Something made me cough and like, like, like broke me out of sleep, out of deep sleep. And then we heard like a noise from the room next door. And then at first we were kind of freaked out, and then we're like.
Jake Messner [00:22:43]:
You were definitely freaked out.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:44]:
Actually, Benji was more freaked out than I was. I didn't hear the noise. I coughed. Benji had already been up because he had heard several noises. Couldn't figure out where they're coming from. Either way, both of us are up at 3 o' clock in the morning with nothing to do. And I was kind of like, just jarred awake. So I began to just pray.
Morgan May Treuil [00:23:00]:
And it wasn't like I was like, super trying to listen. It was more so just praying over all the things that I feel like are in front of us. Praying over our marriage, praying over our coming baby, praying over work. And it was like I started to pray these things over the baby. And then there was like one. One attribute that I was praying over the baby that it almost felt like God kept like, highlighting it or bringing it back. And it was the word leadership. Like, you need to pray over his leadership.
Morgan May Treuil [00:23:31]:
And I have no way of knowing if that was real or if that was from God other than the fact that you're up and you're praying. But it's like, okay, I know that leadership is something that people were called to in the Bible. Just begin to pray for it and see what will happen. I have no idea what kind of person he's going to Be. But I think that we. There's an idolatry that some of us have when it comes from to hearing the voice of God, of like, needing to get it exactly right, what we're hearing. And that makes God speaking more about you being right than God speaking. So stop putting all this pressure on yourself to, like, get it exactly right or hear exactly correct.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:08]:
Because it's.
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:09]:
It's maybe not about that. It's maybe about the actual process and practice of listening in the first place.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:15]:
That's thought kind of like you can have more of. I think Christy said this last night. She's like, what if we all had more of, like, a childlike faith of God when it comes to him speaking to you? Like, what if you just assumed that was from God?
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:30]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:30]:
Like, as long as it's not something, you know.
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:32]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:32]:
That might take you on a bad path. But, like, if it's something you're like, hey, God might be saying this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:37]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:38]:
It's like, move forward in it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:39]:
100.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:40]:
You said something last night about things that can block the voice of God.
Morgan May Treuil [00:24:46]:
This is good.
Jake Messner [00:24:48]:
Yes. Again, not my own, but.
Leslie Johnston [00:24:51]:
But it's good.
Jake Messner [00:24:52]:
In middle school, I remember, man, do I love an illustration. I love an illustration. I remember. I think it was my youth pastor again. Youth pastor, my dad. They both pastored me very close. But I remember him drawing like a little. A little person with antennas and these.
Jake Messner [00:25:11]:
He was talking about how these are your spiritual antennas. Right. That your antennas are always up as the Bible talks about praying without ceasing, that you're always be like, if you want. And if you step into it, you are always able to be in conversation with the Holy Spirit. Right. And. But he was saying, this is sin. It was like a.
Jake Messner [00:25:29]:
Like a photo of a cloud. And he, like, drags it over and puts it over the antennas. He's like, when you are living in sin and when there's big areas of sin in your life, it gets harder and harder to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit because the distance. There's distance between you and God being created. Right. So it was. It was a really good illustration for me about. And.
Jake Messner [00:25:52]:
And even as I look back in my life and there's been sins that I have walked into. Through, and there's been addictions that I have walked through. And oftentimes I'm like, man, God, it's so hard to hear your voice right now. And my life is a mess. My life is a mess. And there's. There's sin that I'm constantly choosing over him. And I'm not going and sitting and listening.
Jake Messner [00:26:10]:
I'm just not doing that. I'm living in sin, right? And so it's a really good illustration to me that I would say it gets harder and harder to hear the voice of God when you are living in the midst of sin. Now, I would also say that if God wants to speak to you, he'll speak to you. I think of, like, Saul and Paul guys murdering Christians, and God still speaks to them. So it's not like, you know, if you sin, God doesn't speak to you, right? But I do think that that constant conversation and the discernment of the voice of God, you can harden your heart to it, right? You can live in sin and harden your heart to it and kind of like block your spiritual intent, you know? And so it's a really good illustration for me. And honestly, like, a reminder, because the thing I desire most is to be in communion with the Holy Spirit. And there's been times where as I'm in the midst of stepping into sin, I'm thinking, this will cause distance. This will.
Jake Messner [00:27:08]:
This will disrupt my relationship and my walk with the Holy Spirit. And that is. That's like. I'm like, well, I just don't want that. I really don't want that. So that illustration was really great for me. One, and the understanding of why I may be walking through times where it feels like it's so hard for me to live in communion, I'm able to ask myself, what. What sin am I actively walking into? But two, it's almost like a sin deterrent.
Jake Messner [00:27:33]:
Because, again, the best thing about being a Christian is the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, that he lives in us. That I get to be a temple of the Holy. You good. You good. May need some prayer here. May have a critter or two. And so it's like the best thing. I don't want to do anything to compromise that, right? And so shout out whoever it was, you know, if you're listening.
Jake Messner [00:27:55]:
And you remember giving me that lecture, it's so good.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:58]:
The spiritual antennas. I'm like, yeah, I thought about that multiple times today. Like, I literally thought as, like, I'm going to say something negative about somebody or think something that I shouldn't. I literally thought, this is gonna push. Not. Not, like, push God away, but it's gonna cloud up hearing the voice of God because God and sin, that doesn't. That's not like. That's not gonna mesh well, you know?
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:23]:
No, it doesn't.
Jake Messner [00:28:24]:
No.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:25]:
In Ephesians 4, it says that in our sin, we actually grieve the Holy Spirit that we were sealed with for the redemption. Which means that when we sin, it. It makes the Holy Spirit go into, like, loss and heartbreak mode. Which, if I were to, like, put an image to that, it's like almost like a shrinking back of sorts. Like, when you go through grief, it causes you to shrink back and to, like, become small. Right. Like, let life happen kind of by you. And so if we.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:55]:
If we sin and that grieves the Holy Spirit that's been sealed in us, then I would imagine that that space kind of like, shrinks up and. And. And shrinks back, becomes small, and then we. We aren't able to hear. And why is it important to be able to hear? Because your life doesn't stop moving. You know what I'm saying? Like. Like there's constantly things in front of you that God wants to get in your face about good things and hard things, like, stuff to avoid. I mean, is it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:29:23]:
Is it any wonder that, like, sin sometimes is kind of a snowball effect of bad choices? And do we wonder if the reason for that is because the first sin decision happens, the voice of the Holy Spirit gets, like, muffled in your ears. And then all the decisions that come afterwards, the clarity of God's voice and what he's saying to do or not do gets clouded again. Right. I mean, it's just like. It's. It's. You have to be able to hear.
Jake Messner [00:29:46]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:29:48]:
It's so good.
Morgan May Treuil [00:29:48]:
Yeah. Listen and listen and listen.
Jake Messner [00:29:51]:
My sister Kaylee, both actually, all three of the women in my family, I would say, have the spiritual gift of prayer, especially my sisters Maddie and Kaylee have the spiritual gift of prayer like I've never seen. And I remember this is. This is going to be a wild story, but I remember when I smoked weed for the first time at like, 17 years old, and I told my sister Kaylee, she was like, well, I want to pray with you, and I want to pray over you. And we went out to a restaurant, and it's just me and her, and she's. She's married at the time. She's older. She hadn't. It wasn't like.
Jake Messner [00:30:25]:
It was like a. Kind of like. I'm like, kaylee, what do we. Like, this is. This is new to me. This is weird. And she's like, well, we're going to have a prayer session, and I just want to pray over this. And she's like, here's what we're going to do.
Jake Messner [00:30:34]:
We're going to start this off by just sitting silent for five minutes. And 17 year old Jake in a restaurant sitting silent for five minutes. I'm like, kaylee, why are you being weird? What are you doing right now? And I remember we sat there and we just sat in silence for five minutes before she began to pray with me. And, and, and through conversation and just through prayer. And I remember that being the first time that I had ever listened before I prayed. That was like the first time that I ever listened to like, what is the heart issue in this? What is the deeper issue that I'm not aware of that the Holy Spirit knows, right? What is this void that I'm trying to fill? And I remember it being such a good reminder of, of like listening. And so, yeah, I would just encourage anyone that it's like, man, God speaks to you in the silence. He really does.
Jake Messner [00:31:22]:
And so I always tell the kids, five, five and five, five minutes of worship. If you're just starting off a great thing, worship for five minutes. Set your heart in the right spot. Spend five minutes in prayer and spend five minutes in listening. Fifteen minutes a day. It'll change your life. And oftentimes it's like, well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be a good Christian, I'm gonna check off all the boxes. But it's like we don't ever give God the time to just sit and listen.
Jake Messner [00:31:45]:
We go to him with all these asks, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Amen. And then we're out, right? And it's like what I was saying, the devil can keep you busy. And so giving that space to listen is huge.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:58]:
That's a good spot to end. Five minutes worship, five minutes listening, five minutes prayer.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:02]:
That's great.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:03]:
And understand busyness can keep you sometimes from hearing the voice of God.
Jake Messner [00:32:08]:
It's a weapon of the enemy. Busyness is a weapon of the enemy.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:11]:
This is so good. Jake, thanks for joining us.
Jake Messner [00:32:14]:
Thank you.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:15]:
And joining us. Thanks.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:16]:
You writer, you have main character syndrome right now.
Jake Messner [00:32:19]:
I think I may have spilled something on my pants, some type of food. He has not stopped licking my.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:23]:
You spilled food on your pants?
Leslie Johnston [00:32:24]:
And he's looking shoes on his pod. I think it's allergies or something.
Jake Messner [00:32:27]:
There's a wet spot on my pants.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:29]:
Because he's licking for him.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:31]:
Licking his.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:31]:
He doesn't have good tongue control. It's everywhere.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:34]:
It's kind of everywhere.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:35]:
But you're a good boy.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:36]:
Thanks for joining. Thanks for listening. You guys. And if you don't listen on Spotify, you're like, what are we talking about? There's a puppy here, too.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:42]:
There's a puppy.
Jake Messner [00:32:43]:
Oh, yeah. People are like, what are you. Who is Ryder licking Drake's pants? This is a dog. His name is Ryder.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:51]:
All right, love you guys. See you next time.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:53]:
Bye.