Why We Struggle Getting Close To God

I enjoy reading some classic authors. And when I say classic, it doesn't always mean super-ancient or anything like that. There are some kind of fun things to read from the early church fathers. But I've long enjoyed the writings of guys like A.W. Tozer. I just finished a book about dealing with the whole missionary thrust of the Inland China mission back in the 1800's. You've heard me quote lots of times from George Mueller in his autobiography. One of the things I've always noticed about these guys when they're talking about their relationship with God is they'll say over and over again how sweet fellowship is with the Lord. They talk about fellowship a lot. Not with other believers, but I mean, they will mention that from time to time. But it's all about this fellowship with the Lord, this intimacy with God. And they'll just talk about, oh, it's so sweet to have that fellowship with God, to spend time in prayer and just commune with Him and open your heart to His... And we all kind of read through this stuff. And I've been reading through some of these authors for many years since the earliest days of my walk with the Lord. And it's pretty easy to kind of go, ah, I wish that happened to me. You know? I think the majority of Christians struggle in the area of having fellowship with God. I think they read about some of these guys who wrote books in the past. E.M. Bounds who wrote on prayer. So many others. And they're kind of left thinking, I don't know, there must be something that's available for a select few. Because the rest of us just don't seem to get it. And our relationship with the Lord is kind of limited to like writing a letter to Santa Claus. I mean, it's kind of almost on that same level. I put in my requests. I really don't have any strong expectation of getting what I've asked for. But I do it because that's what you're supposed to do. And I read my Bible. And you know, that's cool. That's filling and stuff like that. But it's kind of a long-distance relationship. Have you ever had a long-distance relationship with someone? Maybe you met them face-to-face at one time, but now they live in a completely different place. And now you're limited to just correspondence through the mail. Now we have email and we can even do face-to-face video stuff, which you know helps when you're a long ways away. But there's something about when you're not with that person. It's still a long-distance relationship. And I think a lot of us feel like our walk with God is very much like a long-distance relationship. It's a relationship. But it's just distant. It's not real warm. And when we hear other people talking about, oh, what a sweet time of fellowship we had with the Holy Spirit, we're kind of left going, wow, where can I get into that? That's what I want to talk about this morning. And I believe that we were even created to have fellowship with God, but I think so very, very few of us ever do. I don't think it's probably going to come as any surprise to you that the triune God who created all of mankind who created us in His image, also created you to be a triune being. Believe it or not. But whereas God's triunity is expressed in His makeup as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, man is a triunity in that he exists as body, soul, and spirit. I would like to put an illustration up on the screen for you. This is man. We've used him before in some of our past studies. His name is a man. And he is, like you, made up in three parts. First of all, he's made up of a body. And in the Greek, this word is sarx. And it means flesh. And it can have the connotation of this flesh body. It can mean body. It can also have the connotation of a sinful nature in certain contexts. But essentially, it just means your body. It means your physical self. The physical who you are. That's one part of who you are. We put a lot of emphasis on this part. But probably not as much emphasis as we put on the second part of who we are. Where also, the Bible tells us soul. And if we can put that up. That is the Greek word pesuke. That's actually how that's pronounced. And you can see it's where we get our word psyche. But the human soul is essentially the seat of your emotional and intellectual being. Alright? So your psyche is who you are intellectually and who you are emotionally. We give a huge amount of emphasis to this part of us. And obviously, these two parts of our makeup are the ones that we focus on the most. If I feel bad physically, I take an aspirin. If I feel bad emotionally, I do whatever I do to comfort myself. But these are the things I attend to and that you attend to more than anything else. But you see, there's another part of who God created us to be. And that is the Spirit. And that is an interesting, that's the word pneuma. You might say, wouldn't that be pronounced pneuma? There's no such thing in Greek as a silent letter. Isn't that nice? That's actually what makes Greek a fairly easy language to pronounce. The only problem is it's archaic. Nobody does it anymore. It's a dead language. But it's the biblical language of the New Testament. And we learn a lot from it. Pneuma is really the same word as breath or wind, which is why a pneumatic tool is a tool that runs on air. And that's where we get that idea of pneuma or in the Greek, pneuma, which again means breath or spirit. But it also refers to that part of you which is spiritual in nature. We give very little emphasis to this part of ourselves. But it yet is a full third of who you are. And you know what's interesting? Of the three, your soul and your spirit will continue on. Your body is going to cease to be. You'll get a new one eventually. But the spiritual part of ourselves is so diminished as far as our understanding and so forth. And I think again, society emphasizes at least today, feelings. The middle emphasis, soul, emphasizes that probably more than anything else. So what happens when you live in a society that does that? That takes one of those elements like your soul, your feelings, and exalts it above almost anything else? Well, we live in a feelings-centered society. And what happens is your feelings begin to dictate morality. We literally begin to determine right and wrong by how we feel. It's in all of our literature. I'm going to put up for you one single line of a lyric from a song that came out a while back. It can't be wrong when it feels so right. I don't know if anybody knows. This is a little trivia for you here. Some of you music buffs who probably have gray hair like me might know. Let me give you the answer here. You Light Up My Life. Debbie Boone back in 1977. Anybody remember that song? In case you're not aware of it, that song charted number one on the Billboard charts for ten straight weeks. It was number one. That was unprecedented. And it sold in excess of four million albums and included that line, it can't be wrong when it feels so right. Debbie probably regrets singing that today. She's a born-again Christian. But it was a lyric that became, well, I'm not suggesting that that song was responsible for causing us as Americans to focus on our feelings. What I'm saying is that lyric from that song resonated with Americans in such a way that it became and is today still the essence of how we think. We've heard that basic statement. over and over, whether it's in music or movies or novels. And now it's as much a part of our life as the air that we breathe. We may not even realize it. And we American Christians, we were raised in that cesspool of thinking. And we come to Christ and we incorporate that same mentality. How can something be wrong when it feels so right? In other words, if it feels right, then maybe it is right. So, we're living now when feelings and personal opinions have become the means by which we determine that which is true, that which is untrue, what is good, what is bad. You know, when I'm talking to somebody today about their salvation, we're talking about your eternal salvation, I find that the conversation very quickly turns to feelings. I'm talking about salvation. And they start to turn it to feelings. And if someone feels saved, they will typically experience a satisfaction with that sensation, and they'll try to hang on to it. But when they don't feel saved, it'll possibly plunge them into despair because Pastor Paul, I just don't feel saved. And they'll write me or call me or stop by and see me and want to know how they can get that feeling back. Because they just don't feel like they're a child of God. And I'll show them the Scriptures, you know. But it doesn't seem to do a whole lot of good. And then there's the husband who comes to me saying that he's feeling unfulfilled in his marriage and wonders what he can do. Pastor, you see, I just feel unfulfilled. I just don't feel like our marriage is what it once was. Another believer prays for forgiveness, but still feels guilty. And wants to know how they can feel forgiven. And I go over the Scriptures like 1 John 1.9.

And they say, Pastor, I know that verse. But I just don't feel forgiven. And I realize while I'm talking to that person that what I'm dealing with is someone who has exalted their feelings above the authority of God's Word. They have exalted how they feel as the highest standard of reality. And it becomes an issue, obviously. You know, even things like we talk a lot about the alarming addiction today to pornography. And we think it's all about the Internet and all about the pictures that people are seeing on the Internet. But you know, pornography addiction is really more about feelings than it is anything else What happens, sure, the pictures exist, but what they do is they give you a feeling that you want to hang on to. And you'll even go back, even though you feel guilt for looking at that garbage, eventually that guilt will wear off and you'll go back to rediscover that feeling that you had looking at that pornography. Because that feeling was so good at the time that it becomes addictive. We can very easily become addicted to these sorts of feelings. Last week, I posted something on Facebook that was written by another author, and I don't usually follow this person very closely, but it was so profoundly true as it related to this whole subject of feelings and stuff like that, that I linked it on my Facebook page. And I want to read you just a portion of it. Listen to this. It relates to marriage. But he wrote, he said, I think one of the reasons why marriages don't last in this country is that we think love is a purely emotional experience. We talk about falling in love and falling out of love as if we have no choice in the matter. We get married because of how the other person makes us feel. And then we get divorced because they stop making us feel that way. It's a selfish, childish conception of marital love. And it has led to millions of broken vows. He goes on to end the article by saying, and I'm cutting a lot out, if we get married solely because of how the other person makes us feel, and if we confuse that feeling with love, we're already on the path to divorce. Isn't that interesting? I was so taken by that, I felt so strongly that that author had nailed it that I felt like I needed to kind of pass it along. Well, I imagine by now some of you are kind of wondering why I'm talking about all this. We haven't even opened the Bible yet, and that's really odd for us here at Calvary Chapel. But I'm bringing it up because for every believer who has ever struggled in their closeness with God, in becoming close with Him, hearing His voice, and we all have struggled to hear His voice. I believe this subject, the exaltation of our feelings, is what is behind it. And I believe that looking into this can shed some light on why we're struggling so much. And along those lines, I want you to turn to the 131st Psalm. Psalm 131. I actually went over some of this stuff with my staff on Thursday, right before we started praying. So they're getting a little bit of a double dose on this one. But then again, that never hurts, does it? Psalm 131. This is one of the shortest Psalms. And it's only three verses. And it goes like this,

Alright, very simple Psalm. But this is one of many Psalms, actually, where David speaks about his soul. I want to remind you again, the soul is the center of your intellect and your emotions. And in fact, in one of the Psalms, David doesn't just talk about his soul, he talks to his soul. Let me show you this on the screen. This is from Psalm 42, verses 5 and 6. He says,

I want you to notice how David starts. Keep this up for just a second if you would, Jane. He begins by posing a question to his soul. He's talking to his emotions and his intellectual seat. He says, why are you so depressed? That's what that means, by the way, to be cast down or downcast. Why are you so depressed? Have you ever gotten depressed? Of course, we all have at some point in our lives. Some people have struggled with it majorly. Have you ever thought about talking to your emotions? Why are you down? See, we just consider it so much just this is the way I am. This is me. David exhorts his soul. Look at the exhortation that he gives to his soul. He says, hope in God! Isn't that great? This is like a locker room talk. He says, why are you depressed? Put your hope in God! It's what you're supposed to be doing. Kind of interesting, isn't it? Again, David is talking to his soul as if his soul, listen to this, is a thing that can be tamed and controlled. I'm going to say that again. David talks to his soul as if his soul is a thing that can be tamed and controlled. Now I want to come back here to Psalm 131 which you have in your Bible on your lap. And I want to read again v. 2 because that's where we're going to focus. Look at v. 2. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, David says, like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Notice how David likens his soul to a child. And not just a child, but a weaned child with its mother. And by the way, the Hebrew word for weaned can also be translated contented. And the picture that you're to get here is this child that is just sitting quietly next to his or her mother. Contented. And as David comes before the Lord, he announces to God, I have quieted my soul. My soul is now like a child. Contented. Sitting next to its mother. Right? Again, the unmistakable idea is that David believed that he could do this. He believed that his soul was something that could be quieted. So David comes before the Lord saying this. Now the next question we need to tackle is why? It might seem obvious, but here's the question. Why did David feel that quieting his soul was important? And to get the answer to that question, we have to go back to our essential makeup. Let me put Mr. A. Mann back on the screen. Again, he's made up of body, soul, and spirit. And David knows that. He knows that he's a three-part being. He knows that there's the physical part of his existence. He knows that he is a man with a soul. An emotional and an intellectual self. And he also knows that he is a man with a spirit. Now ask yourself this question. If I want to have fellowship with God and hear Him speaking, which part of me needs to tune in to God? And if you guessed the spiritual part of me, you guessed correctly. You remember when Jesus was sitting with the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman? He said to her, God is spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. In fact, He's looking for people to connect with Him on that level. To worship Him. But also to commune with Him. Because worship is communion. He's looking for people to commune with Him in spirit and in truth. And that's frankly where most Christians just kind of tilt. And they say, listen with my spirit? I don't do anything with my spirit. I do all kinds of things with my physical body. I do a lot with my intellectual and emotional self. But tuning in to God with my spirit? You're talking gibberish to me, right? When it comes to the spiritual side of who we are, most of us frankly are just lost. We have no idea how to begin to use our spiritual faculties. And yet, the Bible would tell us that they're just as real as this physical part of you. The emotional, intellectual part of you. The spiritual side of you is no less real. Just as dynamic. And here's the other thing. When you came to Christ, it was made alive. When God breathed in you with His Holy Spirit, you were born again. You were born once when you came out of your mother. You needed to be born again. You needed to be regenerated. You needed that spiritual side to be awakened. Made alive. And that happened when you came and bowed your knee at the cross and said, I need You, Jesus, to be my Savior. And I believe what You did for me on that cross was enough to save me from my sins. God placed His Spirit in you and you were made alive. Spiritually made alive. And yet, interestingly enough, even though your spirit is now incredibly alive, we never tune into it. You know why? Because the physical and the emotional are taking up all of our time and all of our bandwidth. And there's nothing we're hearing from the Spirit hardly. I mean, once in a while when you're hearing the teaching of God's Word, once in a while when you're reading through your Bible, it'll kind of click, and you're kind of like, yeah. And it's like, wow, something got through to my spirit. But they seem to be just all too rare. But activating our spiritual faculties or focusing in on our spiritual faculties is only part of the problem. The other part is equally frustrating, and that is, we can't tell the difference between our spirit and our soul. We can't tell the difference. Have you ever heard someone say to you, you know, I pray about stuff, but I'm just never sure if it's the Lord speaking to me or if it's just me talking to myself. I just don't know whether that idea just popped into my head or whether that was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Have you ever heard someone say that? Maybe you've said it yourself. You know what they're basically admitting? You know what you're admitting when you say that? The spirit and the soul are almost indiscernible as far as understanding their difference. And separating what is soul, which means in my brain and in my emotions, from that which comes spiritually from God is incredibly difficult because our feelings and our thoughts so easily take over, you know, while at the time appearing to be like God. In fact, people can come out of a prayer time and say, well, that's it, God told me. And they'll start talking and it was nothing but their soul, right? They had a communication with self and they called it God. That can happen. It happens, frankly, all the time. That's one of the reasons why God has given us His Word because the Word can actually help separate, help you to understand the difference between what is soul and what is spirit. You guys remember how the writer of Hebrews tells us that? Let me put it on the screen for you. Hebrews 4,

See, that's what the Word of God can do to you and I, or for you and I. We might think that we're being led by the Spirit and suddenly we find something in the Word that says, no, that's actually not God that's leading you in that, that's just your soul. And that's soulish energy, that's not spiritual energy or spiritual communication from God. You with me? So, we find it very, very hard to discern our own thoughts and intentions. And the Word helps us to do that, but someone might say, well now wait a minute, what about all those times I need to hear from God when the answer isn't covered in the Scripture? Because there's a lot of specifics that aren't in the Word of God. For example, God's Word tells you what kind of a person to look for if you're wanting to get married, but it doesn't tell you who to marry. You know, the Word of God tells you that they need to be a believer, and if you're a woman, there's things you need to look for in a man, if you're a man, there's qualities you need to look for in a woman, and a lot of those things are kind of dialed into the Scripture and you can read that and you can go, okay, but it's not going to say, this one. You're not going to find that in the Bible. Mary, this one. Right? For that, you need the Holy Spirit living within to guide and direct your heart. Now there's a lot of believers that think that doesn't happen anymore, which is really sad. To think that God now suddenly has a muzzle and can't speak to people. But, you know, because I believe that He does. So, if He does speak, how do I know if it's God speaking, or if it's just me trying to convince myself, because man, she's pretty. Or something like that. Because see, my emotions enter into it. My thoughts enter into the decision-making process, and I can convince myself, oh yeah, God wants me to marry her, I am sure. Right? How am I going to know? Well, this is where we come back to verse 2 of Psalm 131 that's in your Bible on your lap. This is where David says, I have calmed and quieted my soul. You see, and this is very important, you guys, that you hear this. David understood that his own emotional voice was so strong that if he didn't take steps to quiet it, meaning to quiet his soul, there was no way he was going to be able to hear the voice of God. And guys, David was a passionate man. Okay? Very passionate. And he did listen to his emotions and his intellect a few times. Got him into really serious trouble. He committed some major sins by listening to his heart and listening to his mind. And so, David understood, if I don't tune this soul of mine down in volume and quiet it, I'm never going to be able to hear God's voice. Because you see, my voice is just too loud. And it drowns out the voice of God. Unless, I actually take control of my soul, like David did, and then I come before the Lord and I say, Lord, I'm ready to listen, you see, because I've quieted my soul. I've quieted it. And this is the insight that I think we've all but lost in our day and age. Instead of coming to God and saying, I have quieted my soul, what do we say? I have exalted my soul. That's our message. I have exalted my soul. My feelings are the highest form of reality. I have taken my intellect and I have exalted it above Your Word, O God. And now I worship myself. That's where we're at. And we wonder why we're not tuning into God. We're wondering why we haven't heard His voice. Good grief, you can't hear anything over the din of our own sound. The sound of our own voices. The sound of our own desires. And our own understanding. All the while, God says, don't lean upon your own understanding. And we go, but I'm going to anyway. Because that's what I've learned to do. You see, the exaltation of soul has taken such a place of center stage that we have an almost total inability to hear from God. And it's like an unruly child that won't be controlled. And that's the way I want you to think about your soul. It's like an unruly child. Did you notice in that verse that David actually used the picture of a child with a sense of saying, I have calmed and quieted my soul, meaning, I've told it to shush! I'm controlling this unruly child of my soul. You know, how rare it is today to find children who are well-mannered and can sit quietly. I mean, it's practically unheard of. Sadly, in the parenting department, we've pretty much lost control of our children. And like an unruly child, we've given in so much to our feelings and our thoughts that we now find ourselves in the same sort of a situation with regard to our soul. Like our children, our soul has become unmanageable, uncontrollable. And it dominates our lives. Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation with someone when they had a toddler at their feet that was uncontrollable? Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation? You know, just talk to that person? And this kid is just constantly talking, constantly tugging on their sleeve, trying to get their attention, constantly making noise, all the time demanding to be the center of attention. And then you're trying to have this conversation with this other adult, and this child just will not be quiet. They will not let go of your attention. And our souls are just like that. They've become unruly. They've become loud and boisterous. And they're constantly saying, listen to me! Listen to me! You listen to what I'm telling you. You listen to how I'm telling you to feel. You listen to what I am saying about how you think. And you ignore everything else. And as Christians, we're trying to tune in to God, but our soul is behaving so badly, we can't get the thing just to be quiet for a minute. You know, we have to realize at some point that our soul is like a child in the sense that it can be taught to behave. Sue and I were new parents. We struggled, frankly, with controlling our kids, mostly because it didn't dawn on us to do it. Nobody really told us ahead of time anything about that sort of thing, so here we were a few years into parenting, had our first couple of kids, and they were good kids for the most part, but there was one day when our oldest daughter, who's now 33, but she was about three years old then, and our next oldest son was about one years old, one and a half. And we had somebody over to the house, and we were having a conversation, or at least we were trying to, in the living room, and the kids were playing around us. And Sue and I were totally kind of used to the mayhem by this time, you know? And we're trying to have a conversation with this person, and we're talking, and I think we probably barely noticed that the kids were like out of control, especially Aaron. You know, he was just like any other boy. You know, he had a lot of energy and lungs on him that could, you know, rival Tarzan. And finally our guest turned to me at one particular point in the conversation, and he said to me, you need to get a hold of that kid. And that was all he had to say. And I remember kind of being brought up short a little bit by it, because you know, you don't really like people telling you what to do. And my pride kind of got in the way there for a second. But as I got to thinking about what he said, I thought, you know what? He's absolutely right. I need to get a hold of that kid. And that was really the statement, the one statement that kind of prompted Sue and I to start getting serious about parenting. You know, here we've been parents for like three years, and we'd never really worked on that element of control to the children. And they were just kind of going blah, you know, just whacked out crazy whenever they wanted to. And we were just kind of like, kids will be kids, you know. And suddenly it's like, you know what? We do need to get a hold of these kids. So we kind of determined, you know, as parents that we needed to help our kids learn to control themselves, to control their attitudes, to control their emotions, to control their responses, to control when they come and talk to us. We started training them. Like if mom and I are having a conversation with one another or with another adult, you come and wait patiently. You don't come in the room and interrupt. You don't come and grab us on the pants or shirt or whatever and go, mommy, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, right? Like the majority of kids do. And you know, but it dawned on us somewhere along the line, if we didn't ever train these kids, they're gonna do what they wanna do, right? They're gonna do what's most expedient for them. If they can't find their toy or they wanna drink a water, that's the most important thing in the world to them right there at that moment. And so it doesn't matter if we're having a life and death conversation with one another, they want a drink of water. And they're gonna get my attention, you know, at whatever cost. Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad! You know? And pretty soon, I'm gonna go, what? And focus completely on them because they've drawn me away from whatever else was going on. Anybody who has set out to teach their children to behave knows that it doesn't happen overnight. At all. But Sue and I had to come to that place of understanding that by teaching our kids to respect and honor us as their parents, we were actually preparing them to respond to God the same way later on. And we knew we had to start somewhere. And I believe it's the same thing with controlling and training our soul to sit quietly while you are spending time listening to your heavenly Father. It needs to start somewhere and it will not happen overnight. But you need to, and I don't care how old you are, you're not too old to get started doing this. I think it begins by recognizing, first of all, that it's an issue. I hope I've convinced you today that it's an issue. Because if I have, then the first step is already done. But next, we need to confess it to God. And I think we fall so short sometimes by refusing, not refusing, but neglecting to confess areas of our shortfall. We recognize them, but we don't bring it to God and say, you know, Lord, this is me. And we need to do that. Lord, this is me. You know what? I am a man whose soul is just unruly and unmanageable. And when I sit down to talk with you, my mind is wandering. Does that ever happen to you during prayer? You're praying, and all of a sudden, you're thinking about something else. You're thinking, oh man, I've got to get the car in for an oil change. Wow, I bet I'm probably over my oil. Well, I hope I haven't hurt the engine. And at the same time, somebody else in the room is praying up a storm. Man, I'm hungry. Could really use something to eat. Getting thirsty, too, wow. Body made. It makes its demands, right? The mind keeps running. And we give in to it. It's like an unruly child. We confess it to God. We bring it to Him and say, Lord, this is me. This is this unruly, soulish person inside of me that wants and often does just take control. Even when I'm sitting and talking to you. And the next thing we need to do is we need to go to God in prayer and purpose to do what David did, and that is to quiet our soul in His presence. You might say, well, what does that look like? Well, it looks a lot like parenting. For those of you that parented, just think back. If it's been a while, for those of you that are parenting, it really looks just like when you are dealing with your own kids. Do you remember what David said in Psalm 42? Let me put this back up on the screen for you. Remember what he said?

You know, David talked to his soul like he would talk to a child. Why are you so bummed out? Why are you so depressed? Hey, listen, put your hope in God now. See, it's kind of just like, you know, you're not going to get your way. You're saying to your soul. I'm not going to let you have your way. I am going to control you. In other words, stop acting this way. Don't you say that to your kids sometimes? Stop acting that way. That's not appropriate. It's not good, you know? The point of all this is that God wants to speak to His children in a very personal and intimate way. But if you're listening to His voice with your physical ears or you're trying to feel His presence, or you're trying to apprehend His presence with your mind, I have to tell you, you're in for a disappointment. I'm not saying that the only way we can approach God is with our emotions completely under control. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. There are many biblical examples of people coming to God who were in great distress and even in fear. And God wants you to come to Him in all of those places. In fact, Jesus Himself, when He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, was under tremendous emotional duress during that time of prayer. So what am I saying? I'm simply saying that God wants to commune with His people. And He has promised to lead us in the way we're to go. But to be led, we have to hear His instruction. And to hear His instruction, we have to quiet our hearts long enough so we can hear His voice. That's what I'm saying. We have to quiet our hearts long enough so that His voice can be heard. You know, one of my favorite passages in the Bible about being led, and there are wonderful promises in the Scripture, but one of my favorites, is Psalm 32. Let me put it here for you. God's speaking here.

This is a wonderful promise from God's Word. And the instruction and the counsel of the Lord is something that doesn't come easily, if at all, to the person who is tuned in to the voice of their soul. Listen, this promise right here is going to be nothing more than words on a page for those of you who are so tuned in to your souls, like me, that you never get around to hearing His instruction. So how could He lead you? In order to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, you and I have to do as David did and we have to say to our soul, quiet down now. Quiet now. That's what I would say to my kids if they were being too loud in a situation where we needed them to be quiet. I'd say, shh, quiet. Quiet now. You be quiet. Sit still. Right? How many times do you say that to your kids when you're raising them? Sit still. But you learn to say to your soul, sit still. Quiet. Because I'm listening to my Father's voice now. And I want you to sit still and I want you to stop talking right now. It may seem like a strange sort of an idea, but David did it. I have quieted my soul within me like a weaned child with its mother. My soul is quieted. Contented. I've trained it to sit still. Be quiet. Let me end this morning with two very quick passages I want to share. First, from Psalm 46.

We love to quote this. Sometimes I think we think that the idea of be still simply means a cessation of activity. But there are other kinds of stillness. You see, my heart also has to be still to know that He is God. Not just stand still. Be still. And then finally, Isaiah 30, verse 15, the first part,

Wonderful, wonderful statement from God. What is going to generate that trust in my heart? It's learning to get quiet before Him. It's learning to control my soul. Stop it. Sit down. Be quiet. It's time for me now to talk to my Father and I need to talk to Him and I need to hear His voice. And if you keep blabbering in my ear, I'll never hear Him. Because His is a still, small voice that takes my attention and my concentration because it's a spiritual reality. Listen, if you're a born-again Christian today, you have been given spiritual ears. Your spirit has been made alive. You thought that somehow your spirit being made alive, it's like, well, I know it says that in the Bible, but I've never really experienced what it means to have an alive spirit. You know why? Your soul's been just hogging up all the spotlight. And because your soul is the center of attention on any given day, the spirit just kind of fades into the background and you can't hear what's going on. But that spiritual you is just as alive as the physical you right now and the emotional you. And let me tell you something, you calm your soul, you will hear the voice of God. He is there. He is speaking. He is leading. He is guiding. When you quiet your soul, make sure you have a pen and paper handy. Because you're going to want to write things down. Because God is going to lead you in the way you are to go. That is a promise, people. You think God is going to go back on that promise? He cares very much about that promise. And we start thinking maybe He doesn't even deal in that sort of intimate fellowship anymore. Oh, yes, He does. He's just not been listening.