How to Create Intimacy with God

If you have never wrestled with God, if you have never had God give you instruction and your response to God was like, are you serious? You want me to do that? Don't you know how hard that's going to be? Don't you know I've tried that already? Don't you know I really want to do it? Did you know that you get to wrestle? Do you know that you get to say how you feel about it? Do you know that God cares about your response? Hearing invites the opportunity for conversation. Hey y'all, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and if you're new here, welcome. I'm glad you're here. You are about to watch the recording that I shared live with my inner circle because they are always here for all the bloopers, all the intricate details, all the originality of the morning recordings that get repurposed here and shared with you. Very grateful for them because it is because of them I'm able to do all the things that I do, including presenting this video with you today. I pray that you get goodness out of this one because I believe this is goodness in progress that I'm about to share. At the time of this recording also, my oldest daughter is pregnant with number 5. She's due any day. I'm really excited for her. I'm excited for us because new babies are fun. But really, it is the newborn stage that goes the quickest. The new baby smells, the new baby's skin, and then before you know it, Me too. And they're running around causing all the fun and all the mess and all of the distraction. But here's the thing that is the most amazing part to me of having a newborn that turns into a toddler that turns into a 5-year-old. During those first few weeks, the first few months, the first couple of years, particularly for me as a nursing mom, I enjoyed the gazing. The gazing where while they're busy eating, holding my finger with their tight fist, looking into my eyes. They learn my face. They learn my face. They smile. They begin to recognize my look, what my looks mean. I begin to recognize their face. By the time they're a year, before I even have to say anything, they can look at my face and they know if they're doing something they shouldn't be doing or not. They learn my gaze. Intimacy is developed with a newborn child on into the twos and on into the fives and on into the teenage years because of a lifetime. Of connectedness. It is amazing to know beyond the noise of everyone else in the room when your child cries. Not only do you know if it's your child, but you know what the cry means because you've spent time with them. They know what your looks mean because they have spent time with you. Infants know the voice of their mother before they're even born, studies tell us, because they have abided in the mother. They can easily recognize her voice. Proximity breeds intimacy. And there are levels of intimacy as the child continues to grow throughout life, but proximity breeds intimacy. So much of our ability to hear and discern God's voice is based on intimacy and proximity, learning to differentiate his voice above and beyond other voices. And so much of our difficulty in discerning the voice of God is tied to the fact that we're not dwelling in proximity and intimacy and spending time simply gazing. There is a Yale study that says at birth, children are starting to recognize your voices, faces, and smells to figure out who is taking care of them. And since the maternal voice is audible in utero, an infant starts to recognize their mother's voice from the third trimester. The voice that they hear is muffled and low, and they can also hear their mother's heartbeat. Soon after birth, studies have shown that a baby will recognize their mother's voice and will expend great efforts to hear her voice better over unfamiliar female voices. This suggests that prenatal experiences influence a baby's ability to recognize their mother's voice. With continued exposure, your infant will become familiar to the sound of other voices. They will start to recognize and form a preference to their father's voice. As well as other family and friends. But it starts with the mother, the one they heard first. My grandmother used to say— my great-grandmother, actually— "The one me eyes first see." So here are 3 things that I want to tell you to do to increase the ability that you have to recognize the voice of God in your life, to discern the voice of God, to recognize his voice above all others. So many times right now, because I have teenagers and young adults, I am telling them, "Stop talking. You're not listening. I said this already. If you would stop concerning yourself so much with what you're trying to say, then you would be able to hear me better." Hearing requires you to stop talking. It doesn't mean that you can't pray. It doesn't mean that you can't talk to God. It doesn't mean that you have nothing to say. It doesn't mean that you quit telling him your prayer requests, your complaints. It doesn't mean you don't ask questions. It doesn't mean you don't express your desires. It simply means that once you've done all that, you've got to make some time to be still and know Psalm 46:10, that God is, and that you have something to learn by pausing to listen. Hearing requires you to stop talking. Have you ever given God the opportunity to respond? Have you ever sat in his presence, quiet, listening, with a pen in hand to write down what the Holy Spirit delivers to your mind or to your heart? Have you ever been still enough to pay attention enough to what he is whispering? And here's the thing, you do have to pay attention. That's point number 2. Hearing requires you to stop talking, but hearing requires you to pay attention. Because so often God is speaking to us and we're not— not only listening, we're not paying attention. God speaks through his word. He uses scripture. He repeats himself often. He uses his people, wise counsel, the sermon that you heard on Sunday, the podcast that you're listening to, prayer. Sometimes our circumstances talk to us. Sometimes he will use dreams. Sometimes he will give us a picture or a metaphor. He speaks to us in so many ways. But let me tell you what God does not do. He does not yell. He whispers. 1 Kings 19:11-12, the Lord said, go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore through the mountains apart, and it tore the mountains apart. It shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. Often we think that God's going to speak to us in loud and obvious forceful ways— the thunder, the wind, the fire— but the reality is God most often speaks through a gentle whisper. But in order to listen and hear the whisper, you first have to stop talking, and then you have to quiet the noise around you so that you can hear. Sense, palpate what God is saying. Hearing requires you to pay attention. It requires you to notice. It requires you to take note. It requires you to have enough margin in your life where things stop moving enough for you to know what he's saying. One of the members of our Inner Circle stated this morning in the fun and foolery portion of our recording— because there's always a little fun foolery— that one of her top 3 for the month of March was getting settled into a morning and an evening routine. There is value before you start the rush of the day and before you end the rush of the day and get in the bed to go to sleep, that you just have breathing room, that you arrive early to the places that you're going. So you're not rushing to jump out of the car and get into the place that you're trying to get to, that you're not always moving fast. And this is a lesson that I've learned and I have to remind myself. To walk in that knowledge over and over again, cuz I have the tendency towards moving fast. It's a part of my wiring, so I have to work to slow down. It's in the seasons where you're moving slower and you just have the freedom, the privilege of not rushing from one thing to the other. It's in those moments often when his presence falls heavy and you have the bandwidth to feel it, to notice it, to hear it. So you've got to stop talking and you've got to create space to pay attention. The third thing that I want to tell you is that you have to respond. I mean, what kind of conversation would it be between you and your husband, you and your boyfriend, you and your friend, you and your mom, you and your sister? Because we all have a friend like this who does all the talking and they don't leave room for us to get a word in edgewise. Or maybe you're that friend where you do all the talking and you're constantly thinking of what you want to say, and there's never any room for the person that you're talking to to have something to say also. In order to have a vibrant, intimate connection with God, in order for you to understand not only what he's saying, but also to know what the end result is and how you get there, to know what the next step is, to see how he lights your path, in order for him to walk in a way where when he communicates with you, he is affirming you or maybe convicting you, you gotta be still, you gotta be quiet, you gotta listen, you gotta pay attention. But you also need to practice responding. When someone talks to us, it's usually an invitation for a response. If a friend, spouse, or child speaks to us and we just sit there and don't say anything— I mean, how many conversations have you been in with someone where they talk or you talk and then they just look at you and you're like, so do you have a thought? Do you have any feedback? Do you agree? I mean, like, hello, was I talking? Is this the— is this thing on? Am I talking to myself? Like, have you ever talked to someone and they just sat there and you wanted their response and they were like, oh, I thought you wanted me to just listen? No, I did, but I want to know what you think. I want to know. I want to know what you think. If you have never wrestled with God, if you have never had God give you instruction and your response to God was like, are you serious? You want me to do that? Don't you know how hard that's gonna be? Don't you know I've tried that already? Don't you know I really want to do it? I mean, think about Jesus, right, in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knows he's supposed to— God has already spoken, go and die a painful death. And he goes to the garden and he's sweating blood. Are you serious? Is this the only way? Is there another way? He's talking back to the Father. Did you know that you get to talk back? Did you know that you get to wrestle? Do you know that you get to say how you feel about it? Do you know that God cares about your response? Hearing invites the opportunity for conversation. Adam and Eve, the greatest gift that God ever gave them was choice. He gave them rules, he gave them boundaries, and he said, now choose. I'm gonna say what I gotta say, and now you gotta respond. God is interested in your response. You can affirm what you heard. You can give him gratitude that you heard. You can ask questions about what you heard. You can wrestle with him about what you heard. You can say, listen, can I have more details about what he told you? But acknowledging that you're listening. Sometimes what I say in my response to the Lord, if he gives me something that I wanted, like if he gives me a moment, a Holy Spirit moment, if I get a tingle down my back and the Lord drops something into my brain, my response mid-talk, mid-recording a video, mid-on a stage while I'm delivering a word, my response is, oh, thank you, Lord, because you just gave me a gift. And I stopped mid-communication with other people to acknowledge that the Lord just gave me a gift. When I'm praying and the Lord convicts me about something that I need to do in my marriage, do with my husband, do with my children and I don't want to, my response might be, ooh, why you tripping, Jesus? Because you know good and well I don't have the energy for that. And then he says, and lo, I am with you always, even into the end of the age. Oh Jesus, I don't want that scripture right now. The conversation that you have with God, because Just in case you didn't know, prayer is only conversation with God. That's all it is. It usually involves us wanting the magic download. I want to discern your purpose for me. I want to discern the answer to this prayer request. I want to know if I'm supposed to go on this job, if I'm supposed to marry this person, if I'm supposed to move to this location. I need you to give me the magic pill, the magic answer. I need you to make it clear. And he's like, yeah, but I just want you to come away with me. Remember that? Norah Jones. Come away with me. Just be with me and practice listening. Don't just come to me when you need an answer, when you need a response, when you need me to drop down from the heavens and zap your spine. I want you to just regularly, consistently show up to have a conversation because way before things are going to be born in your life, you need to have an in utero conversation. You need to know my voice when there's actually nothing for you to do with it. You need to know my voice when there are other voices. And I need you to come away with me in the quiet spaces where it might sound like a murmur or just a low tone, but I need you to be so familiar with me when there's nothing happening that when there are tons of things happening, when there are challenges, when there are difficulties, when you have relational challenges in your marriage or at work or with your kids, or at your church or with your sister. I need you to have had so much practice with me in utero without noise that when there is noise, you already know how to zone into my voice. If you're having a hard time discerning God's voice, the question I have for you is, are you doing what it really takes to hear him? It doesn't have to be an hour, it could be 5 minutes. Just spend 5 minutes, start with 5 minutes sitting with him, giving him space. My husband and I have had seasons where we're passing each other through the night. You know, every marriage I think goes through a season where you have to kind of jerk back on the roommate situation, where you're like, okay, hey, more than roommates, more than passing each other in the night, like, we need to have a conversation just because. Without an agenda, without a meeting, without having finances on the table, just because. Just sit. Morning coffee, morning tea, just how you doing? What's going on? Without a purpose, without an agenda, just because. Do you know that God is the same? And he may have things he wants to speak to you, but he has no room to do them if you don't come away with me. So this is me telling you to invite space. 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 50 minutes, but create it. And just sit. Speak, Lord, Samuel said. 1 Samuel. Your servant hears. That's what you're saying. Hey, what's going on? What are you seeing with my life? What are— what do you need me to know? What do you need me to look out for? Here's what's concerning me. Here's what's on my mind. Here's what I want to download to you. How can I support in what you vision for my life and the life of my family? What are you doing in my local church? What is happening? With your vision, because we've been passing each other like ships in the night, and I know that that's not how you want to live. I know that you want me to come away with you so that I am clear on what it is that's happening in your economy. It's so sweet to make space to talk to the Lord and to hear from him too. So here's what I want to know: what do you need to do in order to hear from God? What is getting in the way of you hearing from God? What is the current volume of your life? Outside voices, the noise of business— busyness and distraction. Do you create space where you can actually hear God clearly? And if not, what are you going to do? What is your takeaway? Are you hearing? Is it too noisy? What's the noise? Are you creating space? What are you going to do to create the space? When is your time going to be? Is it in your morning routine? Is it in your evening routine? You gotta have margin and you gotta turn down the noise. And here's why this is so important, because if the God of the universe is saying, hey, I know what's happening in spiritual places and I actually want to download a thing or two to you, but you're not making the space for the ruler of the universe now to give you pieces of information that you need and don't have without him. Don't you think that creating the space is worth it? Don't you think a God idea is better than a good idea? I do. We spend so much time and effort, y'all, trying to think about our lives and trying to make the right decisions and trying to move throughout our lives not making a mistake, not wasting time, not making money. And the thing is, is we have access to the King of the Universe who knows the end from the beginning, who sits high and looks low and sees us running around like ants on the ground. And he's like, listen, like, you're trying to figure out a path, and I know the path. Be so much easier if you just check in with me so that I could give you direction. I would love to give you direction, but I'm not going to force myself on you, so I'll just wait until you make space to hear me. If you needed a reminder to know how to discern and hear the voice of God This is me telling you, come away with him. Turn down the noise. Listen, stop talking. Be sure that you are paying attention because he's not going to yell. And then he talks to you, respond. If this has been helpful to you, watch it again. Be sure and like it, comment below. I'd love to know what your feedback is. I actually do come back and read a lot of these comments. And if you think it'll help someone else you know, be sure and share it, because we all need to know how to listen to each other better. But we need to start with how to listen to God. And this is me reminding you to come away with him, because the God of the universe is always interested in coming away to be with you. Hope this was helpful. And I will see you next week.