Pope-style advice: the crappy Volvo vs. the bus
Introduced in the show open as Mike's Pope-style advice, a host delivers the extended metaphor: people treat their walk with Christ like mass transit versus driving their own crappy Volvo behind the bus. Riders surrender control over route, company, and schedule; Volvo drivers want Jesus to announce the destination so they can follow at a comfortable distance and detour around dodgy parts of town. The real barrier, he concludes, is not fear of people or places but unwillingness to let someone else drive — and he admits he told his wife three days instead of the suggested full week of letting her make his decisions. The punchline: get out of the Volvo, get on the bus; 'the holy spirit bus' beats the 'manageable sin bus.' Dan jokes that hearing 'Jesus Take the Wheel' convinced him to stay in the car.
More on Holy Spirit
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'When God is silent': what counts as hearing from the Lord?
- What does it mean to 'hear from the Lord,' and how often should we expect it?
Mike brings a question from his Bible study, whose paragraph heading was 'when God is silent': the author wrote that he experienced God's silence for a couple of weeks and freaked out, and Ben expected a relatable years-long drought story — 'Oh, two weeks.
From No. 603 · Found Out
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Should following Jesus feel more comfortable as time goes on?
- Should following Jesus feel more comfortable as time goes on?
A host asks whether following Jesus should feel more comfortable as time goes on — noting the low-level tension many feel around am-I-doing-enough and the stigma that contentment equals laziness.
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Do accountability partners actually work?
- Do accountability partners actually do anything?
Mike raises his accountability-partners question: the standard dude-circle advice to get a buddy to hold you accountable for Bible reading, porn, church attendance, and drinking.
From No. 598 · Emphasis | Accountability, Worship and Praying with Strangers
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Mike frames the question: are more people hearing from God?
- Does it seem like more and more people are hearing from God — and is that real or a lie and a huge distraction?
Ben asks Mike for a two-sentence framing; Mike says listening to the book of Job while mowing made him furious when Bildad 'received a word from the Lord,' turning a bad human argument into an unarguable divine claim.
From No. 597 · Maybe A Word From God