Digging into the 21 tips: praise, awe, and the prayer cube
- Does God give you enough fresh evidence every day to be in awe of who you are speaking with?
The hosts play family-feud guesses for what is on the list (seclusion; a consistent time; praying the Scripture). On tip #1 ('praise God for who he is'), a host admits he runs out of words beyond 'God, you're really neat,' and they discuss whether the relationship with God should feel like any long friendship where obvious things stop being said. A host asks whether God gives fresh evidence every day to be in awe of. A camera-angle joke has a host looking like a centaur. A Joel Osteen prayer cube tangent (seen at Amazon) becomes a bit about a 'Live from the Path prayer cube.' On repetition in prayer, they note Revelation's elders saying 'holy, holy, holy' day and night and reframe the longing as being 'rewowed' by God's presence. A host describes praying in the shower and the danger of following a pattern without being in it; patterns and liturgy are fine if engaged, 'let's not read Psalm 23, let's pray Psalm 23.'
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