Today we're going to take on a posture of peace by leaning in and listening for the voice of
our heavenly father. Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale. Posture is a podcast that serves a short audible
fist bump to remind you that God is in everything. Together, we're going to be
emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace. Welcome back to my front porch. I'm still
here, true confessions. I have been spending most of my days lately out here on my front porch just
soaking up the beautiful spring weather that we have been having in Atlanta, Georgia. I know many
of us are staying home right now. Thankfully, we're all doing our part to flatten the curve
on this virus. As I mentioned in my last episode, I have been spending this time deepening my
friendship with God and my hope is that as a posture community, we can all lean in and do
more of that together this week. Like I mentioned in episode 36, I don't believe that there is a
one-size-fits-all model for building a friendship with God because we are all unique individuals.
He made us that way after all, and so I believe that he connects with all of us in very unique
ways. Often for me, it's never through just one way even. Many times, God uses many ways
to reveal more of himself and to deepen our relationship together. All of that to say is
what I'm not going to be doing over the next couple episodes is sharing like a framework or
like a step-by-step formula on like this is how you build a friendship with God, but instead what
I plan on doing is sharing with you some of the fruit from my own friendship with God to hopefully
inspire you in your own walk with him. You know, I have found that God has often used the furnishings
of my own natural mind to speak to me. Like sometimes he'll use my hobbies. For example,
I love to read and so often God will use like the latest novel that I'm reading to share something
with me about himself or to teach me something about the season that I'm currently in. And
another example of this is like I have friends who adore sports, like they're huge sports fanatics,
and it's funny how often God is speaking to them through sports metaphors, through examples of,
you know, sports, sporting events. And you know, while some of that might sound silly to you,
or maybe for some of you it just sounds like straight-up heresy, I want to just remind us
that there is safety in this because everything God speaks to us can be backed by his word,
by the Bible. But I think the beauty of all of that, of how God uses different things to speak
to us is, you know, we have a God who is such a good father that he gets creative with us,
and he enters into our hobbies and our interests to deepen his relationship with us. Now unfortunately
I know that not everyone watching or listening to this had a good human father, and you know what,
that sucks, there is no excuse for that, and I'm really sorry that that was your experience.
I do know that the Lord is able to redeem all of that in your life, and he gives us his own
fatherhood to do that. So if that was the case for you, if you didn't have a good human dad,
I understand that this might be a harder concept to grasp, but the reality is is that good fathers
take time to share in their children's interests. You know, with my own father, some of our deepest
connections happen through our shared interest. You know, we both love baseball, and we both love
history, so whether it was like playing catch in the yard, or talking about some random World War
II facts, this is how my father and I often connected with each other and deepened our
relationship. And so maybe you didn't have a dad that did that for you, but perhaps you've experienced
this yourself with maybe your own kids, or the kids in your life, like your nieces or nephews.
Have you ever found yourself, when you're playing with kids, that you get on their level to connect?
You know, whether it's watching a cartoon they love, or reading their favorite story
50 million times, or you know, playing with their toys together. You know, you care enough about them
to enter into their worlds to deepen your relationship with them, and I believe that
it's the same with God. You know, God shares your interests, because He made you, after all.
He made you to enjoy what you enjoy, and dislike what you dislike. And you know, Psalm 37 4 says,
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Now, I know that for
some people, you know, some theologians believe that means that the Lord plants desires in your
hearts, plants His desires in your hearts. I know that some people believe that that means that,
you know, when you delight yourself in the Lord, He gives you what you are desiring in your heart.
And quite honestly, I don't, I don't, I'm not smart enough to...
know the difference or what this actually means, but I will say this. I think it can
mean both. And here's what I'm so captivated by, whether that means he plants our desires
or he gives us our desires. The creator of the universe is intimately involved with the
desires of your heart. Doesn't that just blow your mind? There is a God in heaven who loves
you so passionately that he is intimately involved with you. And I realize that for
some of us, we have not experienced passionate love enough here on earth through our human
relationships to even know what that's like. But the good news is that God himself is desiring
to make himself known to you today. So much so that he will use anything to speak to us.
Today, let's turn our ear to the Lord's voice and let's expect him to speak to us. Let's look
for him in the details of our day. Now I know a big question, it's a good question, is how do we
know it's him? How do we know if it's God speaking to me? Here's what I do know, because I know what
the Bible, what the word of God says. In other words, this is what God says about himself. In
1 John 4, verse 8, it says, God is love. God has corrected me at times, he has confronted me
at times, he has disciplined me at times, and he has comforted me many times, all from a place
of love. So what he may say today to you, it could be correcting, it may be confronting,
it will most definitely probably be comforting in some way because it will always be loving.
So ask him today to speak to you and then expect to hear. Here's what I know, the more that we do
this, the more that we turn our ear to him, the more we're going to recognize his voice,
the deeper of a relationship we're going to develop with him, and ultimately our trust will
grow. The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3, and in Hebrew it is shalom shalom,
meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus.
Let's declare this together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace. With my whole heart, I trust the
Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember friend, you are a living testimony of
Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of what he did for you.
With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat
on replay.