TRANSCRIPT
(NOTE: This transcription has been automatically generated through an AI program. Consequently, this transcript may not match everything you hear in the podcast episode, and it may contain errors such as spelling, grammar, word choice, etc., due to the limitations of current AI technology.)
Hi everyone. So we have reached season two finale episode seven of this season, as you noticed this season was a little bit shorter. The reason for that is is that it allows you to be able to listen at your own convenience and focus in on specific topics that are all interrelated. If you listen to the podcast this season, season two, you’ll see that all these topics are interrelated and they all directly relate to your spiritual life, remembering that your desire should be for God above all things, not for finite things.
Having desires is good. You want to make sure that you meditate on the like your heart frankly, are you a hypocrite? I’m just going to say it bluntly and the truth is we all are in a way. So I think what’s important with all that said, what I wanted to leave you with is a couple meditations from scripture because scripture is the word of God and I think too often we neglect the bible in favor of manuals and commentary and tertiary sources. I won’t even call them secondary in some cases.
I guess what I’m trying to encourage here during the season break, especially with the Christmas season coming up is that you all may be engaged in some lectio divina just read scripture. I think it’s something we all sorely need and surely need to pay attention to. So I wanted to highlight a couple passages for you all for the season two finale that I think kind of summarize season two in a way that it brings it together unifies it. So in First Kings 17, I want to focus on this and the Lord listen to the voice of Elias, you know, we often think God doesn’t listen to us, but he does and I think when we don’t keep that in mind, we miss out on growth in the spiritual life on a fundamental level, but also we miss out on how we should approach our own lives in relation to God.
And what I mean by that is if you think God isn’t listening, you’re not going to talk to him. So again, take it from a personal example, if you have a friend or spouse or whatever and you’re talking to them and their, you know, messing around on their phone or they’re playing the computer or they’re looking at the TV, you’re not going to talk to him that much about personal things, you know, why when they if it ever comes up, you’re going to say you never really listen to me, you’re always looking at the TV, you’re always looking at your phone, you’re always and that’s kind of how we are with God.
If we’re all being completely honest with ourselves, we don’t really believe he listens because we complain, we say, oh well things aren’t going the way I wanted to go. So therefore it’s bad. I mean basically it just ends up being this kind of downward spiral of of despair God doesn’t care, God’s a bad parent, you know God is no good And if you look at season two, that’s really it’s all based on that premise and you know, as you go deeper as you see in season two, as you go deeper through desires and you know, freedom, I mean how important is freedom?
A person in freedom couldn’t believe God doesn’t listen and God can’t stop him, he can’t violate that. And then when you get into the heart you see the hypocrisy is the evils and that we all have right and many people will look in the world and see a lot of evil and they’ll say, oh this that this and that. Well, it’s just like at last episode said, where does it all start? The heart, your heart, my heart and we need to start there because we have the most control over that.
So again, to kind of recap here, if you say God’s not listening, well then you don’t believe he sees you in your heart, you don’t believe he loves you and you look at the world on your terms, I mean that’s really the key, It’s on your terms. So I wanted to start with that the second verse that came to mind is Mark 13:37 where Jesus says basically he says I say this to everybody watch, he had just finished talking about lot of prophecy. It what’s interesting though is the word watch, you know, if you think about it, watching is both an activity of you. Right?
So you have to watch your own heart, Pseudo-Macarius says you have to watch your heart because out of it comes evil, right? And you have to watch your lips cause out of it comes bad words and hurtful things to other people and evil plans and all these other things. But out of it comes good too. Right? So you’re on watch for the bad stuff and you’re letting the good stuff through. And if you’re striving to be a good person, if you’re striving to move forward, you will watch because you’re resisting that, which isn’t good resisting that, which isn’t good.
So in this break, in this coming Christmas season, watch, you know, watch, Watch yourself. Let us know that God’s listening. He listened to Elias, he’ll listen to you and try and grow closer with him. I hope you all enjoyed season two.
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