Episode 1017: A Whisper or a Brick

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1017 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Mark Herschberg: I'm Mark Herschberg. I encourage you to invest in yourself, your organization and others around you to positively impact the world by using your time and your talent to make this world a better place. Having the skills to succeed in your career.

[00:00:22] Your business is key. One way to do this is to listen to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:29] Scott Maderer: Maybe not literal and maybe not in a painful way. Notice no one got hurt in this story. There wasn't any permanent damage. Yes, there was a dent in the car, but quite frankly, a depth in the car and the scale of things, isn't that big of a deal. No one got physically injured. People were able to walk away and live their life.

[00:00:51] But this intervention, this moment, Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. [00:01:00] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:11] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that. Can impact the world.

[00:01:20] and today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about first Kings chapter 19, verses 11 through 13. I share what I call the whisper or the brick story. And I also share how we often ignore that quiet voice and wait for the. First Kings chapter 19 verses 11 through 13 goes like this.

[00:01:46] This begins in the middle of the story of Elijah, the prophet beginning to hear the word of God. And it begins. And he said, go forth and stand upon the [00:02:00] Mount behold, before Jehovah and behold Jehovah passed by and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces, the rocks before Jehovah, but Jehovah was not in the wind.

[00:02:15] And after the wind, an earthquake. But Jehovah was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake, a fire, but Jehovah was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. And it was so when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave.

[00:02:39] And behold there came a voice under him and said, what dowse thou here. Now, this is part of a bigger story where Alijah is struggling with hearing the word of God and hearing what God wants him to do. And most of us, when we begin to hear [00:03:00] a direction for our life he pushes back against it. He says this isn't really what I'm supposed to be doing.

[00:03:07] And he doesn't really jump in with both feet and full enthusiasm. And I think most of us. Feel that feeling because we've been there before ourselves and this passage, this hearing the voice of God and that still soft voice reminds me of a story that you've probably heard before. And I've used it myself in various situations.

[00:03:32] And it's the idea of hearing the whisper or waiting for a brick. So the story goes like this. And you'll probably have heard some version of this. It might be a little different than this particular version, but still let's go with this one. A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast and his brand new Jaguar or Mercedes or some other fancy car, he was watching for [00:04:00] kids starting out from between parked cars.

[00:04:02] And he slowed down because he thought he saw something. But as his car pass, no children appeared instead. A brick came smashing into the side door of the Jaguar. He slammed on the brakes and he turned around quickly and brought the JAG back to the spot where the brick had been thrown from. And he jumped out of the car angry and he grabbed a kid who was standing there and pushed him up against a parked car and shouted.

[00:04:27] What do you think you're doing? Building up ahead of steam. He went on, that's a brand new car and that brick you through is going to cost a lot of money to fix it. Why did you throw that brick please, sir, please. I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. Begin to play the youngster. I threw the brick because car after car has been going by and no one would stop and tears began dripping down the boy's chin.

[00:04:51] As he pointed around the parked car. It's my brothers. He rolled off the curb and he fell out of his wheelchair and I'm too small to pick him up. [00:05:00] He's sitting there hurt, sobbing. The boy asked the executive, could you please help me get him back into the wheelchair, sir, he's hurt. And he's too heavy for me and I need to get him to the door.

[00:05:12] Move beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the now swelling, lump in his throat, and he helped lift the young man back into the wheelchair and wiped off his scrapes and cuts and began to check that he wasn't hurt too bad and that they could make it, that the wheelchair wasn't damaged so they could make it on down the road.

[00:05:31] He got him back up on the sidewalk and going where they needed to go. And the young boy said, thank you. And may God bless you, sir. And then. The man watched as a little boy, pushed his brother on down the road towards their home. It turned out to be a rather long walk back to the Jaguar a kind of slow walk and he never did repair the side door.

[00:05:55] Instead. He kept that dent to remind him not to go through life so fast [00:06:00] that someone has to throw a brick just to get your attention. I think sometimes that's what happens to us with God too. And now don't get me wrong. This is not a perfect analogy. I don't think God throws literal bricks into our life or selects us upside the head though.

[00:06:18] I will say there have been times that I have fought and wrestled. With the still quiet voice in my heart and in my soul. And in my mind, that's telling me I need to do something or I need to not do something that still quiet voice is speaking very clearly and very loudly in a quiet way. And yet I'm fighting against it.

[00:06:42] I'm wrestling with God. And I'm wrestling with my own realization, that the direction that has been put upon my heart, the one that I know I should go in, I'm pushing back against it and saying, surely that's not what you mean. Surely that's [00:07:00] not the direction you want me to go. Surely that's too big of an ask.

[00:07:05] And yet I think sometimes when we do that, The bricks come along, maybe not literal and maybe not in a painful way. Notice no one got hurt in this story. There wasn't any permanent damage. Yes, there was a dent in the car, but quite frankly, a dent in the car in the scale of things, isn't that big of a deal.

[00:07:27] No one got physically injured. People were able to walk away and live their life. But this intervention, this moment, Made the man realized that the way he was living his life focused on the speed and the pleasure and the car and the other things, maybe that wasn't all there was to it. Maybe there was something more.

[00:07:54] And I don't know about you, but as we come into the season right now, when I'm recording this, it's around the Christmas season. [00:08:00] When you'll hear this released it's around the Christmas season and that's this time that we all begin to rush through life. We all begin to just go here and there and it's all about getting everything done.

[00:08:12] And yet it's supposed to be the season when we're waiting and listening for that. Still quiet voice. And sometimes I think we spend so much time yelling at ourselves and at each other that we can't hear it. We drowned it out. And in one way or another, that voice will be heard in your life. When you know that there's a calling on your heart, when you know that there's a direction that you're supposed to be going, and yet you're not going that way.

[00:08:44] It does show up. In your life. It shows up as those bricks, it shows up when you hear it from other people, it shows up when things happen in a way that wasn't ideal. It shows up when even [00:09:00] sometimes when you have great success, it shows up in that success because you're still have a hole in your heart that isn't filled.

[00:09:10] The thing that you thought you wanted, the ladder that you thought was the ladder that you were supposed to climb, turns out to have gotten you to the place that you didn't want to go in the first place, but you discover it at the top of the ladder instead of before you began to climb it. This is what I mean, when I say.

[00:09:32] That, what I focus on is helping people master their time, their talent and their treasures so that they can live out their calling. This is the live out the calling part. So in your life, are you hearing a whisper? Are you waiting for that brick? And if you are hearing that whisper, what direction is it calling for you to go?

[00:09:55] Thanks for calling.

[00:09:56] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship [00:10:00] podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired.

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