ISI Brotherhood Podcast

137. How to Hear the Voice of God with Pastor Robby Gallaty.

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 22

Share episode

What if the loudest obstacles to hearing God are inside your own head? We sit down with Robby Gallaty—pastor, author, and former addict—who shares a raw story of burnout, confession, and revival that began not with a plan, but on a porch.

Robby is the pastor of Long Hollow Church in Hendersonville, TN, where a simple act of obedience sparked a powerful movement of spontaneous baptisms. He recently joined our monthly ISI Roundtable as the guest speaker, and we’re deeply grateful for the time, teaching, and wisdom he shared with our brotherhood.

Robby unpacks emunah—the Hebrew idea of faith as steadiness and allegiance—and shows how silence, Scripture, and obedience can turn down the noise and turn up discernment. You’ll hear practical ways to recognize God’s voice, clear the clutter of pride and jealousy, and act courageously when He speaks.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us one step you’ll take this week.

SPEAKER_01:

Discover the brotherhood that sharpens you the ISI community is free for 30 days. Join now at isibrotherhood.com forward slash community. Hey guys, good to see everybody. Pretty amped up today. Got uh my good friend Robbie Gallaty. You know, it's funny, we were laughing before we let you guys in. Uh, and I'm used to this, y'all are not used to it. We had this as walking by faith, trusting God in uncertain times. But when Robbie spends time on the porch praying, the Lord gives him a different direction oftentimes, and he did today. This is not, I told him this wasn't a surprise to us at all, but I'm excited about this today. But I want to introduce Robbie. Robbie honestly is a very, very good friend of mine, but he's the uh Long Hollow church pastor, the senior pastor, and has been 10 years. We just celebrated his 10-year anniversary. But honestly, he wasn't always a pastor. Uh Robbie's walked a really difficult battle over the years. And for three consecutive years, he battled a drug addiction that really ravaged his life in so many ways. And I wish we had time. It's multiple hours of stories that he could tell as it relates to that. But Robbie was on$180 a day heroin and cocaine addiction. And it forced him to steal$15,000 from his mom and dad. His dad owned a body dealership, uh, repaired cars, and Robbie went and memorized the credit card number and stole$15,000 from his dad. But then Robbie lived in a house. He didn't have any gas, he didn't have any electricity, he didn't have any water for months and months and months. During the course of that, he lost eight of his friends to drug-related deaths during this time. And then he watched six of his friends get arrested uh for dealing in drugs. Robbie himself went to a couple of rehab treatments, uh, but Robbie remembered the gospel that was shared with him by a friend in college, and Robbie was radically saved in 2002, almost 25 years ago. Well, eight months later, after Robbie went through this, his friend David Platt, many of y'all know who David is. David was a seminary student at the time, and he was a church member, and he asked Robbie for a weekly accountability meeting. He wanted to meet with him and pray. He wanted to have a Bible study. And for the next two years, I think this is pretty cool that a guy would devote this much time, but for the next two years, David really instilled a passion for missions, expository preaching, and discipleship making in Robbie's life. He encouraged Robbie then to go back to school to pursue his theological education, which he did. He completed a master's in divinity in 2007. Then he went on to get his PhD. And I I refuse to call him doctor, but I probably should. But he did get his PhD in preaching in 2011 at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And today Robbie's got a gospel conviction. He wants to evangelize others to make disciples who then go and make disciples. Robbie's got a beautiful wife. And he also owns Replicate Ministries, at which we at ISI work with Robbie in that venture. And Robbie's got a bunch of books. One's called Growing Up, one's called Firmly Planted, Rediscovering Discipleship. I could probably go on and on with all the other books that he's written, but I wanted to take a minute and tell you who Robbie was and a little bit about his background. So, Robbie, I want to ask you one important question. Who won the arm wrestling match on this picture behind us? And y'all look at these guns now, and you tell me who you think would have won. We were in Israel several years ago together, and that's my favorite picture of Robbie. Look at those arms. They're bigger than my legs. And so, but anyway, hey, I'm not going to keep that up. I'm going to take it down, put up something that's more becoming. So uh, Robbie, welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron Round Table today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thank you, Big A. Well, thank you for the kind words. I uh I think you won that because you had me lower. You got me leverage. You had the leverage on me that's a bucket crap.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I didn't win. Look at the marms, look like something on.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, thanks for having me, man. Good to see you and Derek and others. Obviously, uh, I've seen Michael and Josiah. It's good to see you guys. Um uh you guys know this, but Aaron's always been not only a mentor and encouragement to you guys, he's always been a friend and confidant and uh encouragement to me. And uh it's an honor to be able to be here. We actually took this model and brought it into replicate, and God's using that to disciple pastors and keep them accountable and press them on to uh to do greater things for the Lord. So uh I I like he said, I had another talk, which I thought would be uh helpful and uh uh good, I think, for the season, but just with everything going on in the world, I just think uh the Lord redirected me. And I I want to do this. This would be obviously theological, but I think it'll be helpful for you guys as well, because I think what we need to figure out now is is how to hear the voice of God, because that's what it really is, right? For faith. Uh people think faith is just intellectual ascent into an idea, and you you just gotta have faith, and you just need more faith, and you have faith and faith. But what I want to do is by the time we're finish, I want to show you how to have faith. And I really want to teach you how to bend your ear to hear the voice of God. And I think that's it. You can hear me all day long in big A. And but man, when you get a clear word from the Lord, it changes everything. So if you have a Bible, you can follow with me. If not, I'll read it for you. But uh the the definition of faith in the Bible is found in Hebrews 11. And uh it's a clear definition, Hebrews 11, 1 and 2, and I'll just read it to you. And here's what the Bible says now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof or the evidence of what is not seen. And it goes on to say, by this, by faith, our ancestors were approved. By faith, we understand that the things of the universe were created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not seen or not visible. I want to give you three ideas about faith, and uh it's gonna be a little different than what you're used to, but but if you're taking notes, you can write this down. If you're not taking notes, act like it, it would make you look holy on the on the call, but obviously, but seriously, right? Uh the first one is this uh faith, true faith, clears out our ears to hear the voice of God. Now, in order to understand faith, I'm gonna teach you a principle that the Jewish rabbis utilized back in the day. We call it today in modern biblical exposition or exegesis, we call it the rule of first use. It's a great principle you can apply all through your scripture reading. But basically the idea was this the the rabbis believe that when God introduced a word in the Torah, which was Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, when God introduces a word to the world, because you got to remember this is the word of God to the world, when God gives the first introduction of the word, it sh it shapes the meaning of the word from then on. So the first use is the important use. So I'll give you a pop quiz just for context. Does anyone know where God introduces the word love for the first time? Anyone have an idea? Love. It's actually, you can go to it, Genesis chapter 22, and you can look this up later. But in context, this is the this is the passage where God tells Abraham that I want you to sacrifice your son whom you love. So you see this wonderful picture of Abraham and Isaac, which is a picture of God and his son, Jesus in the New Testament. Here's another question. Where do we first find the word worship in the Bible? Now you would think Genesis, right? God wants us to work. But again, it's not found until it's not found until Genesis 22, way into the to the Torah. And it's the the context when Abraham tells the group he's with, the guys they ride up to the edge of the mountain, Mount Moriah, and he says, Hey, the boy and I are gonna go up on the hill, watch this, and worship God, and then we'll be back. And so you see, worship is more than just raising hands, it's trust, it's obedience. But here's the key where do we first find the word faith? Now, this bothers people because I I've shared this to pastors, and a lot of pastors, the first time they hear this, the first time you find the word is not even in the book of Genesis. You would think, but it's not. It's all the way in the book of Exodus. So Exodus chapter 17. I'm gonna read the context here, and I want you to listen. Now it's not gonna be pronounced or explicitly said or translated faith. It's gonna be another word, but see if you can find it. This is the account where Moses, Aaron, Ur, the Israelites, just leave Egypt. They're going to the promised land. Before they get into the desert, they encounter the Amalekites and they're gonna attack them. Here's the context. Verse 10 Joshua did as Moses had told him and fought against Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Ur went up to the top of the hill. While Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. That's the idea. We know that. But whenever his hands went down, they they they failed, or Amalek prevailed. When Moses' hands grew weary, they put a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it. Then Aaron and Ur supported his hands, one on one side, one on the other. Here it is, so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down. So Joshua defeated Amalek. Here's the question: Where is the word faith in that context? Now it's hard to figure out, but I'll just cut to the chase. It's actually the word steady. That's how we translate it in English. Now, it's a little confusing because we think steady. What does steady have to do with faith? Because I thought faith was believing in facts. Well, it's more than that. For the Jewish mind, for the Hebrew culture, the word there is amuna, for those who are interested in the Hebrew, E-M-U-N-A-H, Amuna, which is the word translated faith, but it's actually the word that means perseverance or steadiness. The better translation for us, how do we have faith in uncertain changing times? We have to be steady or persevere. A better word for faith is faithfulness. By the way, you know there's a big debate in the church world. Is it uh is James right or is Paul right? You if you've been around church. Paul says it's by grace through faith. James says, show me your works and I'll believe it. And the answer is to the Jewish ear, it's both. Because you don't work to earn your salvation, it's by faith. But the moment you have faith in God, you're gonna work from your salvation. Good works will prove the faith you have. A good word that I found from a scholar, I don't believe in everything this guy has written, but I think he's a scholar on ancient languages, epistemology. Here's what he says the word faith, you're gonna love this, could actually be translated as allegiance. I like that. Because when you have allegiance to someone, the the United States Army, the British military, whatever, whatever, the IDF in Israel, you have to, it's a daily re-upping of one's commitment to God. It's a daily response to life, a wholehearted declaration to say, Jesus is king and I live to him with my faith or loyalty. Write this down. Allegiance is, this is an interesting line to think about, allegiance is a past tense commitment with a present tense obedience. Okay, that's what it means. Past tense commitment. So you put faith in Christ as a moment of salvation, but it's a lifelong journey. So the first thing we see is that faith clears out our ears to hear. Why? Because we are trusting the Lord, we are pursuing the Lord, we're persevering to hear the voice of God. Number two is faith also opens our eyes to see. Faith opens our eyes to look at things, as the Hebrew said, that are seen invisibly in a visible world. So we're able, and you know this is leaders. The mark of a leader is you're able to see it before everyone else sees it. Now you gotta, if you're like me, you have to temper back because you have to wait for people to follow because you'll just cast a vision. You're the only one who sees it. But our faith, don't miss this, does not rest on our willpower or our resolve. Some people say, man, you gotta have faith in faith. Here's what faith is built on. Faith in this world is built, don't miss this, on your understanding and knowledge of the word of God. Think of the disciples. When they first met Jesus, they didn't know much about him or had a lot of faith. Why? Because their knowledge of Christ was minimal. But then fast forward to the book of Acts. You see these same guys who are lambs in the gospels, lions on mission for God. What happened? They knew more about Jesus. The more you know about Jesus, your faith increases. Here's the here's the direct proportion. When you know the Bible, you'll know Jesus. If you don't know the Bible, you don't what? You won't know Jesus much. And so faith is connected to knowledge. I'll say it another way. You can't trust in a God you don't know. Now, for some people, and I don't know all of your background and how you're raised, for some people, your knowledge of Jesus, your knowledge of this book right here is minimal, surface level at best. I mean, think about it. Some of you haven't grown, with all due respect, from the time you walk the aisle at VBS, or the time you raised a hand at summer camp or at a youth service 20, 30 years ago. And so your faith is minimal. So I tell people, think of it this way, to increase your faith. Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is actually a leap in the light. It's a leap of belief or response to a clear word from God. Now, let me just pull over for a moment because a lot of people would say, okay, wait a minute. Are you saying that I can have faith in God to hear the voice of God? Because if you read Hebrews 11, and I encourage you to do that, if you go through Hebrews 11, it's actually called the hall of faith. It's a list of men and women who are known for their faith, okay? But if you notice it, it's not based on faith of belief, meaning the men and women, by faith, Abel, by faith Noah, by faith Moses, by faith Abraham. What's recorded in Hebrews 11, you guys are gonna love this, is not that these men passed the theological final exam. It's not that they could parse the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism, or the difference between soteriology or eschatology or primal, whatever the big word, yeah, omnipotent. It was it wasn't that. They are remembered, I want you to get this, not for what they thought, but for what they did. See, true faith always leads to action. Now, I I was speaking one time at a conference about this season I had on the porch, and and Big A was a part of that. Guys at Long Hollow know this. And I'll just tell you a little bit about this. But I was using words like this as I was speaking. And by the way, when I speak to Baptist pastors, which I'm a part of, they get a little nervous when I say God spoke to me, or I heard the Lord say to me. Now, I'm not hearing audibly, but I'm hearing, and I'll tell you. So they kind of got ruffled, and I had one guy come up to me after and say, I don't think God speaks to people that way. So let me back up. I went into COVID in 2020, like a lot of you guys did, totally unprepared for what was coming. Can I get an amen? I mean, I was totally, and if you had a platform, and if you have a Twitter account or an Instagram or a business, you have a platform. We all have a platform. If you had any platform, we got hammered for every decision we made by one group, and sometimes both groups, right? Vaccine, no vaccine, you made half the people mad. Mask or no mask, you made half the people mad. Uh in person or online, you made people mad. If you mentioned George Floyd or didn't, you made people mad. If you said police brief, I mean, you couldn't win, right? In addition to that, I was burning out and I didn't know it. At this time, Big A was on the the elder, one of our elders at Long Hollow, the Mac team, and he was a part of this when this was taking place real time. And I had a friend in the church come to me and say, Man, you are burning out. You can't sustain this frenetic pace. You have to slow down. That was foreign to me. I'm ADHD, type A, high D driven. And uh, you know, I look at people that sat and and and thought as weak or lazy. What are you talking about? You go grind, bro. We need to grind, we need to make it. So I looked at this as like, who does this? But I was desperate. When you're desperate, you'll try anything. And so I started to study about silence and solitude. Now, for some of you, you're like, silence and solitude? What is that? And that's how I felt. And so I went into the Dark Ages, uh, which is that period of time where there's not a lot of theological literature being written. Uh, a lot of Catholic theologians, uh, I tell people, I learned the art of doing this because I'm from New Orleans. I learned how to eat fish. You not eat fish, you eat the meat and you spin out the bones. That's what I did. I spit out a lot of bones, but I developed the practice, and I'm gonna encourage you guys to do this when we finish, but I developed the practice of sitting with the Lord for extended periods of time in silence and solitude. And uh I didn't know much about it. So I started with five minutes, then I started with 10, and then I went to 20, and then it became an hour and a half, two hours a night. It became this insatiable desire to sit in the presence of God and bend my ear to the accent of the Holy Spirit. How many people in here believe this? The Lord not only spoke in this book, but he still speaks today. Do you believe that? Because if you don't believe that, we you won't agree with anything I say. I believe that. Nowhere in this book does God say, I quit speaking. And people who say that, put God in the box. God can do what he wants. But so I started to sit with the Lord, and I have to tell you, I had to relearn this discipline. Here's why. Most spiritual disciplines have this law built in called the law of reciprocity, meaning when you read the Bible, you go into it wanting to hear a word from God. You put the time in, you hear a word, right? Prayer, you pray because you want an answer. That's how it works. You give, you give. Uh, even giving, I mean, we don't do it for that, but the the secret of the Christian life is when you give financially, God takes care of you. You never have a need. Silence and solitude, let me just preface this, is unlike any spiritual discipline in the Christian life. Why? Because most of the time you have no tangible response. In fact, big ace heard this, but I sat with the Lord. I was there for about two, three months at this time, spent an hour and a half on the porch. I would sit on the porch in the darkness, quiet, me and God. And uh I had an hour and a half of nothing. I mean, no like constellation of stars in the sky in the form of a Hebrew word. Nothing. I look for it. Uh, no global megaphone, Robbie, do got that one. Nothing. And I was walking in my my front door and I looked up to heaven. I'm like, really? What was that? God, I got nothing. And the Holy Spirit, as he always does, just lovingly tapped me on the shoulder and said, No, you didn't get nothing. You got everything. Because you got me and I got you. Here's what I learned. Don't miss this. I learned that most of my Christian life was about me trying to get something from God. And what God wants from you, look at me. God wants you. I would say this: God misses your company. When was the last time you sat with the Lord? No agenda. Because I was really good at telling God how to rubber stamp my plans. God, if you bless these prayer requests, man, things will be good. You know, if you do what I say. But I realized if I wanted to keep getting my agenda into heaven, I needed to keep talking. But if I wanted to get God's agenda from heaven through me on earth, I needed to do a whole lot more listening. And so the story is I sat with the Lord for 10 months. I began to lament to God about six months in. The country was uh had this unrest, political landscape, racial tension. We had all this stuff going on. And I really just lamented to the Lord, God, you got to fix the problems in my church. My church is, you know, I can't please everybody. And then I got a staff that's bifurcated in silent. What are you gonna do with that? And and by the way, fix the country where you're at, you know, because country's a mess. And uh after I was done, the Lord said, uh, are you finished, big boy? Yeah, you've been there. Oh, okay, I'm done, you know. And the Lord said, Robbie, and this is the moment that changed my life. The Lord said, Robbie, the problem is not your staff, it's not your church, it's not the deacon body, it's not even the country. The problem to revival coming to Long Hollow and your family is you. You're the problem. Now, if you've ever been that gut level honest with the Lord, that's pretty painful. And and I push back right away. I'm like, what do you mean? I don't, I'm not a drug addict anymore, I don't drink anymore. I don't have I don't have overt sin in my life. But the Lord is amazing. The Holy Spirit has this ability to put his finger on the pulse of the problem every time. And so he began to pull back layers and he showed me, man, how many times have you taken credit for something only I did? How many times do you make it about you? You are so arrogant at times. You you want to make it always about you. Uh, you know how to fish in the pond of approval of other people. You're a master putting the right lure on, hey Bobby, what did you like about my sermon? You know, I mean, that kind of thing. How did you like this new article? You know, those kind of leading questions. The one that got me was this one, and this will resonate with this group. How jealous I was. Now, you would think, you're pastoring a great church, you have a great family, you have a great ministry. Why are you jealous? I was jealous if the guy down the street had more baptisms than us. I wouldn't say it publicly, I'd think it internally. I was jealous if a guy posted an article and it got more traction. I was jealous if a guy wrote a book and it had more sales. I was jealous if a guy preached and got more people to respond. And the Lord began to show me, Robbie, if you can't pray for the church down the street to be blessed in spite of long haul, I'm never going to bless your church. Remember, this is not your kingdom, this is mine. And that's when I began to see that I was good at telling God how to do his job better instead of listening on how to hint how him he could make my life better. So I was sharing that story, and this pastor came up to me and he said, I don't agree that God speaks that way. You're saying you're hearing the voice of God. And I share with him, I said, brother, with all, and I said this, I said, with all due respect, I don't know you, but you're like me a couple months, you know, a year or two ago, because I would have thought the same thing. I would have been very critical of anybody like me sharing this. But let me ask you a question, and I'll ask you guys this. When was the last time you sat for 10 months on a porch for two hours a night to bend your ear to hear the voice of God? Better yet, when was the last time you sat for 10 hours? Or 10 minutes? Here's what I realized God is wanting and willing to speak. Brothers, listen to me. Are we making the time to listen? Because this is how faith works, and you this is the final point of this, and I'm almost done. Faith, true faith, not only opens the ears, opens the eyes. Watch this, true faith calls us to act upon what we heard. Faith is the conviction, write this down, that God's word is true, and that by acting upon the word of God, it brings blessing. True faith is the conviction that God's word is true, and that by acting upon it brings blessing. Faith is not a one-time thing that you just have at salvation, it's a constant lifetime of believing and trusting and obeying. Now, I can't I can't I say I can't prove this, but I found some scriptures. But you can prove this through the Bible. But this is what I found in my own life. That God's the the volume of God's voice in my life is in direct proportion to the obedience of when I respond. Okay, let me say it another way. The volume of God's voice is in direct connection to my obedience. Meaning, okay, you have two children. One obeys and listens and does what, and this is my life right now. One is like me, my oldest, Rig. He doesn't listen, ADHD. Rig, you listen? What? Did you just hear what I say? What? You know, I mean that was that we have that one. And then, and then Holly never did that. And you know, but no. Look what you don't be again. One lesson, don't tell me who it is. And the other one, the other one listens to everything I say. The younger one, yes, sir, I'll do it, whatever. Over time, what son are you gonna keep talking to? The one who disregards doesn't listen, I'm too busy, or I'll obey, but not now. I'll I'll obey, but it's delayed, or the one who obey. So I find that God's saying, hey, listen, I'm speaking to you. Share Christ with the girl at the gas station. What? You ever heard this before? What I want you to tell these people about your relationship with Christ. No, I'm in a I'm in a board meeting. I I want you to to give to that homeless I can't say, okay, you're not obeying. So faith and obedience are tethered together. You can think of it this way disobedience breeds silence, obedience leads to speaking. Now, I I said this before, but you can read this for time. But the whole chapter of Hebrews 11 is one case study after another of people who by faith, remember their hearing and acting, did things. Abraham by faith, Moses by faith. In fact, I would say the whole chapter of Hebrews 11 is a picture of people who heard a word from God and acted. Now don't miss this. These are people who didn't have a Bible or a vision, but what they had was a voice from heaven. Think about that. They had no Bible in the Old Testament. They did they didn't have what we have today. But what they had was a voice. They didn't have churches, they didn't have sermons, but what they had was they were spirit-filled men and women who followed the Lord. Think about this. Noah's ark always, and it's always pointing to Christ. Noah's ark points to Jesus rescuing us from our judgment. So their lives is a picture of Christ. Abraham's offering of his son points to God offering his one and only Son, Jesus, for salvation. Moses leaving the pleasures of this world for something greater, speaks to the glory of God. And so Jesus is not just what they heard about. Don't miss this. Jesus was a person they interacted with. Right? And our problem is this, and I'll just finish with this. The problem we have in today's culture is our faith is not built on the word of God. It's built on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, not the voice of the Spirit. You and I live in a world where we listen to keyboard cowboys behind their computer screens with courage and not the red letter words of Christ. And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you gotta understand, you and I live by an unfair advantage. What is that unfair advantage? We have dual citizenship. Don't miss this. We have dual citizenship in this world. When you become a Christian, this is what happens to you. You are automatically one foot in the world, and at the same time, you have one foot in heaven. You have dual citizenship. We are not of the world, although we're in the world. You are immediately given that citizenship. And what that means is you have access to the commander-in-chief who has a vantage point of your life and your business, of your family that you don't have in and of yourself. And by the way, for those who don't know the Lord, or maybe you're watching you say, I don't believe in Jesus. Let me just tell you this. What's interesting about Christianity is that it's different than every other religion in the world, and in a couple of things, but one main thing. And that is our God lives in us. Every other God lives outside and above the rest of the world. Think of it this way: Islam's five pillars is a system where you work your way to God. Buddhism's eightfold path to God can't offer that, right? Hinduism's eight million gods. You have each person has like eight personal gods you pray to for any given time. The perfect way of Taoism, if you've studied any of this, can't offer that. It's a system to get to God. You and I, as a Christian, have direct access to heaven. But here's the tragedy the tragedy is the modern church suffers from hearing loss. It's not that we don't have ears to hear. We have the bill you're listening now. It's that we don't care or we don't make time. Or better yet, we'd rather listen to Fox News or CNN. We'd rather find it on Chat GPT. We'd rather hear from the White House than find a word from God's house in the church. And listen to me, brother, that should bother you. What I try to do now, pre-ports to postports, is the big difference. In the past, I would, and I'm a pastor. Most pastors live this way. You go into a meeting, you plan for an hour, you whiteboard, you diagram, you outline, you put the whole plan together, and then we say, Oh, let's go ahead and pray and ask God to bless this plan. Five minutes. Some of you like, hey, wait a minute, that's what we do, right? I mean, let's be honest. This is what I do now. And it's not perfect, but this is what I do. I go spend hours with the Lord and hear a voice from God and then bring it to the church. And Big A and and others will tell you, we've started major initiatives that. That I feel we're God given. End hunger and Sumner. We have an initiative to end hunger in our community. There are 450 kids classified as homeless and hungry in the school system. We just tackled, I think we tackled 120. We have 450 to go. We're in 10 schools. There's 40 to go. That's a God-given thing. God put in my heart, put a church in every prison in America and one in every state. We already have four. We're about to start five prisons that watch long hollow from the prison. The point I'm making is this. The difference is in the past, I would strategize and pray little. Right now I hear the voice of God and then I move. Think of it this way: I try to find where God's working in your business, in your life, in your marriage, and I go and join him in that work. And I promise you, that is a whole lot better than the way I used to do it. You remember the old hymn, big A, when we walk with the Lord in the light of his way, what a glory he sheds on our way. While we do his good will, he abides in us still, and with all who trust and obey. Trust and obey. For there's no other way. To be happy in Jesus is to what? Trust and obey. Write this line down. What is the enemy of trust? Fear. Write this line down. What you fear the most is where you trust God the least. And that's a great point for us to think about in our life.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, I'm Aaron Walker, founder of Iron Sharpens Iron. Every successful man needs a band of brothers to push him to grow spiritually, personally, and professionally. Each week I meet with like-minded Christian business owners in our mastermind groups. We share wisdom, tackle challenges, and we hold each other accountable to grow, not just in business, but in life. Don't do life or business alone. Join the brotherhood that will challenge, encourage, and sharpen you. Visit isibrotherhood.com and take the first step today. Robbie, go back just a little bit before we open for questions. I want you to share post-porch, what happened at Long Hollow and in the community with attendance, with baptisms, with uh debt, with those things as a result of you going before the Lord. And I want to be the first to attest of Robbie's different disposition when he first came to Long Hollow and post-porch, we call it. It's remarkable the difference in how God is leading and what he's doing now. So share just a few of those things that happened afterwards.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, the short of it is, I mean, I I had blind spots in my life that I was blind to. I mean, I had people like Big A and others, trusted friends, who would say these to me. Like me, I can go to you, Dan, and say, man, you got a blind spot, you're arrogant, or Randy, you're prideful, or Michael, you always take over the conversation. I mean, people can tell you that, and they did. But when the Holy Spirit tells you that, it's different. And so I realized that for about four and a half years, I was pastoring Long Hollow in my own power and my own strength, my own strategy, my own, you know, vision. And um, I sat with the Lord, and the Lord had to do a deep work on me and through me before he could use me. Okay, so remember that. Um, so I would just encourage you guys to get along with the Lord and just say, hey, God, you Holy Spirit, you be the counselor. By the way, one of the roles of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, is he will be the comforter, the counselor. Remember this? When the counselor comes, the parakletos. That word counselor is interesting. I would ask you guys, if you call yourself a Christian, when was the last time you consulted with the Holy Spirit and him alone? Now, for me, pre-port, oh yeah, I talk to him when I need him. Like a utilitarian genie, you know, rub the lamp, man. I need you. But what I did is on the porch, I began to sit and spend time with the Lord, and I heard these two words that literally changed the course of our church. And I'll just tell you for context, I don't talk about this publicly because uh no, I don't brag on numbers or boast of numbers. My staff doesn't talk about them purposely because I know the propensity of my heart, I would tend to want to boast them. But I'll tell you guys for context. When I got to Long Hollow, the church was about 6,800 people. My previous church was about 2,2200. So that's a huge, that's like a 3x jump. And you know, when you go from that jump from a you know$5 million budget to a$15 million, that's a big jump. And so I, and there's no manual on how to make the jump, right? You gotta learn, you gotta pay a lot of dumb tax, which I paid a lot. Like some of you like, I got that degree, PhD. By the way, PhD meets piled high and deep for those who don't know. But anyway, with books, right? Uh, but I sat with the Lord and he spoke to my heart and said, shared these two words: spontaneous baptism. Now, I was raised Catholic. I don't have a dad that's a pastor. I wasn't the ministry. I read about spontaneous baptism in Acts, but I'd never seen it, I didn't even know what it was. And by the way, the the day the Lord wanted me to offer it was December 20th, which back then, if you were in Tennessee, we were leading the country in COVID cases. The hospital doctors were begging us to shut the church down because they said we were, without saying it publicly at the time, we were becoming a super spreader. Now, if you remember that word, that scared the life out of you. They said they were saying every case in here can be traced back to Long Hollow. So that's not the list you want to be on. That's not the response you want from the community. Not to mention, we emailed the church the week before December 20th and said, if you're sick stay home, if you come wear a mask, and that made Bobby everybody mad. You know how that works. I mean, everybody's mad at us, you know. So we had the lowest attended services in the history of me being at Long Hollow, and the Lord put on my heart the number 100. It's only happened twice, but it happened there. And I shared this with the staff. I recorded a video on Friday night and shared this. So I'm not saying I'm a prophet, but I have this down. It's amazing how the Lord works. And my staff, when I told them, are like, thank God for our pastor, man. He has a lot of faith. But 100 people baptized? You ever seen 100 people spontaneously? I'd never seen it before. In COVID, nobody's there, mask. Who's gonna get in that water? I mean, come on, back to nobody. By God's grace, I was obedient, long story short, and we offered that. My staff was on board, praise God. And big A will tell you, 99 people, guys, came forward that day for spontaneous baptism. I thought it was one and done. I was so overwhelmed, you can imagine. Went back to the porch that night. I'm sitting with the Lord on my porch and I'm emotional because I'm like, what just happened? And I needed a win. Golly, did I need a win at Longhunt? We needed a win. And just to give you context, the church had declined, this is true numbers here, from 6,800 to 3,400 in worship. I don't know if you know this, big A, 3,400 at the end of 2020. If you've ever passed, if you've ever led an organization where you single-handedly were responsible for plummeting the organization in half, that's not an award you want. I'm just telling you right now. And I that just destroyed my confidence. But but again, I was trusting the Lord. God, he called me here. And we had 100 people, 99 people baptized. It was unbelievable. I went back to the porch and I'm like, Holy Spirit, God, this is unbelievable. I'll tell my kids about this. What a day. And the Lord gave me this image. The Holy Spirit was waiting on me in the porch like he always did every night before. And he gave me this image in my mind. He said, get ready because, and he gave me this image of a heavy raindrops falling before the torrential downpour that would come. That's the image I got. Little did I know we would baptize over a thousand people in the next 15 weeks. You ready for this? For those weeks, we didn't even meet in person. Big A will tell you, Mike will tell you they were here. They would come knock on the church door because we closed the doors. They're like, we just drove in from Murfreesboro. We just drove in from Memphis. What? Over the next seven months, we baptized over 1,600 people, or right around 1,600, from 17 states. They flew and drove in from all over the country. And I tell you, and I asked them two questions. When they got in the tank, I always asked the same two questions. Number one, where are you from? Maine. Maine. There's a lot of churches, but California, Portland, what? Las Vegas. What? Second question. Why'd you come? Where are you from? Why'd you come? Here's what they said. This was the thread woven through every single person. They said, the Holy Spirit compelled me to come. I had to come. And so here's what my point to you. When God sends revival, that that's not a sermon series. That's not the ingenuity of Robbie. That's not the intellect of a team. No, that is a God sent, spirit-led, God-glorified revival. And here's the point. You take it away, Big E. I'll finish with this. For four years, I pastored the church of my own strength and power, and you saw where it went. Last Sunday we had 8,400 people at Long Hollow. And I'm not telling you that to impress you, but to impress upon you when God moves, nobody's coming to me and saying, Man, you really did good. I'm like, no, I'll show you what I did with the church, you know what I had. This is God now. And the thing is, God had to work on me, and I think he wants to do that with you before he works through you. So that's kind of the cool God story of long home. And it's still, we're still in revival, man. It's just really cool. This is crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

If those that don't live around, we'd love to have you at longhollow.com. You can sign on three services every single Sunday. We would love to have you participate. We're going to open the mics for questions, and then we have a few questions to follow up just to ask you directly. So any questions for Robbie? Don't miss this opportunity. Um if you got a question.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey Robbie.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey man.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey, what's going on, man? Hey, um you you taught this. I I I was blessed to actually in the middle of all this. Uh I happened to be blessed to be in a discipleship group with Robbie. Um, and when he started doing the silence in solitude, and he taught something to me. I've shared it a lot with with guys because I and and people just because I think it's impactful. But can you quickly share um how you get your mind into that silence to get the, and I remember you always talking about being under the water and the ships passing by, but what you do as your routine to kind of quiet the noise, to get yourself into that nice silent silence to be able to hear the Lord?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, because a lot of people, so let me just clarify. When I say silence and solitude meditation, I'm not talking about new age transcendental meditation where the where the soul is quieted or the body is quieted for the ripples of the body, so the soul can break free. That's a platonic from Plato. That's a Platonic view of like the physical is evil and the spiritual is good. That's not biblical meditation. So think of biblical meditation not as mental passivity, where you're just sitting here thinking of nothing. It's actually mental activity. Okay. So think of it this way: uh, think of your life kind of like this this coke. If I go to the river with it, if this was a clear glass and I go to the river and scoop up river water and shake it up like this and set it down. You could not see clearly through the glass because of the dust and debris. But if I let this sit long enough, over time, the sediment goes to the bottom and you're able to see clearly through the glass, the water. Does that make sense? Think of your soul that way, right? Think of all the distractions, think of all the noise, think of all the voices. By the way, think of the internal subcommittee that lives in this head, always critical, always judgmental. So, what you have to do is you have to be still long enough to hear the voice of God. So here's what I do I do this every time. And like Michael said, it's it's it's basically, you know, think of silence as you're sitting in the presence of God, and you're trying to center yourself in the presence of God by focusing on something. And I'll tell you what to do. So, what I do, I do this every time, I do this every night. Silence and solitude. I use Psalm 46, 10. It's a simple phrase, and here's what I do. Be, and you know this one. Be still and know that I'm God. You know this, okay? So here's how I do it. I'll walk you guys through it now if you want to. Close your eyes for a moment. Those who haven't already. Just close them for a moment. I'm just gonna walk you through them and show you how the RPM slow down. You're just gonna think about these words and just be still. Be still and know I'm God. Be still and know I am. Be still and know. Be still. Now open your eyes. You can feel the RPM slow down. Okay. Now, once you do that, think of that as the tuning fork to get in tune to hear the voice of God. What I do after, and you can I'll I'll challenge you, child, do this tonight, do this tomorrow morning. You have to set your clock because you won't believe how long silence is deafening. In fact, Francis Bacon, uh, who was a mathematician, said this. He said, Oh, I love this quote. He said, All of man's problems stem, or all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit in alone in a room by himself alone. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit in a room by himself, alone with his thoughts. Why? Because when you sit alone, sometimes you think of your own mortality. You think of uh you think of the brevity of life. Okay, so once you start sitting after the beastal, no, beastale, be, then what I do is uh you you start with five. I do 20 minutes, but you can do five or ten. I'd start with five. You won't believe how long five is. Set your clock for five minutes, and then you sit. And here's what you do you come up with a word or phrase. There's nothing supernatural about this. Mine was through the revival, Abba Father. Romans 8, 26, when you don't know what to pray, the Spirit, with groanings under not understandable in words, speaks, Abba Father. You can use that one. The one I use now is be still. I just make it, I'm tattooed on my wrist. When I sit with the Lord, I don't forget. So be still. Every time your brain or your mind wanders, you bring yourself back to the presence of God with the word. So, and believe me, your mind's gonna wander. Mine does. You never get to be an expert at this. As much as I've done this, it's still hard for me. So as soon as the mind thinks, you're sitting there in silence. Be still, be still and know, be still, big. Did I lock the back door? That's what's gonna happen, you know. Did I close the fridge? Where am I key? That's what's gonna happen. Okay. Or, or you're gonna have the most profound Derek idea you've ever come up with in your life, and you're gonna want to go. Don't do that. If it's a good thought, the spirit will bring it back to remembrance. But you want you want to sit and you wanna say, be still. So you keep coming back. Now, watch this. I was learning this practice. A guy named Pete Schizero was leading his staff through this, and he had a teacher come in. He was actually a monk in a monastery, and they did it with their staff. Now, his staff, big A, went from zero minutes to 20. So he went like full throttle in the deep end with his staff. And here's what happened: a girl raises her hand after 20 minutes, and she says, Uh, Father Miniger, I messed up. She said, in that 20 minutes, my mind wandered at least 100 times. I was distracted, I failed. And he said this word to her. He said, Sister, it wasn't that you failed. What God gave you was a hundred opportunities to come back to him. So you sit, and then after you sit, you can do a lot of things. You can pray, you can listen, you can read. But if you just add that to your spiritual toolbox, I'm just telling you guys, just to slow down enough. I preached this in a sermon two weeks ago. An original thought today, and I want to go off on this tangent, but you will appreciate this. An original thought today is a unicorn in our culture. Nobody thinks anymore. We parrot, we pirate, we we retweet, we repost everything, everybody, and it's not in context, it's memes and clips and shorts and videos out of context. No one thinks anymore. We've lost the art. So I would just challenge you, man. Some of the best ideas, some of the best insight, my family, my life, my future has been when I've consulted the Holy Spirit in silence. So, my Michael, I hope that answers the question, but that's kind of the practice I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Good question. Jason, you've raised your hand. Go ahead and unmute, ask your question.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, sir. Yeah, and Robbie, just thanks very much for your testimony and insights today. It's been very powerful and of course got me got me thinking. And you mentioned earlier about uh jealousy, and I realized that I've always had jealousy of people that hear God's voice. And I always like, I don't hear God's voice. Why don't I hear God's voice? And and I'm starting to think now that when I'm in those moments, I see God visually does things and shows me things. I had something happen years ago where I was in the summer and I was when the family was gonna run out of money, and I knew, and I'm in a finance guy, so I knew exactly when it was gonna run out. And then suddenly there was money there. And I always know where the money is, but the exact amount of money that was there to get us through the summer, and I couldn't explain it. And so I saw God do something. He did something, but I didn't hear, he didn't give me a number, like he said, you know, I got the number 100. I saw things and experienced them, and but I kept in my mind till till today, I thought, I still don't hear God. But what are your thoughts on this? Is the way that I'm hearing in in a is a visual way, it's still hearing. It's just the way that I'm hearing is is what that is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Uh I would say, and I didn't say this earlier, but the primary way we hear the voice of God, and I just need to say this, is through the word of God, obviously. God has said everything we need to, you know, to to I tell people the Bible is two things it's a mirror and a map. Okay, remember this. It's a map for life, direction for life, but it's a mirror into your soul, right? When you read the word, you're confronted with, am I jealous? Am I angry? Right. You see what I'm saying? So here's what I would say. People lit people think when I say, I hear the voice, so I'm listening, and the Lord leads me. I'll I'll prove it to you in your your case. Have you ever been in a situation, business deal, financial decision, relational decision, and you get what I call like a check in your spirit. You can't explain it. You're just like, I just, I don't feel right. I always tell people, don't ever move forward in disarray or disorder. When you don't feel peace, you don't, you don't move forward. That's kind of how the Lord, so here people say, God closes doors in your life. Now, the problem is God closes doors, but we have a tendency to walk through the door, right? And I'll say another thing. Somebody told me this years ago, just a side note, someone said, every open door in your life is not for you to walk through. Sometimes God puts one for you to walk past. You got to walk past. I mean, every opportunity is not an opportunity, right? So I would say the difference is you're you are living life with a perspective or a perception to look for the word of God, to look for the ways of God, to look for the handiwork of God. That's the difference. Let's be honest. Most Christians live their life on autopilot. They do. By the way, I don't want to get political about this, but the whole Charlie Kirk thing, I don't know if you guys know, this is not between left or right or Democrat, Republican, or trans or straight. It's not, it's not that. What this is, is a battle of good and evil. And most Christians don't realize we are in a spiritual battle here. And it's only getting worse. The guy, the church, big A, you saw Sunday. Somebody rammed a vehicle in and injured and killed people in a church. And it's, and I hate to say it, but it's going to happen more. So how do you fight? Don't miss this. How do you fight a spiritual battle? Not with carnal weapons. It's not getting on the internet and you know, it's not pulling guns. That's not how you fight a spiritual battle. You fight it with spiritual weapons, the word and prayer. And so I would say if you just, Jason, develop a sensitivity. If you pray every day, watch this, it's a dangerous prayer to pray. But if you pray every day, God, I want you to show yourself or reveal yourself to me today. I promise you, you keep praying, or God, I want to hear from you today. And you got to be careful because when he speaks, you may have to act. It's like, hey, you drink too much, stop drinking, or you know, you gamble too much, or whatever, you know, or you're messing around, you shouldn't be talking to you got to be careful because God, but but God loves you too much to let you wallow in sin. He loves you too much and he wants the best for you. So I would say you're right, God does work. It's not just in words from heaven. It could be a post-it note on a desk, it could be a billboard you're driving by, it could be a scripture verse. I mean, it could be anything, but the difference is you're looking and you have like spiritual glasses where we put on, and that's the superpower we have as Christians, right? We get to see what people don't see. The evidence of things not seen, the proof of the or uh evidence of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. That's what faith is. So yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01:

Robbie, you partially answered this. Eric Gonya asked this question is how do you distinguish between the voice of the Holy Spirit from your own desires or a deceptive spirit?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, y'all asking good questions. I've asked this question a lot because I've I'm like, is that me? Here's the here's how you know that it it over time, I would say the the word I use, I use this line intentionally when I say I've bent my ear to the accent of the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks with a Galilean accent, right? I'm just making this, yeah. I don't hear that, but but but I speak with an accent. I used to, I'm from New Orleans. If you would have heard me 20 years ago, Big A, I used to went to the French quarter and uh past the water. You know, I mean that's how I spoke. You know, I was from New Orleans. I had this thick Brooklyn accent. When you and you're if you see my mom, Big A knows my parents, my mom still has that New York Queens accent, right? There's a certain accent, and it comes from time. It's like your wife's voice, or your, or like a shepherd. You know, G said the sheep will hear my voice. So I uh it's it's a learned, it's a learned deal. But here's what I would say: here's how you know. How do you know God's speaking and it's not the enemy or yourself? The Holy Spirit, don't miss this, will never lead you to do something contrary to the book he wrote. Never. He pinned every word of this book through the divine inspiration, 1 Peter, of men carried on by the Holy Spirit. Second Peter, I think it is. 2 Peter 1, carried on through the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So he's not gonna lead you to do something. Here's how I know it's God and not me. I'm never gonna tell myself to give more money to the church. I'm never gonna tell myself, give something to that poor man. I'm never gonna tell myself, go serve on a mission. I'm not gonna do that. I'm just probably, I mean, maybe, but the Holy Spirit is always gonna lead me to do things most of the time outside of my comfort zone, right? That's what faith is. Faith is believing. Here's a great definition of faith. You're gonna love this. Manly Beasley used this. Faith is believing that it's so when it's not so because God said so so that it could be so. I love that. Wow, let me say it again. Faith, uh Derek, you love you love this because Jonathan Beasley is at Cross Church. I'm Eddie. Faith is believing that it's so when it's not so, believing that it's so when it's not so because God said so so that it can be so. In a sense, you bring it into fruition because you walk by faith and not by sight. So I would say most of the time God is speaking to me. It's normally something that makes me uncomfortable. Normally I have to say something I don't normally like, I've got a situation that was just talking about, I've got to confront a staff member whom I love about something I'm like, I don't, you know, normally I don't, but I, but it's gotta be done. I love this brother. I gotta do it. And so it's the right thing to do, right? So same thing with you. God normally and he wants the best for you, right? God's not, God's not a sinister, overbearing, evil father who's out to get you. This is what I learned growing up. God was always out to get me, chastise me. That is not God. God's law is not a restriction of your happiness. God's law is an expression of his love for you. He wants the best for you. He's for you, I promise you. And so when we live in that, it's a great adventure. The Christian life becomes a great adventure.

SPEAKER_01:

We got time for one more question.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've got a question, Robbie. Um you know, when you when you talk about you know, going to the counselor, right? How many times do we go to the counselor? Obviously, we find a lot of counsel in a in a group of men like this, where we find comfort and the support and security of of going to our you know, our network and getting answers and getting feedback, and you know, usually it's it's pretty accurate. Um, but I've noticed for myself, and maybe some other guys can resonate with this, is sometimes I don't feel like I can expect to hear God's voice if I were to go and and spend that time with him. Is that just because I haven't been consistent enough in finding that silence and letting letting that settlement fall to the bottom of the bottle? Would you say that that's just a consistency thing, or is that is there something else there that um might be impacting my ability to hear God's voice?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, it's a deep, nuanced question. That's a great question, by the way. So a couple of things about hearing the voice of God. The number one hindrance to hearing the voice of God, and James talks about this, is he he talks about this idea of like having wax in the ears, James 1. You can't hear the word of God. That idea, and it's connected to sin. Okay. So think about this. Unconfessed sin in your life is the number one barrier to the voice of God. Period. Now, we all sin. I mean, I sin. I mess up. I spoke to my wife last week. I'm like, golly, I hate that. I gotta go apologize. I hate doing that, don't you? I mean, like, oh, I shouldn't. So we all have sin in our life, okay? Most people are living with unconfessed sin. So I tell you, if you have unconfessed sin in your life, confess it now. And confession is simply the Greek word agreeing with God. That's what it means. God, I believe, like you say, this is sin, and I'm confessing that to you. I'm verbalizing that. It doesn't have to be auditory, but it could be in your mind. So that's the number one hindrance to the voice of God. The number two hindrance to the voice of God is time. Most of us, you know, the greatest tragedy I always say in the Christian world today is that literate believers who can understand the word in North America or in England or Britain, literate believers who are illiterate to the word of God. It's not that we can't read the word, we don't care to read the word. We don't want to read the word. I always tell people, you can't say God isn't speaking with a closed Bible by your bed. A lot of people, and I'm not talking about you guys, but I would say this to Studio, God doesn't speak to me. Why would you get? Like I have, Big A knows he was in my D group. Michael's in my D group. The first thing I teach these guys is read the Bible daily and memorize scripture. This man won't tell you, we memorized the Sermon on the Mount. We both forgot most of it, but we had it at one time. I promise you, Michael, too. We memorized it together. So I'm teaching these guys, I'm teaching them supernatural spiritual disciplines to build that. See, here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to build in you an interior life that sustains the outer attacks of the world. And the interior life is reading the Bible, it's not the Christian life's not hard. It's spending time with God in prayer and in silence and solitude. It's reading the word consistently and it's or reading the word daily and memorizing the word consistently. That's it. That's the Christian life. I mean, it's more than that, but that's simplicity. If you don't do those, start there. But I would say this is the last thing. Most people don't have a specific time and place to hear God. And this is mine right here. I sit here every morning, normally when I'm home in the morning. It's right there in that chair. There's nothing special. This is my son. There's nothing special about this place. But watch this. Write this down. A specific time, write this down. This is good. Specific time and place creates a sacred space. See, you gotta understand. I can go on and on, but the Sabbath for the Jews was not a date on the calendar. It was a space and time. They blocked the week away so they can spend time in the presence of God. We don't Sabbath, but some of you could do just do five minutes, and that would be extraordinary. But you're blocking away the noise and the, I mean, think of the life of the Israelites to today. Think of the distractions of even a hundred years ago with Charles Spurgeon. And we we've got technology and phones, and some of us can't even go a minute. We can't even talk about our wives or our kids without putting the phone down and constantly. You know, I'll tell you one story before we go. This one got me convicted me about my sons. When I was little, I mean, when I came to Long Hollow, I mean, I was somebody, you know, I'm Mr. I'm mega church Robbie guy. I'm somebody. I got to have this phone, you know, phone. I'd walk in the house on the phone. Hey, kid. Now, my kids, well, Candy taught me this. My kids who were two and four, oh no, they were four and six at the time, they were waiting all day for dad to come home. And dad walks in, what does dad do? And some of you are gonna get convicted, but it's a good thing. I'd walk in, like, oh, hold dad's on the phone. I'm you know, I'm I'm pastor, Mr. Pastor. Yeah, hold on. And so what they saw is not me face to face, they saw the back of my phone. My wife called me out on this, okay? So one day I was up in the room playing with them. They were four and six, and we're playing Lagos, which boys like to do. Two boys, four and six. And they're rough, Rig and Ryder, both named after trucking companies. But anyway, they're rough. Big A no, they're rough. Now they're six three and six two. But anyway, back then there were four and six. We're playing. Lagos in the middle. I mean, we're and we got a spiritual battle. We got we got Batman on the dresser, and we got you know, Robin, Riggs got a Robin's tower here, and poor Ryder, who was four. He had Woody from Buzz. I'm like, I didn't have the art telling he ain't gonna win anything, but he had Woody, you know, Woody's flying around. And then all of a sudden the phone rings. Eight o'clock at night. Well, I'm I'm important. I'm Pastor Robin. Hold on, boys, I'll be back. I take the phone call. Start talking to them. Well, I'll come back five, ten minutes later, and they're gone. I went in the other room. They're gone. They're playing with something else. And I went to my oldest son, Rick, who was six, very keen and intuitive. And I said, son, let's go back. Let's go back and play. He said, No, Dad, we're done. I said, No, no, I'm I'm I'm not done. Let's go back and play. He said, Don't worry about it, Dad. We're used to you taking calls instead of playing with us. We're used to you not making time for I wonder if God would say that about you. It's okay. It's okay. No, you're busy. It's okay. It's okay. I think I'll close with this. God misses your company. I mean, he does. He longs to be with us. He created you. He knows you better than you. So hopefully you'll take that away with you. Hey, man, just start with something. Just spend time. No agenda. Read the Bible. Just spend time. God, I got no agenda. And it's going to feel like you're wasting time. And maybe that's the point because we're so driven by our identity of grinding and getting ahead. I mean, our spiritual badge. Oh, I'm busy. I'm so busy. That's not a spiritual badge of honor. Nah, man. I'm living in rhythm. I'm hearing the voice. You see what I'm saying? So anyway, I'm going and on.

SPEAKER_01:

But Robbie, that's so good. Hopefully. So good. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending this time. Derek, any closing comments or remarks from you before we go on, Robbie?

SPEAKER_04:

No, Robbie, thank you. Thanks so much for spending time with us today. And just thanks for guys who haven't been on before they joined us today. This is uh this is one of my favorite calls, Robbie. So uh nothing more important. Appreciate you, brother.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well love you guys. Next time. ISI next time, big A. Have them come the long hollow. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

We need them all there every time. Come on, big A. Come on, big A. Yeah. Hey, close us out, Robbie. Give us a word of prayer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Let's let's sit for a second. Man, it's good to be in your presence to just take a break. I'm thankful for these men to make the time. It just shows without them saying a word that they're investing in themselves. And God, the tie that raises all of the ships at port in our life, whether it's at home, at the office, in the community, uh in our businesses, the tie that raises all the ships at port is us. And so when we're healthy, everything around us prospers and grows and matures. And so I just pray right now for the man whose marriage is on the rocks. I pray for the man whose child is wayward. I pray for the man right now who's uh financially strapped or maybe in a season of uncertainty or has decisions they don't know which way to turn. God, you have answers and you're willing and waiting for us to ask. And so it's not that you're not speaking, God, it's that we're not asking. The the tragedy is not unanswered prayer, it's unaffered prayer. And so, God, as these men uh embark on this journey of sitting still in the presence of you, we know your first language was always silence, because out of silence you spoke everything into the world. God said let there. God said. And so, God, that same voice that spoke the world into existence, would you speak to us now? We're listening. Thank you for Big A and Derek, the team, and pray a blessing upon ISI in the days ahead, that they would glorify you above all else in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen.

SPEAKER_00:

Amen.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much, Robbie. This was excellent, man. We love you and we appreciate you.