VOICES OF DESTINY 1

Is, uh, [Music] so [Music] and keep me strong. Take my every step, my hopes, and dreams. Here I am, standing at the edge. [Music] Oh, [Music] catch me forever. Me, here I am, catch me. [Music] Jesus, here I am, catch me. Is so, catch me. [Music] Oh, how I love you, Jesus. You are my [Music] [Music]. Guys, good morning. Welcome to this course on Voices of Destiny. Just want to do a quick microphone check with you. Make sure we're all good and volumes are set and good to go. So, quick thumbs up will help us see you're all good. Wonderful, wonderful. So excited to jump into this together. And I think of anything that I've done in the last 20, 25 years, this has probably ignited and excited me more than anything else I've done in ministry. So, I cannot wait to unpack this together over the next five or six weeks as we explore just how to move from a season of disruption in our life to a season of destiny formation. So, let me just set the scene for this morning and what we'll be doing together today, and then highlight a little bit of what's coming in the weeks ahead. Today, simply, we're going to do an overview, an introduction really, to the different voices, different seasons that we're in, and how those voices help us navigate those seasons so that we move from crisis into fullness. We'll probably do a little today on the voice of an enemy and the voice of a friend, because we're going to enlarge upon those next week or the next time we're together. So, we won't hit them quite as hard today, but the other voices will open up quite expansively today. And again, of course, we'll look at them in the days ahead. You don't have notes today. That's because today is primarily an overview session. The rest of the sessions together, we will have notes to be fairly comprehensive, but there'll be a lot of stuff that you'll have opportunity to engage with as we go through. And then as we, as we do unpack this together in the weeks ahead, we'll do little breakout rooms where you can interact with one another. I always think that's half the fun of these kind of ventures together is hearing how it is for other people in their context and different perspectives rather than a singular voice. But today, we're going to jump in. We're all believers on the course. I'm just going to pray and then we'll dive right in. Father, I thank you that you are the God who unfolds your plan and your will and your purpose in our life. And today, Father, I pray that you would immerse us again in your voice. That you would inscribe in us again your story. That you would lead us into the good future that you have ordained. We thank you. The steps of a good woman, the steps of a good man are ordained by you. And today, God, we thank you that you have scheduled conversations that allow us to move through seasons with health and vitality. And we pray today, Holy Spirit, would you have your way? Would you do what you alone can do? In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, guys, we believe, and I believe, that God has written something in you that is bigger than you. And the dreams that God has written in your life can never be discovered in isolation. They're only untangled and unfurled in our life as we engage in healthy community that awakens us to what it is that God has hidden for us. And we're going to look at several of those voices today. And just in terms of giving an overview on what they do, all of these voices speak from a unique perspective. So, each one carries something different for our lives. All of them reflect something of the nature of God too. As we listen to these voices, as we come under their influence in our life, they reflect an aspect of the character and nature of God. The king, obviously, reflects the kingly nature of God. The friend represents the friend of sinners, God who is our friend. And we can go through each of them. But it's helpful to be aware that each of them has a different dynamic and a different characteristic of God's nature that they speak over us and speak into as we go through it. None of them will stand against your current progress. So, all of them want to see you move forward and into what it is God has for us. None will allow your hubris to get in the way of your hope. That is particularly true of the voice of the king, but it's true of each of them. So, none of them would particularly allow what you've accomplished in life to stop you moving into fulfillment in life. All of them will guide us through that. All of us help us, and love is enough to lead us beyond ourselves. Each of them come in at a particular moment and do that. And all of them help us embrace our humanity at a deeper level. And again, we'll give you notes on this next week. You become more fully human with people like this leaning in and expressing their particular voice in our life. And all of them help us move towards destiny in your season. And with each of them, they help us, each one of them help us become fully alive. Without them, we have connection, but we don't necessarily have expansion. We have moments where we can connect with God and hear his voice, but we don't come into the fullness of that. And the hope is that together, what they bring us into is convergence, that sweet spot where our unique design and our ultimate destiny collide. And of course, in our lives, these actually come cyclically and in seasons. They come at different moments. When you're looking through and you're saying, you know, is right now a season of transition for you? Then that's going to be one particular voice that you want to consult. And the beauty of this course together is it'll help you identify which voice you need in which seasons, which voice to lean into especially and particularly in the season you, you're in. So, even today, as you're listening to this, maybe be thinking through, you know, which season am I in right now? Is this a season of transition? And the season that we're in personally can differ to the season that we're in culturally or societally. So, obviously, this is a season of transition in culture right now. That may be the season you're in. Maybe a different season for you. Is there a season of redirection? You're going to need in that season. You're going to experience in that season, the voice of the enemy helping you reposition, helping you redirect where it is you're going. And is it a season of new connections for you? Is it a season of consecration and fresh consecration? Or church, of the last year or so, this has been the season we've been in corporately as a community, this season of consecration under the voice of the priest and learning how to move in that. Perhaps for some today, it's a season of fresh permission. You've come out of that season of consecration and you're hearing God open up the, uh, voice of favor in your life in a new way, in a new dynamic, a new dimension. Perhaps you're sensing just that fresh permission. Followers on the call today, yours might be a season of mission. You feel all engaged, you know the wealth at your disposal, you understand your weapons, you've got people around you, and you're moving forward in the mission that God has put in you. Might be a season of expansion for some today, where you can sense God just enlarging your territory. You're not just in mission, but that mission is bearing fruit, it's effective, it's expansive for you. Or it may well be a season of reimagination. And this is the season often when God will use the voice of the prophet in our life and more graces in that. And so, I just want to encourage you to try to recognize as we go through this, the season that you're in. All of these voices bring us to a place of pleasure, favor, and honor. They don't always do it immediately, but they always bring it into that place of adventure and exposure. And so, the big thought really in behind this is the awareness that actually you need more than friends to enter your purpose in life. Culture around us will tell us all we need is friends. The, uh, best-selling TV programs will emphasize just the aspect of friendships. But we actually do need more than friends. And with, um, only friends in our lives, we limit the conversations that we have. We consult with people who like us and are like us. And sadly, within that, we miss the formation of purpose. We miss the awareness of destiny. And we, culturally and personally, we grieve that loss. We're aware something is lacking. We have some great people to hang with, but we're quite aware that actually our life has not fulfilled the potential that God designed it to have. We don't always know how to take the journey. So, we're going to orient all of this biblically. You don't have to open your Bible today, but you will at some point as we journey through. We're going to orient to all of it biblically in the journey of David, in a season of David's life where he's moving from crisis to fullness, where he's moving from disruption to expansion, where he learns and consults with these fierce voices to move forward into his future. And so, First Samuel 20 is where we're going to look. First Samuel 20, First Samuel 21, First Samuel 22. And in each of those passages, we'll see different voices that speak into his life. So, the first one that we're going to take is the voice of an enemy. And I realize this course is called Five Voices of Destiny, and we've secretly snuck in six. And, uh, the enemy is a gift in our life. The voice of an enemy is a gift in our life. It's not one of the voices that you particularly want to shape you in the seasons that you're in. But often in our lives, we actually just need something or someone to provoke us. And the voice of an enemy, of course, is a saboteur. But often God will use it as a provocateur. God will actually allow the voice of an enemy to awaken us, to help us abandon our apathy, and move us in a different direction. Often, an enemy will provoke us into something more. Without an enemy, we tend to stay stuck where we are. We tend to stay stable. And so, the enemy comes around our life seeking to the virus. But often God will use that as a catalyst and forces to come out of confinement or previous covenants. And in the story of David, of course, his enemy there is Saul. And Saul is going to be used by God. We're going to see that actually in the text. But Saul's going to be used by God to propel David into a different future. Because as David looks at his life in that moment, God has spoken over him prophetically and said, David, you will be king. And he's been anointed in that season. There's an authority resting on his life. And as he looks at his life, it kind of looks almost like what God had promised. David is sitting in the palace. His name is known all across the land. People sing the song that Saul has slain as thousands, and David has tens of thousands. And so, there's this awareness. And what David has operating in his life in that moment is kind of the picture of the future. God is exposing them to the environment that one day he will rule and reign over. But actually, David has become quite comfortable in that reality. He's got his best mate Jonathan there. He's got a group of people who would fight for him and die with him. He's got all the trappings of the kingdom. The only problem is, this is not David's kingdom. This is not David's destiny. And so, along comes the voice of an enemy, and it catalyzes and catapults him out of his previous covenants. Within that, the voice of an enemy helps us define our desires. We're seeing that in this cultural moment, aren't we? In the crisis that is happening, we can see that actually it's causing just a huge awareness that we need to reprioritize, rethink our days, maybe even change our rhythms. It's not something we would have chosen, but that voice of an enemy is making us aware, man, we were so busy and so rushed before. And it's causing us to recalibrate our hearts. And enemies are there to call out of us what we never knew God had put in us. Enemies are there to call out of you what you never knew that God had put in you. And one of the things about an anointing on our life, one of the things about a destiny in our life is it awakens our adversaries. So, we know that that's on our life because we begin to discover some adversaries around us. That vision that we have brings opposition. And the beautiful thing about an enemy is they produce resilience in us. They produce a resilience that we rarely find in a friendship. It was quite interesting for those of you joining from the UK. It was quite interesting to observe that actually one of the first things that people began talking about at a governmental level in the UK, and even the Queen when she made her speech on it, she talked about resilience. And the reason she hadn't appeared before then to speak on that subject is there wasn't this easily defined enemy. But once an enemy arose, the value of resilience suddenly became exposed. Because enemies expose your resilience. They actually create and produce resilience in us. And, uh, one day, of course, we look back and we'll say, man, that was fuel for my future. That actually, if it wasn't for that enemy in my life, I would not be where I am today. I would not be who I am today. If it wasn't for that teacher telling me I would never amount to anything, I wouldn't have dug deep. I wouldn't have moved forward. You get the principle and the idea. A little biblical analogy in this, for example, would be Hannah, who gives birth to Samuel. But she gives birth to Samuel after years of provocation by an enemy. And it's the provocation by an enemy that leads to new prayers in Hannah's life, and it eventually leads to a new purpose for Hannah's life. Without that provocation, she remains stopped. She remains limited. And so, from that moment of being propelled and expelled from Saul's presence, David is then looking for new relationships in his life. Nothing is going to be the same for him. He's in a brand new season. He's in a season of disruption. And in seasons of disruption, you're not quite sure who to go to, how to connect. And so, you find yourself suddenly looking for new connections. Those of you who have been through seasons of transition of late, you're kind of aware of how that works. And he's looking for different voices that will help him move towards fullness. And the first voice that he encounters is the voice of Jonathan. And of course, Jonathan represents the voice of a friend. So, we have the gift of an enemy, the gift that no one wants. And then we have the voice of a friend. And again, just want to cover these briefly so we can, uh, focus on the ones you want to get to today. In verse 41, David and Jonathan are in the field. It says this: "As soon as the boy had gone, David arose from that place toward the south. He fell on his face to the ground and bowed down three times. And Jonathan and David kissed one another, and they wept together, but David more so." And one of the things that friends, the voice of a friend, does is they meet us in our loss. And they grieve with us in our wounds. We actually hold our hearts in times of trauma. And they, they meet with us in times of crisis. And they weep with us. We just, they pour out. They sit with us in our pain. They empathize with their pain. They connect with our pain. You know, you, you try out with the voice of a warrior, and a warrior's just like, "Suck it up, buttercup. Why are you complaining? What are you whinging about?" You know, you come to a warrior, and your place of pain, they're just going to tell you to push through the pain, press through the pain. We're at war, people. But a friend, a friend will sit with us. They weep with us. They'll console us. And as we're moving towards a purpose, we need friends who will bring empathy and intimacy into our life. If we were to put them into the category of heart, soul, mind, and strength, you know, Jesus tells us that we're to love God with each of those. Then a friend is firmly in the heart category. They want to connect with our hearts. And that's what they do. They, our friends help us to give and to receive love freely and fearlessly. It's one of the reasons that we need that voice. Actually, God will often send that voice into our life when we've been timid in our expression of love or afraid of receiving love from other people. God will often awaken us to the power of love through a friendship that almost releases the drawbridge of our hearts and allows us to engage just in a more full way in that. And one of the things about friends is because they value our presence more than our purpose, we can pretty much share anything with them. Friends really don't mind where you're going. You don't really meet with your friends each day and they say, "Tell us where your life is at. Tell us where you go." It just sort of comes up in conversations as we share life together. Because to your friend, your connection matters more than your contribution. To the friend, the connection matters more than the contribution. So, in verse 42, then Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace. We're going to pick up friendship next week, today together, but go in peace because we've sworn both of us in the name of the Lord." What he's saying there is, David, you and I are in covenant together. This relationship that we have, this is a covenant relationship. I'm always going to have your heart. You're always going to have my heart. And when the Lord establishes in your life, he begins to prophesy over him. He says, basically, when God establishes in your life what it is you're called to do, remember my family. Remember that your heart is my heart, and I am part of yours. And friends do that. They confirm who we are. They confirm what God has for us. They come alongside us in that. And in this moment of his greatest darkness, in this moment of transition, David encounters the voice of a friend. And what we're going to see over this course together is that's actually strategic on the heart of the Father. That that's intentional. And that you can schedule those seasons when you know you're in a dark place, when you know you're in transition, you begin to realize, I'm not going to go to that person. Not because they're an enemy, but they're the voice of a warrior in my life, and they're great when I'm in expansion, but they're dreadful for me in connection. And you begin to decide, gosh, I don't need the voice of a king right now. I don't need somebody awakening me to my wealth in this moment. What I actually need is a place of welcome. And you'll be able to discern the voice of a friend because they will connect with your heart. You'll awaken intimacy in your life. And their voice awakens you to your worth. Their voice awakens you to your worth, like, actually, I have something to bring. And that's, of course, one of the healthy, life-giving aspects of friendship. Are you allowed to be who you are with these people? Do they accept you just the way you are? Friends will promote who we are. They'll champion our well-being without controlling our decision. We see that here with Jonathan. He champions David, but he doesn't control. He doesn't hold on to David. He actually says, "Go. Go in peace." And we'll cover that again extensively next week. But that's the beauty. That's a life-giving friendship that is not trying to control, but is connecting with our heart and recognizes actually when God is moving into destiny, it doesn't hold on in dependency. It releases us with greater fullness. So, if an enemy speaks provocation, a friend will speak peace. A friend will speak peace over our lives. And we need that, especially when we don't know what's happening in our lives. And so, we just have that awareness together. Even in this moment of crisis, the voices that speak peace over us. You probably, in these moments, you probably don't necessarily want the voice of a priest when you're looking for peace. We're going to discover this. The moment a priest inspects your heart, they question, they examine, they look at you, they explore the details of your life. And actually, when you're coming out of a time of turbulence and trauma, you just need a place of refuge and strength in that. So, when God begins moving us towards a purpose, he unlocks the voice of a friend in our life. And again, we're going to look at that next week. Our friends are the context of our story, but they don't always lead to fulfilled destiny. So, it's actually a great place. Friends call us, and they call us into more. And in church culture today, that is pretty much the only relationship that we talk about. And I think that's probably why there's some deficiencies in our expression of community because we get this relationship, but we haven't actually considered some of the other ways. And because of that, we live depleted in our purpose. And one of the things that Jonathan says to David, actually, when he fires the arrow, which is why our little symbol for the course is the arrow, the bone arrow, but he fires the arrow and he says, "It's beyond you. It's beyond you." And what he's saying is, David, from this moment, you're no longer going to live within the confines that you have lived. You're no longer going to live within the relationships that you've lived. You're no longer going to live within the assignment that you've lived. From here on out, it's beyond you. You're moving beyond you. And, uh, most of us prefer to live within ourselves. And most of our friends are happy for us to live within ourselves. But we actually need other voices that help us live beyond this. I think it was in 1506, in fact, I know it was, I have it here right in my notes, that Christopher Columbus died in 1506. And there's a monument to him in Valladolid in Spain, and it commemorates the great discoverer. And underneath it are the words inscribed in Latin: "Ne plus ultra," which means "no more beyond." And the word, and there's a line there, and the line is tearing away at the words "no more." And suddenly, it's saying, "More beyond." And that's what healthy friendships do. They actually help us see, hey, there is more beyond this moment. And we move with that. So, that's the voice of a friend. It's going to take us to a place where the heart is responsive and receptive, and it's going to lead us into new ways of thinking. So, I want to move then to the voice of the priest, and how that begins to open up our lives. There's times where we need more than the voice of a friend in our life. We actually need a priest to unlock our purpose. And we need the priest conversation. The priest takes an interest in our journey in order to help us reconnect with our humanity. And what the priest is going to do, if the enemy awakens us to our weakness, and the friend awakens us to our worth, then the priest awakens us to our wounds. In fact, I, I have certain people that I go to anytime I'm kind of aware of my weakness and my wounds in my life, and it's just so helpful. And they, we connect us with community, but they do it after inspection. And one of the things that they do in that is they just ask deeply painful questions. In fact, other than the enemy, I would suggest that the priest is the person we least like to get around because they're going to be piercers and penetrators with their questions. That as we go through each of these voices together over the weeks, guys, you're going to discover that actually these are typologies in our life. And you're also going to discover that you have a relational bias and a preferred mode of relating to other people. And so, some of these categories you're going to be like, "That's me. I love being people's friends." Or you might say, "You know what? I am the voice of a priest." Like, I'll, I'll express differently in different connections with people, but my default mode is the priest. Or as we go through the king or the warrior, you kind of know that. Like, if you're a personal trainer, I'll just go ahead and say it up front, you are the voice of a warrior. Like, personal trainers have no mercy for people in pain. They're just like, "Load that thing up! Load it up! Build it more!" You're going to be that kind of person. And so, the priest asks painful questions. The reason I highlight that is because this is kind of my default mode in relationship. This is where I like to lean in with people. They know that the future before us never rises above the culture in our hearts. And because they're a priest, they're more connected in that sense with the non-relational world, and they bring stuff into that, not more connected than others necessarily, but that tends to be where they dwell in that way. And the friend increases our capacity to give and love freely and fearlessly. And the priest, the gift of the priest says they deal with our inner health and wholeness. That's what they're looking at. They're looking at our inner health and wholeness. They help us on our history, all of our history, the parts that we're running from, the parts that God has written. They help us on that. And they help us live with health in our core by initiating sometimes awkward and uncomfortable conversations. And, uh, the best way maybe to think of this a little bit is like the doctor's examination where, you know, you haven't really been looking after your body quite as well as you should, and the doctor begins to ask all those kind of awkward questions. And the priest is like that. There's someone assigned by God to increase the health in our soul. That's what they do with this. And what the priest does is they turn up the volume of truth in our life. They turn up the volume of truth in our life. Friends will increase our value of others. Priests will increase the volume of truth in our life. I think that text, "speaking the truth in love," was probably written for priests. It's like that's what they love to do. They, the loving part is maybe a little more challenging for them, but they speak the truth. And when we decide to take destiny to the next level, of course, we go through that tongue of truth. And because a priest wants to see you fully alive and fully awakened in your discovery of destiny and in what God has written in your soul, they're not going to hold back in things that help you live fully beyond yourself. They can't sit by and watch you wounded by your past. They won't allow that one to remain. They know there's greater purpose in that. They can't watch you wander when it comes to your purpose. They, they can't stand idly by and watch someone wondering. They know something precious is at stake. And here's the principle that fuels the priest's relationship, and it's this: I must care more about their relationship to God than their response to me. That's the principle that fuels the priest. I must care more about their relationship to God than their response to me. It's not easy, but I must care more about their relationship to God in that. So, the question I ask myself, if I'm wearing the head of a priest, is this: And at times with some people, those who are in pastoral ministry, you know, there's times where you have to do that. Those years in psychology, you know, his number on the call today and on the course who are in that field, you, you know that there's times where you're asking this question: Am I willing to be misunderstood in this moment, or possibly even rejected, for their sake and for heaven's sake? In this moment, am I willing to go through that? And so, the priest will risk the connection by asking the hard questions. And so, David goes and he comes to Ahimelech the priest. And we have that, there's you scan the passage in that. And Ahimelech looks at him and he says, "What are you doing here, David?" Like, there's no welcome, there's no weeping, there's no tragedy. There's just a flat question: "Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?" He just goes after him, question by question, all the way through. "What are you running from?" And, uh, if friends bring connection, priests bring loving confrontation. They're just going to face us with what's going on in our life. They're not going to give us a place, it gives a refuge, but not a place to hide. A place to hide in God, but not a place to hide from life. And that's what they do. If the friend connects with our heart, the priest inspects our heart. They're just like, "Okay, let's see what's under the surface." They're looking at our motivations, our connections, our associations in that. They're looking at our covenant relationships. They're really asking the question: Are you whole? And are you moving towards holiness, as you would expect a priest to do? And so, that's some of the questions that actually Ahimelech asks. And we'll look at that together in week three. But here's one of them. He says to David, this: He says, "Have the men kept themselves from women?" You know, it's just that it's a question of purity for Ahimelech. He's just saying, "Hey, his covenant relationship, your core, David, are you living holy? Are you living wholehearted?" And if an enemy speaks provocation, and a friend speaks peace, then a priest will speak presence into our life. They'll speak presence into life, but they'll only do it once they're satisfied that we're living in covenant. So, they won't just bless anyone. They'll bless that which is in covenant. And Ahimelech asks those questions about intimate relationships. And the priests will go there. And it's, it's the, it's kind of the joke, isn't it? Or maybe it's the truth, actually. You know, that when you go for counseling, one of the first things they ask you is, "Tell us about your dad," kind of thing. And, and the idea in that is immediately they're looking at an intimate relationship in your life that other people won't ask that question. And almost culturally, that has become the role of the priest as the counselor, a therapist. That's almost what we've done with that. Because we're aware those people are people that we go to uncover our soul. We understand that's the connection we want to deal with the things that are meaning sadness and sabotaging us. And the priest will pierce our soul. And we need that. Our friends, they bring in empathy, and that's what they're about. But the priest is about clarity. And again, I'm going to give you notes in this, guys, so you'll see this as we go. So, be little tables on this. But when you need clarity in your life, you probably don't need to be around your friends. Typically, for most people, our friends are the echo chamber of our heart. They love us. They tell us what they think we think we want to hear. It's just going to repeat that back to us. And that's great when you need empathy. You're like, "Yes, please." And of course, I'm not saying that friends don't have clarity here. Yes, I'm not saying that friends don't have clarity, or priests don't have empathy. Just speaking into the, uh, particular dynamic of the voice that they have in our life. All of us are called to each of these things, but we'll lean in differently. Uh, but the priests bring clarity to that. They hold us accountable. They lift us beyond the shadows of our soul. They're not afraid to go into the dark place with us to see the shadows that have been sabotaging us. I think about a little bit like an inventory of our insides. You're like, "Oh my goodness, that's what's going on here." And you can see why people don't rush to connect with priests, right? It's not like, "Who wants to be around that all the time?" That is no fun at all. David, I'm sure, would much rather have been shooting bone arrows in the field with Jonathan than going to Ahimelech. That's just no fun. And priests, typically, candidly, and I am one, and I say it with, uh, due deference and humor, priests typically, candidly, they are usually not the people that you want to hang out with all the time. You want to go see them periodically. Nobody can stick around that for any length of time. There's an intensity to the level of their conversation. There's an urgency to the level of their conversation. They're forcing us to think about, "Why am I here? What has happened in my life? What do I need to move forward to the future?" A few months ago, I was with a group of peers out in New York City, by this time last year actually. And it was a group of leaders that if I referenced them, you would know them. They're well-known in the church world. And in the conversation about 18 or 20, and we'd split the men and the women, there's about 18 or 20 guys in the room. And one of the guys asked this question for us to look at. He said, "Why, why is it?" And they referenced a few really well-known Christian leaders. And he said, "Why is it that these people are falling all the time? Why are they abandoning marriage, ministry, all that stuff?" And honestly, the answer to that question is because they didn't have a priest in their life. They didn't have somebody asking them the hard questions. Or if they did, they were ignoring the voice of a priest. They weren't actively seeking it out. The voice of the priest just continuously calls us into that accountability. And they're asking this question: "What is it that you're hiding that is destroying you, or at least has the capacity to destroy you? What are you hiding that's destroying you?" So, we need priests in our life. They help us detox from relationships, motivations, and connections that kill destiny. And we need them. If a friend creates a shared space, the priest creates a sacred space. They open that up for us. And I think there's believers all over the earth today who are just stuck because they wanted friends, but wouldn't open their life to the priest. Like, we just wouldn't, uh, just couldn't. And again, we've already said that that not many people line up for that kind of conversation. But here's who does. And this is why this course is called Five Voices of Destiny. People with their heart set on growth seek out those conversations. They're like, "I want to grow. I want everything in my life that could be a hindrance to God's purpose in my life, I want to extract it and remove." And they're, they're like, "Please call me on anything." No, uh, a friend is your, we call it in culture, the three o'clock in the morning call, right? A friend will call you up. But a priest will call you on your stuff. And they'll call you on it all day long. And people who have their heart set on growth, they're like, "Oh my goodness, please call me and my stuff. You see anything in my life that is hindering who God is to me, or is hindering what he has for me, would you just call me on it?" And if a friend in the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and they connect with the heart, I wish we were in the room together, it'd be so much more fun. What do you think the priest is? They're the people who help our soul, right? That's what they're dealing with. They're dealing with our soul. And people with their heart set on growth, they can have this mentality like, "Thank you very much, friend. I can cheerlead my own heart. I don't need you to champion my own. Now, I can do that by myself. I'm good at that. What I need is someone piercing me with the truths that God has for me." So, today, the question is this: Who is the priest in your life? Who loves you enough to lead your soul? Who loves you enough to speak to your relational health, to speak to the company that you're keeping, to speak to the decisions you're making? If you haven't quite figured out who that is, stick around for session three. We're going to unpack that, how you can engage in that. So, we're about half an hour in here. We got a while to go. We're not doing breakouts today, but we do want to do questions. Just want to give you a few moments. The best way to do the questions is just to put them in the little chat box there. It's that little live chat. And as things are surfacing for you, if you have any questions on what we've explored in that section, and partly that's just to give us a little time to digest what we've looked at together already before launching into the voice of the king. But if you have questions right now, you're like, "Gosh, how does that work? What does that look like?" Then go ahead and pop them in the chat there. And they come up for us. We're able to see them. We'll just address those at this point. We'll take about 60 seconds to do that. And if there's nothing in there, very happy just to move on to the next part in looking at the voice of a king and how the voice of a king begins to shape his in terms of our destiny. So, don't be afraid in this. Just jump in if you have anything. Well, Jonathan, that's a, that's a great question. The question is, uh, when I'm hearing the voice of an enemy, how do I position my heart to get the good stuff rather than continue to get beaten up? Man, man, there's a lifetime in that question, Jonathan. Uh, it is challenging, isn't it? It's tricky to do that. To the center, okay. I, I know it's that whole, uh, Joseph thing, isn't it? The enemy means this for evil, but God has hidden something in this. God has hidden purpose in this. I think, as you position your heart in a moment of adversity, or even in a moment of an enemy, I think just determining that you're going to honor the person will actually set you up for your future. And that's one of the beautiful things we see again and again with David. Even when he's on the run from Saul, and Saul is hunting them down, he just continually leans in with honor. And that positioning of his heart means that the enemy, in truth, everything the enemy does, and we're going to unpack this next week, Jonathan, but in truth, everything the enemy does only makes us bigger if our heart has the right posture. And Jesus talks about this, and he says, you know, you're blessed. You're blessed when people insult you and they persecute you, saying, actually, that becomes this avenue for greater grace to rest upon our life. You're absolutely right. That depends on the posture of our hearts in that moment. So, the critical one in that, Jonathan, for me, over the years, has been honor. And if we can lean in with honor in those moments, it just sets us up for a better future. So, I would start there, my friend. Uh, Paul, do you intentionally name these positions with specific people? Not usually, Paul. But I, I have in, in my locker, have an awareness now. And it's actually only in clarifying this over the last probably two years that this has become really, um, honestly, exponential in, in my life. So, I won't say to someone, "I'm now the voice of a king for you." But I'll know in a conversation, by the question that they're asking me, what voice they need in that season. So, I'll be able to decide, "Oh, that's the question they have. So, what they're really asking for here is this." And actually, for those of you who are in pastoral ministry, and those of you on the call, actually, that's a, that's a gift to be able to discern the question that people are actually asking and to answer with the voice that unlocks the season for them. Because whenever people are stuck, whenever they're stuck, it's because there's a conversation they're not having. And often, the conversation that they know to have is the only conversation they've been exposed to. Now, I know that sounds a little bit like Mr. Miyagi says, like Yoda or something like that. That is true. The only conversations that we know are the conversations we've been exposed to. I'll give you an example of that this week, uh, or last week in, in work, we had a staff transition. It wasn't something that we had planned. It's a beautiful transition. But I realized, man, this person, they had come to our staff in a season of full-on surrender. So, you come into our staff meeting where you're like, you're dropping everything at the door. Like, there's no, it's just, "Holy unto the Lord." And we realized, "Oh my goodness, this person is in a season right now where, um, we, we're just, um, awakening people everywhere to their wounds. But they're actually in a season where God is awakening them to their wealth." And what we're going to discover together is actually the shadow of the last season is often most resistant to the next season. It's the one that you've been in that most resists the one you're going to. That's why we get stuck. And I realized, "Oh, that was just a seasonal mismatch." And that God is blessing them in enormous ways. And I didn't, Satan in that moment, Paul, you need the voice of a king. But everything I did set him up in that way. I approached that conversation rather than making him feel guilty for leaving our team, and he hadn't been there that long, and all that stuff. Just launched him with kingly authority and permission in that. So, yeah, don't name them, but be aware of them. Have them there in, in your locker. Which brings us nicely, actually, to almost a segway into the voice of a king, and how does the voice of a king operate? We just said the movie that actually you stay in a season too long, you stay with the priests too long, and they're going to suffocate your destiny. They're going to be inspecting your innards the rest of your days. They love doing that stuff. And it cuts off our drive, our holy ambition. Actually, one of the most difficult parts for me in the last couple of years is I had spent so long in a posture of surrender that I had zero ambition in my life. Which, in a priest mode, you're like, "That's the holy grail. That's what you want." But actually, in a life mode, you actually need some ambition, even if it's godly ambition. You need something in there that moves you forward, otherwise you get stuck. And so, you know, when it's time to move on from the conversation of the priest, you want to move towards the conversation with the king. And that's what David does. David leaves the priest's presence, and we'll cover this in a couple of weeks' time. He leaves it with bread and with a sword. And you want to make sure that when you exit a season, your exit from a season is as important as your entrance to the season. In other words, you want to make sure you pick up the nutrients of every season, the ingredients of every season. David is beginning to move on. He has killed the giant. He's now been to the priest, and he has learned the giants that are lurking in his own soul. He's embracing his humanity at a deeper level. He picks up the sword. He's going to travel with that. He's explored and he's been to the depths of his soul, but he hasn't explored the fullness of his story. And that's what the voice of the king is going to awaken him to, the fullness of his story in that. There's a growing potential on his life. And so, David rose and fled that day from Saul, and he went to King Achish of Gath. And the servants said to him, "Achish, they said, 'Is this not David, the king of the land?'" And again, I wish we were in the room for this moment, because I would ask you, "Was David the king of the land?" And you'd say, "No, actually, he wasn't." And what's happening here is David has just come into an environment of kingdom domain that's going to awaken him to the kingship resting on his life. It's so funny that David has to leave what he's known.

And the community that surrounded him all his life to discover his kingly authority in a fresh way. It's a long time since the prophet spoke over a long time since Samuel spoke over his life. And what they're saying in that moment is, "David, and what king says is, 'You carry the same thing as me. There's something at your core where you're designed to shape the world. There's something on you. There's a greatness on your life, and you carry it. There's authority.'"

And if the friend speaks empathy and speaks to her family, brings empathy and speaks to the family, and the priest brings clarity and speaks to her history, the king brings authority into her life. Now, I'm going to use the king here. It's a gender-neutral term. I'm speaking of it as the typology. But the king speaks and brings authority into life and speaks into our destiny. They give us refuge from our enemies, and they create a boundary around us for us to discover who we are. They give us refuge from those voices, those insecurities, those things that have haunted us throughout our life, and they give us refuge for fresh discovery. This is actually, in some ways, the place where the excavation of the healthy part of your soul happens.

Now, with the priest, they're going to bring us to that place, and they do it beautifully. But what the king does is they actually explore the dreams and desires of your heart that have been lurking in there. I often find with believers, actually, that there has been a heightened surrender in their souls, and they end up cutting off some of the things that God has written in them to bring them into the future because they're afraid that somehow, if they desire it, it couldn't be God. That's a whole different thing for another time. But what the kings do is they take us to a place of excavation in our soul where we recognize our own voice again. Like, "Oh, that's right. That's what I'm called to do. That's who I'm called to be."

And kings discern your difference. We're going to look at this together in week four, and man, am I excited about that. They speak to what rests on your life that sets you apart from others. Now, I want to encourage you just for a moment to even think about this personally. What is your uniqueness? What is your difference? What enters the room when you enter and leaves when you leave? What's your difference? Because often, others can discern a difference, but we don't always know what it is. And the people who are best at helping us understand that difference is the voice of a king.

The voice of a king comes into our life, and they speak to a difference. A friend will speak to your brilliance. They'll just say, "Oh, you're brilliant. You're brilliant." You could fail miserably in front of your friends, and they'll be like, "We love you. You're brilliant. You're brilliant." A priest will speak to your offense. They'll say, "Here's where you're holding something against someone. You need to get that cleaned and cleared and cleansed and moved forward. This is hindering." And of course, these are general. But the king will speak to your difference. They'll just speak to your differences.

So here's what they say. They sing this, or they speak this little refrain over them. They actually sing David's song. They say, "Saul has killed the thousands." Again, this is the enemy kingdom. Here, David, he's a whole different guy altogether. He has killed tens of thousands. And what they're saying is, "Man, Saul was a king, but this guy's kingdom, it goes way beyond that dimension. What rests in this guy?"

So here's David in sheer terror for his life. We'll talk about that. He's in sheer terror for his life. And all the while, God is confirming his kingship through strangers. Man, this is the guy. He's killed thousands. Kings, you know when you're with a king because they call you into that uniqueness. They say, "This is what you're designed to do." My friend will see that, but they'll see it in a different way. They will see it and they will try to speak to it. But here's the difficulty with that: friends don't have one, the safety to do that; two, they don't have the authority to do it. They're not actually excelling in the area of your calling.

But a king can call kings because a king is a king. And so they have authority to call us into that, and they have the credibility to do that in our life. Um, we know this, don't we? We're all believers. And the calls, you were to take for a moment your favorite speaker in the world, whoever that is. It might be, um, one of them's actually on the call with us today, Andrea Wigglesworth. Love Andrea. Stunning. One of my favorite speakers in the world. Um, it might be Christine Caine, or maybe Joyce Meyer, or it could be, I don't know, Steven Furtick, or whoever it is. And you show up at your local church, and the minister is speaking. And if they're speaking, but then if Steven Furtick were to come and to give exactly the same talk, like they might change nothing, you would think the talk was like a hundred times better because it's Steven Furtick. Like, you listen more. If Bill Johnson is saying it, you're listening more. And all that. And that's because they are king in your world. You've given them that place to awaken you in that dimension, and they have credibility.

A friend could say the same thing. "You just need to change that." You might have been saying it for a long time to a friend, but they listen to one talk by, I don't know, Robert Madu, and they're like, "Okay, that's it. I need to change that." And you realize, "Oh, they've just encountered the voice of a king." Permission-giving for his friends lack the wisdom, and they lack the kingdom authority. They lack the boundary structure, actually, and they're too emotionally entangled and entwined with you. They just can't bring that. And that's again, partly, guys, why I wanted to create this course. And this is just this recognition that actually, because of all those factors, we're actually overburdening our friendships. We're expecting our friends to be all these things to us, and we end up with broken relationships because we get disappointed and frustrated. We end up saying things like, "My friends don't understand me." No, you don't understand what's a friend and what's a king and what's a priest. And you're loading up the five expectations into the one person. That's just challenging and tricky to do that. So we want to be careful in that.

A friend, a king will say, "Hey, this is what lies before you." And so the beauty of the kings is that they know your story, but they're not in all of it. Kings are not impressed. They're not impressed by who we are because they're kings. Why would they be impressed with who we are? So they're not in all of the story. Our status and our celebrity doesn't actually matter to them. It doesn't matter to them that you've slain ten thousand. So have they. Just not impressed by any of that stuff. Doesn't matter how gifted we are. They're not threatened by our greatness. And that's why they can give us permission because they're not threatened by the greatness resting in our life. Friends can be, can they? If we're honest, they can be a little competitive with us. Priests are certainly threatened by greatness. They feel there's something almost unholy about it. Like, "You want to make an impact? No, no, humble yourself under God's mighty hand." Right? It's just a different, different thing. And so our status of success, of significance, doesn't really matter in that sense. Or history. And that doesn't matter to the king.

And because of that, what a king does is they will expose. They will expose the greatness in our life. In other words, they'll call us to stop hiding our life. They'll call us to a place of renewed exposure. We're like, "You need to get out there and start shining." Priests will say, "You need to stay here and stop sinning." I'm joking, but it's close, right? Things like, "Get out there, start shining." The king gives us the courage to stop hiding our heart and to quit running from our brilliance. Aren't you so grateful for the people in your life who have stepped in in those moments and just called you up? Just called you up into more. Don't just call you on the phone. You don't just call you in your stuff, but they call you up into more. And they have, perhaps more than any other, an unusual ability to bridge our history and their destiny. They see how those things connect together. They engage our leadership for our future. They give us permission, as I've mentioned, to run after what God has written in our hearts. To give us permission to engage our influence without the fear of arrogance. So actually, that's not arrogant. That's actually influence, and you're called to steward that, and you're called to run with that.

And so the voice of a king calls us and causes us to tear up the old scripts in our mind and in our life, and they call us to live with a new script. And again, we're going to look at this in week four. And that new script is your inscription. And because the king tears up the old script, what they do is they reposition our mind. I remember when I hadn't long moved here, and I remember grieving just leaving Northern Ireland, just love the community there and the people there. Remember grieving it. I remember being before the Father. I remember him saying to me, "Son, your issue isn't that your heart is stuck in Ireland. Your issue is that your head is stuck in Glasgow." I thought, "What do you mean?" He said, "Your issue is not just repeated it again. It's not that your heart is stuck in Ireland. Your issue is your head is stuck in Glasgow. You still see yourself as that wee boy, and you're still running those old scripts and those old voices and all of that. You need to see yourself differently." And it was a call to reposition my mind, to renew my mind. And that's what kings do when they speak into our life. They help us reposition our mind. They start to say this: "You're not who you were. You're not yet who you are, but you're not who you were." And they give us the confidence to embrace that.

These searches, I love this. This is a T.D. Jakes phrase. Talk about a king, but this is what he says. He says, "This helps us search through the archaeology of our ambition." That's just a stunning phrase right there. In other words, they excavate all of it to see what of that is hidden there by the Father, and they help us run with that. And conversations with kings, they schedule new seasons. Each of these schedules new seasons in our life. The first conversation with a priest will schedule a new season. Let me give you an example of that culturally, actually. See it denominationally. In the movement that I'm part of, there's a big movement in the particular denomination that I'm in towards spiritual direction, which I, as a priest, I'm only ever going to applaud that. That's a beautiful thing. But what happens within that is that takes one person having that first conversation, and it schedules a whole season for an individual, or sometimes a people group, or sometimes a whole denomination. Everybody begins moving towards that.

And then what happens as we come out of that season? There's certain people in my life who are the voice of a king to me. I have a friend, and I go to him every time when I'm just afraid and I need permission to own that. A couple of friends, actually. One of my friends lives here in the US, and he's both a king and a warrior to me. And I've come to him. There's some things that I'll come to him with, and it'll just be really helpful for me in the sounding. Kings are wondering, "What is it that you uniquely carry for the earth? What is it that you uniquely carry for the earth?" And they push us from restriction to permission, and they help us to live with whole-hearted, full-throated permission. Like, "Just all out there." They speak into where you're going and who you're becoming. And again, they just give you that place of rest to connect with the desires of your heart.

But of course, the conversation with the king, like the other conversations, is unsettling at one level. There's a bold authority at the heart of a king. It's not for the mediocre or for those afraid of exposure. It is for the conqueror. King is going to awaken us to our wealth. So today, you want to ask the question: Who respects you enough to reach beyond your reputation, your status, your past accomplishments, and lead you towards your fulfillment? Who is that person in your life? We leave the king's presence with renewed confidence in our identity and our authority. So king's awakening, we have clarity and renewed energy. Let me again then just highlight that briefly in the grid. You discern the voice of a king based on the repositioning of your mind and the influence resting on your life. Their voice wakens you to your wealth, and it is the voice of freedom in your life. I should have said, actually, that the voice of the priest is the voice of healing in your life. The voice of the priest is the voice of healing in your life. But the voice of the king is the voice of freedom.

And again, we've got a little bit of time left, guys. We're going to jump. David moves from that moment, and he leaves the king's presence, and it's time for the conversation with the warrior that's before we jump in there. Think for a moment in that, just on, um, who that would be in modern culture, right? Who would symbolize that? And often, you'll hear people talk about their mentors. But if you're putting it in a role of a vocation, this would be the equivalent of a life coach. That's kind of what they would do in that moment. I just realized, actually, time-wise, it is going a long array of knots. It's an hour in, and we're not, we're not yet not that yet. So we'll have the voicemail warrior. We may leave the prophetic voice today.

David ends up in the cave then with a group of ragtag bunch. The Bible says he became their captain, which means he begins to think of them as, "This is my army. This is my warfare. These are the people I'm going to make and go to war with." And that kings awaken our greatness, but warriors focus our strengths. That's what they do. It's a different quality. They come with us on a journey of discovery and growth. Like, "Yeah, let's take that. Let's go on that journey." They remind us again and again, "There's a conqueror in you, David. You're not just running from Saul today. You're running towards a new destiny. Let's get after it. Let's go for it together. Let's expand it together."

Today, if a king brings exposure and a priest brings surrender, then the warrior brings adventure. They're like, "Let's go. Are we going to win? We have no idea. But better to die giving it a goal than not to go for it." All right, that's the warrior mentality. They're like, "We leave it all out in the field. We may not make it home tonight, but man, we have given it everything." It's just a warrior mentality. They fight for you. They fell alongside you. Friends call you. Priests call you out. Kings call you up. And warriors call you forward. Like, "Come on, come on. Let's do this. Let's move with this."

The one thing about a warrior, we've touched on a couple of times, is they will not allow you to stay stuck. Like, like in each of these, as we go through each week, there's certain things that if you do it, you will disqualify yourself from the relationship with that voice. Um, one of the things, for example, with a warrior, if if they are encouraging activity and you stay passive, if you're a passive person around a warrior, they will just disqualify you. They will not give you their time, energy, or focus. Likewise with a king, if they give you an instruction to do something, they're like, "Hey, go for it," and you don't do it, and you think it's okay, "I'll come back to them." You just disqualified yourself from your relationship. They won't come around to you a second time. They're kings. They're busy people. They've got kingdoms to manage and to govern. You get one crack at it, really, and you need to take what they say seriously and move it forward in your life if you want to continue that relationship. And in that, and likewise with the priest, if you betray covenant, that's it. They're like, "Yeah, you just, you just violated covenant there. That's just gone." And the one that's different is the friend. They're like, "That doesn't matter. I forgive you. Doesn't matter if you don't say, 'I don't want to be controlling you. I just want to connect with you.' Oh, stay where you are. I love who you are. Let's watch. Let's watch a movie, eat popcorn, do all that kind of stuff, right?" Just different, different things.

Warriors enable us to claim our strengths, and when they speak into life, something emerges that says, "I was born for this challenge. I was made for this." It's like their voice is different to all the others. The awakeness to the challenge around us and the warrior within us. And they are commissioned and appointed as the voice of God to establish us in our assignment. So the voice of the enemy comes as a voice of confinement in our lives. The voice of a friend comes at a time of movement in our lives. The voice of a priest comes as the voice of covenant in our lives. The voice of a king is the voice of enlargement in our life, and the voice of the warrior is the voice of establishment. They help us get established in the territory that God has for us.

Through the prophecy way back when, and again, we just need to know when to engage. They desire the best for us and they demand the best from us. So they, they're pretty, they're pretty demanding people. They're the people we least want to be around. And don't mean to be unkind or unfair. It's just recognizing the voices. These are guys you least want to be around when you're on sabbatical, unless you just want to have fun and go paragliding or something of that nature, then it's terrific. But if you're, if you need a season of rest, and you're weary, you probably don't want to go near the warrior. Uh, I have a friend in this, and I won't mention his name. He's a dear friend of mine, um, but he, we call him affectionately the Jedi Master, and he is just a warrior to his core. It's like, it's like we, we don't have any conversations that are intimate conversations about life. It's just all about, "What hell are we taking? How is the war going?" It's just stories of how the war went that particular day. It's like it reminds me of those warriors in the movies that you see that they would come back, and their conversations just happen as they eat the food and discuss the story of what they thought that day. And it's just important to recognize that warriors actually help us in those ways, and they help us live with impact.

So king gives you permission, but it hasn't established anything. It's warriors who help us live with the impact on our lives. When they're missing from our lives, we lose our edge and our growth, and we go over the same territory again and again. And so, uh, how your community is the question they ask. "How will your community be different because of your actions? What will you do?" It's, yeah, that's a different thing. But we need the voice of the warrior to move us beyond frustration and into action. And so today, who is the warrior in your life? Who loves you enough to lead your strength, to speak to your passion, to call out your indecision, to ignore your protestation, and to confront your apathy? He'll do that with you. Who reminds you that the uncommitted life is not worth living? Like, who's the person that comes alongside you and helps you with that?

Now, I'm going to hold the voice of the prophet here because I do want to make it open for, uh, questions. We've got a decent amount of time left, so if you have your questions there, go ahead and pop them in the chat box. And if there aren't any, I'm very happy to dive into the voice of the prophet. But again, I just want to create a little space because we're not doing breakouts today. I just want to give you a little space in this moment for questions that might be arising in that. Even to digest some of that material. And again, if there isn't anything, very happy to jump into the voice of the prophet. But if you have one there, go ahead and put it in the chat box, and we can all see it, and we'll do our best to look at that together. While you're, while you're working on that, let me, let me give you an example of living with impact.

I went to see a guy a couple of years ago, and I had an invitation to make, uh, there's a company called TDN, forget what it stands for, some kind of, uh, TV program in the UK that asked me if I would do like eight shows for them. They wanted me to do eight shows. And because I'm a priest, my default is to be afraid of exposure. I don't want anything in my life that gives me visibility. I recoil from it. It's just not my default position. Um, and because of my priest, I question the motivations of people who ask me those kind of things. Like, "Would you do TV programs?" And being very vulnerable with you guys in it. And because I'm a priest, I don't always trust my decisions in those moments because I know those filters are over me. So I go looking for a king in those moments. I went to see my friend in it, and I just explore it with him. I lay it all out. And he just keeps coming back to, "You know, what's in your heart? What do you want to do? Do you want to do this? This is something you'd love to do?" And I'm like, "No, I would hate that. It's just going to make me more well-known. I don't want to be well-known. I want to be less known." And he just takes me through the whole thing. And eventually, he brings me to a place of health in it where I can look at it as, "Man, this amazing opportunity." And I have permission to run with this and to explore this. But actually, this isn't aligned to my assignment right now, and it isn't aligned with my desires. And he just gives me the space, the safe boundaries. Whereas like, I didn't really have a safe community I could process that. You can't say that to people in your church because it sounds like you're boasting about being on TV. And then you can't be saying, "Why I'm not a boaster, I hide." It just, it just sounds way too awkward. You just need a safe place to process that. And, uh, each of us need those kind of conversations with different people.

So let's pick up a couple of the questions. "Are spouses?" "Spicy's too close." Lisa, it's a great question. "Will communicate?" So it just depends on your particular spouse. By which I mean, my wife is a friend. So if I ask Catherine anything, she's not actually on the call today. I know it looks like she is. It's just me. I've got her computer set up because this one crashed yesterday in a different network. So I have her set up to do that. But my wife's afraid. Which means, and I say to Catherine, "How do you think that went?" She'll just say, "That was amazing. That was amazing." And as a priest, that's useless to me. I don't want to. I want to grow. Like, I want to be examined and inspected and helped so that I can learn. I want to process. So know, know who your spouse is in that. They will have one voice. Pity Catherine because she lives with a priest. It's like, man, constantly examined, constantly inspected, all of that. "Are you sure you want to hang out with these people? Do you know this is going on in their life?" It's like, "I forgot to say, I just want to go hang out with them. I don't want to process their whole life journey." Just know, just know who you are, Lisa, and know what your spouse is. If your spouse is a king, you're blessed. And your spouse is the king. You know they're going to give you lots of permission and lots of freedom. And if you're living with a warrior, just don't expect them to be very good when you're sick. Like, just expect them, if you start feeling ill, just expect them to say, "I'll see you in a few days. Good luck. Good luck." And recognize with that. So they're not too close. In fact, they've always, everybody is, each of these voices, these are typologies in that. And of course, each of us wear different hats and hearts at different times, but they will have a preferred mode that they engage with. And by now, you've probably discovered which that is in yours.

"Can we play different roles for different people?" Yes, absolutely, Hannah. "Or do we tend to stay in one time?" We can. And I think that's the skills, actually, that we are going to learn together in this course, a little bit. I don't want to over-sell that, but a little bit. You're going to learn how to do that with different people and the different voice that they need for the season they're in. That's why recognizing the season that someone's in is so important. Also, listening to the questions that they have is really essential in that, so that you can begin to ask the question, you know, "Are they needing to process pain from the past? Is there a question about a barrier that they're facing?" That'll immediately kick you into priest mode. Like, "Yes, I gotta help them here overcome this." "If they're, are they being sabotaged by a shadow mission?" There's all sorts of questions. And those questions will actually help you trigger what different role you need to play for that person. Because the goal isn't for you to stay in a zone or a type. The goal is to serve the person so their destiny is formed. And, um, that's just helpful in that. You know, where, uh, you can see this is, uh, let me give you an example in this. I hope this isn't offensive. It's just the example that comes to my heart. I've used it before. Let me give you an example of a person going through a divorce.

The divorce is the enemy in their world, right? It's whatever has contributed to that has shattered their world. Nobody starts out getting married wanting to be divorced, right? That's not the goal. So let's just say they go through this moment of severe disruption and dislocation in their life, and they go through that moment and they're processing all of it, and all the rancor, and all the difficulties, and all just the hardship of leaving their home, and all that kind of moment. They go from there. The first people they're going to connect with on their journey is just friends. You're going to be like, "Yeah, I just need a place here where I can connect my heart. I just need people who won't judge what I've done, who are just going to be there for me, and who will weep with me. I'm grieving what I've lost here, or who will celebrate with me. I'm celebrating the end of this." Wherever they are in that process, they're going to work through that. And of course, something like divorce, it affects status, it affects our relationships, it affects all those. I'm not making a value comment here, making a processing analysis, uh, viewpoint. They go through that in the friends.

But eventually, we realize, you know what? I've got to process some of the wounds. I realize if I don't want to be bitter against women in the future, or men in the future, or whatever it is, I got to process some of the pain in my heart because I will carry this back forward into the next relationships that I engage in. And so they begin to go for a priest. Often they'll go for therapy. Often they'll start to ask their friends, "What do you think I should do?" Actually, sadly, what most people do nowadays is they Google. That's what they do. Google has become our therapist, or king, or warrior. They Google. Those are the questions that they ask. But they'll process some of the pain in their hearts, some of the wounds. And you know what I do with my kids? They're really struggling, and they'll ask priestly questions around that. And then they'll come to a place where the wounds no longer confine or define them. And I'm doing this very quickly to give you an analogy. They'll come to that place, and perhaps not saying this is universal, but perhaps actually a desire will begin to enter their heart where they're wrestling loneliness to the ground. They process that, and they may find themselves with a desire to really engage in relationship with someone else. But perhaps now it's been a while since they dated. Maybe been years since they've been in dating, and they find themselves lacking the confidence to do that. They don't know quite how to position their life to do that, and they wonder what they have to offer that person, or how they could possibly have value. They don't recognize their wealth anymore. They've been wounded and they've been weakened by the voices around their life.

And a king will come into their life and begin to say, "You know what? You have so much to offer someone." And they begin to build their confidence. They begin to give them permission so that they can start to step out with confidence. You know, and help them perhaps. And their friends will gather and do babysitting or whatever it is, but the king will help them just step with permission and freedom. Actually, it's okay for you to love again. That's a good thing. It's healthy for you to love again. Just give them that permission to own the desires of their heart. And then the warrior, in that moment, they'll be the person who wants to hear all about the relationship and how it's going, of course, the friend will too. And they'll help them take the next steps when they're a little bit stuck in that moment. We're entering that new relationship, but they're afraid to commit a little more. They're like, "I've been on three dates. I don't know if I should go on a fourth." And a warrior's like, "What's stopping you? Get on with it. He's a babe. Look at her. She's amazing." They, they're the people giving that kind of counsel. And I know it's not a fail-safe analogy, but it gives you a little bit of an example.

And a prophet will come in, and he'll actually, or she will immerse that story, that new story. They'll baptize it with the story of God. They'll come alongside and begin to say, "Here's how this story connects with God's good future in your life." And in each of those, very whistle-stop, there's a little example of how someone, you see it in culture, they will go through that process in their life. Now, sadly for us, they process that with media. They process that on social media. They process it in Google. They process it with Oprah. They won't have actual relationships in their life. They process it. I believe that's a kingdom tragedy, and the destiny formation should happen within the community of God.

So guys, I don't see any other questions either. That means that, um, I have explained it expertly, and all of your questions are just with the insight, the sheer insight and sheer brilliance of a priest, I've answered every question you possibly might have. Or, in fact, I've overloaded you with content. Your brains are a little bit fried in this moment. I want to encourage you. We're going to do notes as we go through this. We're going to break it down. And today, we're just finished. I believe I get a little bit confused, but I think what you to finish at 8:50. It's 8:44. So we have room for one last question if you want to put it in there. Otherwise, I'm going to pray, and we'll pick up next week with the voice of a friend and an enemy. We'll take those together, and we'll look at how those impact our lives. But we have room for one more if you want to stick it in. Now is your moment. And if not, then, uh, let's pray together and minister. Going once, going twice, gone.

Let's pray together. Father, we are deeply grateful. We recognize that in every voice we seek, we are truly only fully seeking your voice. That you are unto us, God. You are the friend. He said, "I'm going to send the friend." I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. I pray today, Father, would you send a friend to each person on this course, to each one on this call today? Would you send a friend, the comforter, the cheerleader, the encourager, the one who strengthens us? Would you send the friend today? Jesus, we thank you today. You are our great high priest. That you're not unable to sympathize with our wounds or weakness, but you have been wounded. You're the one who was wounded for our transgressions. You were pierced for us. And we recognize that you know our wounds. You see the wounds in our hearts today. Would you come as the great priest and would you begin to bring your healing over our souls? Would you awaken us to the areas of our wounds? And would your leaders be on those today? Thank you that you are the King of Kings. You're the king of all kings. Today, I pray for your voice and authority over those who today are aware that this is a season of fresh wealth for them, a season of fresh favor for them, a season of new permission for them. God, would you awaken them to their wealth? Would you come? Would you speak immediately to them? But would you also speak through others to them? God, would you awaken them to who they are? I speak over you today. I declare that God has written an inscription in your soul. That God has put something in you that the community around you needs. That there's a divine design for your life, a uniqueness and a greatness to your story. I call you out from being afraid of it. I call you into more, into new position in that. God, would you speak as the King of Kings over today?

The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is his name, so it has been sung in days of old. When you march before your people in victory, you're the God who establishes. He establishes us in victory today. And thank you that God, you're a warrior. Let the voice of the warrior in these days come over our souls. Let it strengthen us. Let it be with us. Let it add to your strength today. I pray for each one of you today. Lacks courage. That your courage would come over and be expressed in them. And Father, I pray that you would give us the spirit of insight and discernment and knowing the season that we're in and the conversation that is to be hosted in that season. Would you give us wisdom and understanding? You've said, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you with my eye upon you." So I see it today. I see by the Spirit of the Lord, I see some of you taking a new step today. I see stepping out tentatively. I see some of you where the Lord has just orchestrated your circumstances in this moment where there's some fresh favor coming to you, and you're just being tentative to take the step. And I just hear the pleasure of the Father over you saying, "Go for it, my daughter. Go for it. Go for it." Just the courage of heaven enters your heart. I see others who are confused and fractured in this season, unsure of what to do, unsure of where to turn. And I hear the voice of Jesus say, "Come aside, rest a while. Rest a while." So, Lord, wherever we are today on the journey, would you speak over us? We release fresh grace, fresh peace today for the journey. In Jesus' name, and amen.

Guys, so grateful to be journeying this with you. Cannot wait to engage through this, particularly over the next coming weeks. And if you do, if there's one or two questions that you have, maybe even this week, be thinking about those, and, uh, we'll reach out to you just with details in the next room. James will connect with you on that. Otherwise, wherever you are, whatever time of day it is, the sun is just beginning to poke its head through in California. Wherever you are, may God bless you tonight or today. May His peace rest upon you, and we'll see you next week.