{"id":290,"date":"2007-09-14T16:15:27","date_gmt":"2007-09-14T20:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/warm-drink-and-"},"modified":"2017-01-05T16:44:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T16:44:32","slug":"warm-drink-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/warm-drink-and.html","title":{"rendered":"Warm drink and an even warmer conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fb0_mugondesk\"They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?”<\/em> Luke 24:32 (NLT)<\/p>\n

“How can I hear God speak? When I read the Bible it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” Said my new friend as we sat sipping our lattes under a starry sky last night.<\/p>\n

Leaning forward, I answered, “When you go home tonight, before you open your Bible, say this to God: ‘God will you help me understand what I’m about to read in Your Word.’ Then, read until you feel Him stir your heart.”<\/p>\n

“Stir my heart?” My friend interrupted.<\/p>\n

“Yes, I can’t describe it better than that. Keep reading until you feel you have been affected by an insight or understanding. Sometimes you only have to read a couple of verses. Sometimes more. But don’t read like you’re studying. Read asking God to illuminate your understanding. Then, when you feel moved, stop reading and say: ‘God, thanks for helping me to understand Your Word. Now, help me to incorporate this understanding into my life.'”<\/p>\n

“So, it’s that simple?” He asked.<\/p>\n

“It’s that simple. And it’s that hard because you’re going to have to humble yourself to ask God for help.\u00a0 The Bible is a spiritual book and it requires spiritual insight to understand it.” I answered.<\/p>\n

After nearly three hours of warm conversation, our lattes and our evening had run out. But my new friend was still full of questions.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I have more questions now than when we first started talking.” He sighed as we both got up to leave.<\/p>\n

“Good.” I replied. “I didn’t come here to give you answers. I’m sure I don’t know all the answers to your questions. But I do know how to ask God. That’s what I’m praying for you tonight. That God will speak to you.”<\/p>\n

This morning I received an email from my new Starbucks friend. He wrote, “You won’t believe this, I tried what you said last night and started reading the book of Matthew and God spoke to me. I mean, I actually felt a deeper understanding. I can’t wait to get together and talk with you about it!”<\/p>\n

I can’t wait either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32 (NLT) “How can I hear God speak? When I read the Bible it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” Said my new friend as we sat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5384,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/5384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}