Video Transcript: Connection 1 - God

All right, welcome to the communication effective communication class. And  over the next several sessions, we're going to be looking at the seven  connections, hopefully you remember them from the Getting Started class.  These are the seven most important connections that any person has in their  life. And certainly, as I said, In the beginning, communication is really about  connection, connection to the people around you. And so I thought, let's spend a little bit of time talking about these important connections, as it relates to  communication. So in this session, we're going to look at connection one, which  is the most important connection, that's your connection to God. The fact that we can actually communicate with God is amazing. If you think of God as the One  Who created the heavens and the earth, the galaxies, the nebula, all this, I  mean, as far as, as far out, as we can see with telos, God created all of that.  And then in that sea of the universe is this tiny, infinitesimal speck of dust we call the earth. And then there's you this incredibly small speck of dust on this speck  of dust, your life and yet you can communicate to the God who created all of  this, you can talk, you can listen, okay? Basic Communication path to God, the  basic communication path to God is the basic communication paths to anyone.  If you want to communicate, if you want to connect with anyone, it takes these  three things. First of all, it takes talking and want to connect with God it takes  talking to God, it takes listening to God and you have to do it repeatedly. Talking, listening repeatedly. Now we have a special terms for these. We have a special  term for talking to God. We call it prayer. Prayer to God, we can give him our  needs, our hurts, our pains. We can tell him our frustrations, we can give our  praise, we can give our thanks. We can, we can moan we can groan we don't  even need have to use words in our prayers and God listens. Listening. There  are many ways to listen to God. You can listen to God to His creation. You can  listen to hear what God is saying to other people. But the most consistent way,  most trustworthy way to listen to God is through His Word, the Bible. So we  have prayer, we have Bible. Now in Christian in the Christian world, when we  put those two together prayer and Bible, we have another term for instead of  repeatedly, we call it devotions. devotions is the repeated pattern of talking,  listening to God through prayer, and Bible reading. This is the most consistent,  Path, this isn't just one little add on that a Christian should have this should be  your main tool for communicating with God. What do you need to succeed? A lot of people try devotions for a time and then they quit and they fail and they start  again, and they quit and they fail. New Year's resolutions are filled with Lord help me be more consistent in my devotional life, what do you actually need to  succeed in this? Number one, you need a path? In other words, you need  something that you're studying, are you going to read a verse a day? Are you  going to read a chapter a day? Are you following some pattern given to you by  your church? What is the path that you're going to go on? Secondly, you need to stick your path into your schedule. A lot of people fail at their devotions because 

they don't have a schedule. I'm gonna read one chapter of the Bible every single day, and the first morning they get up and read it. Next day, they don't read it in  the morning. They forgot about it and they read it at night. In other words, there's no schedule. Most of life, we need a schedule, you get up in the morning, you  take a shower, you just do it automatically. You have your coffee, you just do it  automatically. You get dressed, you do it automatically. You need to somehow  get a schedule, do it at the same time every day. If you hope to succeed. Third,  you need accountability. We we only do what we are accountable for. If you look  at when you know why people show up on time at work well, because if they  don't, their pay goes down. You're accountable to your boss. So how are you  accountable for the devotions that you do? Is someone keeping track? At our  church, we actually do that. We keep track various different ways we had, we  had a tree. And then, you know, when we complete a book of the Bible, the kids  got a leaf, you know, the Genesis leaf and they put it on their tree. If you don't do Genesis, then you don't get the Genesis leaf. Accountability reward? What's the  reward? I'm not talking about money, but I'm talking about, you know, how do we measure success, you go to school, you work hard, you get a diploma. You go  to work, you work hard to get money. There's some kind of recognition system  that says, yes, you're on the right path, you're doing the right thing. And finally,  you need support. You can't do this on your own. You need other people that are doing the same thing. When there's a whole group of people trying to do  something, you're more likely to succeed. Well, why most do not succeed? This  is the most important habit that we have in life, connecting with God, what's  more important than that? And yet, we fail over and over again. Why do most  not succeeded? Number one, procrastination. We're going to do our devotions.  We're gonna get on top of this, but not today. Not tomorrow, maybe next week,  maybe next month. Number two, were too busy with this, we're busy. How can I  fit this into my schedule? Again, we we do what we really want to do, we can  make our priorities, we have to fit it into our schedule. But if we don't, we always  have more to do in one day than we have day to do it. So if you don't fit  devotions into this, they will always drop off because you're busy with so many  things, mixed up priorities, and you're getting other things done, the the urges,  this has to be done right now. And so I do it, but it's not the most important thing. Life is to good. We have liked to, we're busy with things, we're enjoying  ourselves. And we don't feel the need. devotions not meaningful. I think this is  true for a lot of people, they're doing devotions. They're reading a Bible passage every day or whatever they're doing. They're just going through the motions, it's  not doing anything for them. You sit down with your wife, you read it, you  discuss it for two minutes, you're both in a hurry to go somewhere else. And it  just doesn't do anything for you. Lack of support connections two through six.  Your your marriage partner isn't involved. Your family isn't involved. Your church  isn't involved. You just don't have the support to make it happen. Lack of a 

mission. That's connection seven. If you were sharing your faith with people left,  right and center, you would want God's presence, the sense of God's presence,  you'd want something to share. If you're telling people that they need to start  talking and listening to God, you would definitely stick with talking listening to  God but if you have no mission, you're not sharing with anyone. Well, there's no  need to you know, stick with it yourself. Understanding your communication  senses preference, okay, our senses, sight, smell, hearing and so on. Number  one, do you like reading with your eyes? Can you like reading? Well then find  devotions that are reading intensive? Or you like listening with your ears? Well  then listen to stuff, listen to sermons, listen to things on the internet. Listen to the lectures like this, you like listening? Or maybe you like seeing with your eyes  and listening with your ears. So video is perfect for you. Or you like tasting and  smelling you know light some incense while you're reading the Bible. Some  people need those kinds of things, in order to get themselves to engage in it.  Understanding your communication style. You see God in discussion with  groups. When you're with a group of people, and everyone's talking about what  the passage means to them, it helps you you're engaged, you're you're fully a  part of it. Or maybe you see God in your own personal devotions, you need to  be in a quiet place. And when other people are talking and sharing what they  think it's a distraction for you. Or maybe you see God and contemplation. It's not just studying something. It's like reflecting a word or a phrase and you need to  think about it over and over again. Or maybe you see God in in-depth study. You need to figure out what passages and you need to have commentaries open.  And that's how God communicates to you, you have to have the sense of how  you operate. What works best for you see God in action. Some people have a  hard time sitting, reading the Bible understanding, getting into Bible studies and  all of that they want to do something. They want to see God in action. They want to take the word that the Bible says, in the words become alive when, when  they're doing something. So what style fits, you don't just do devotions, but  figure out what fits you the best ways to pray. A.c.t.s. A.c.t.s. stands for  adoration, confession, thanksgiving supplication or your needs. I remember  when Henry and I first started working together, we made these little A.c.t.s.  prayer sheets, they were little pieces of paper, and we put A adoration,C  confessions, T, Thanksgiving supplication, we had our kids filling those out every single day. It was like a guide, helping them write down what the next day they  do it again the next day, and they do it again. And the act of writing it down  helped them be consistent. The seven connections you can you can take each  connection. So connection, one is your personal walk with God. So now I'm  talking about my personal relationship with God and my prayer, and then the  connection two is marriage, then three is family, then it's my friends in my  support group, then it's church then its kingdom then it's the world. Each  connection, the circle is getting bigger and bigger. And I make my prayer follow 

that pattern. But the Lord's Prayer, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be  thy name. So I'm focused on my praise to God, Thy kingdom come, thy will be  done now, my, my life and what's going on in my life? How do I dedicate what  

I'm doing to God's will give us this day our daily bread? So what do I need?  What are my needs to see and go through the Lord's Prayer, and each phrase  becomes a separate topic. And that topic becomes the topic of my next, the next part of my prayer. Keep a prayer journal. For a while write down everything that  you're putting before God. Write down the answers and keep track of it.  Something different will happen than your normal pattern. Try it for 21 days in a  row. Back in the early days, that's what Henry and I would challenge people do  this for 21 days. It's not working, keep doing for 21 days, we actually gave  people a green sticker, they did it 21 days, they put it right in in their Bible. And  then 42 days, they got the silver sticker. And then 63 days in a row, they got the  gold sticker. You stick with this habit, and then see what happens. Prayer beads, Catholics have been doing this for a long time. That's what the Rosary is.  Rosary is just beads. And each bead has a different prayer. We'll make up your  own. What can each beans, this is my family. This is my marriage. This is my  relationship to God. This is the people at work, you know, you could you could  label these beads. And then that becomes the guide that helps you stick with it.  Put your plans for the for your day before God. A lot of people like to write out to  do lists. Okay? Write out a to do list put to do and then in parentheses, say  prayer list. Because everything you're going to do today is something you want  God to bless God, here's my list. Here's what I want to do. This is my prayer  team. I'm putting it before you. You want me to do something different? Let me  know. Put your fears before God. Put your dreams before God. Put your sins  before God. Put the people in your life before God. You know have a directory  have the people that you care about on your phone. If you have your contact list, you know go through A through E today and then F through G the next day. You  know these people are the people that are important to you. Why not pray for  them? Ways to read the Bible. A verse a day. In a one verse every day, a verse  a week. Bible reading plans, there's so many plans. You can read through the  whole Bible in the year you can read through the New Testament a year. You  can read one chapter a day you can read the Bible in sort of chronological order. There's all these different ways that you can pick a plan or just crack it open for  one week, every day. Just get up and blindly open it up and start reading.  Try it for a week and see what happens. write songs. In our church we probably  have 150 songs that we have written directly right out of the Bible. We don't  diversify them. We take the Bible verse, especially Psalms, it's so easy. If you  want to get started, start with Psalm 100. Because they're almost songs are  ready, come up with the tune, open the Bible and try to see if it fits. So find  different ways. write poetry, write your feelings. Keep a journal, again, all these  different ways that you're trying to make yourself a part of this whole devotional 

experience. Don't just keep doing the same thing and quitting time and time.  Again. Your relationship to God is the most important relationship that you have.  It takes talking, listening, repeated prayer Bible in some form, but don't just give  up. Try different things. Get support, and that's what we're going to talk about  next. In connection two.