Hearing the Voice of God

August 26, 2026 | Noah Sidhom continues his series on Praying Through God's Word focusing on Isaiah 30:21, teaching how God promises to speak personally and specifically to His people. He emphasizes listening for God's voice through the Holy Spirit, aligning with Scripture, and trusting God's guidance in daily decisions.

Show Notes

Noah Sidhom continues his series on Praying Through God's Word by looking at Isaiah 30:21 and discussing how we can hear the voice of God while reading through His word.

What is Chapel Service?

Worship service on Wednesday nights in the Chapel

Hey, thank you so much for being here this evening. I got to meet several new faces out as you guys were walking in. We're in a series on praying God's word. So this semester we're walking just one verse at a time and walking through different verses that we can use in order to use as a template or a guide for our time in prayer. So tonight we're gonna continue with Isaiah chapter 30, verse 21. Before we jump in, let me pray. Lord, I thank you so much for this evening. We thank you for the joy and the privilege of worshiping you. And Lord, truly the greatest thing in all our lives is knowing and serving you. Lord, those are not just lyrics to a song, but that really is our confession and our cry of our hearts this evening. Lord, that we are so grateful for the opportunity you've given us to know you and to hear your voice. And Lord, that you speak to us, you speak with us, you listen to us when we pray. So Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for this joy. I pray that you'd be with us as we open your word tonight, that you would help us to understand how you want us to live, that we would hear your voice tonight. We pray this in the name of Jesus, amen. Tonight we're gonna talk from Isaiah chapter 30, verse 21 on hearing the voice of God. Now, if you were to ask my wife, she would probably tell you I'm not always the best listener. Now, I think I'm pretty good. I don't think I'm like average man, bad listener, but I do hit a threshold. And at a certain point, when I just receive a certain level of information, I just kind of start tuning out and it's difficult for me to process and to discipline myself to really pay attention, especially when it comes to like a text message. If I get a text message that I have to scroll and keep reading it, I'm probably not gonna finish reading it. I'll give you two quick examples of times that maybe I've not paid the most attention in my life. And you'll see that I like to consider myself, I tell my wife all the time, it's not that I'm not paying attention, I'm efficient. I can go through things very quickly, but sometimes that leads to misunderstandings. One time, probably about 12 years ago or so, I was making a hire here at Bellevue and we were getting to the end of the hiring process and it was time to fly the guy in for a final interview just to make sure we really, we're gonna be a good fit. Now he was engaged and maybe about a month or two from being married. And so we flew down his fiance with him since they were gonna be a package deal by the time we were to officially hire him. And they were flying in and I was gonna meet them at the airport and my wife, Rose, was reaching out to his fiance in order just to make contact and encourage and just welcome her to Memphis. And so she sends me a text, says, hey, I'm about to send Sarah, which is the fiance's name, I'm about to send Sarah a text message. Can you check this, just make sure you think this is good. It said something along these lines. Hey, Sarah, I'm looking forward to meeting you and Derek when you get to Memphis, have a safe flight. Looked great to me, so what I do, I write back real quick, looks great. So, so far, so good. Couple hours later, I start heading to the airport to pick them up and I call Rose on the way, said, hey, I'm on my way to the airport to pick up Dylan and Sarah. And she says, you mean Derek and Sarah? And I happened to miss in the text that she asked me to prove that she called the guy the total wrong name. And to this day, she's very unforgiving. To this day, to this day, every time she sends me a text message with anything remotely important, it always starts like this. Please read every word. So, she still hasn't gotten over it when she's still working on that. Second example comes once again, like when Rose would send me to the grocery store for one or two things. I actually do pretty good with long lists, but it's the short list I don't feel like I need to write down that I usually struggle with. And I pride myself on how quickly I can hear what's needed, get out the door, get to the store, and get home with said item. Well, one time, we had some friends coming over and we were making a Greek chicken recipe. And we love to use this seasoning, Cavendish All-Purpose Greek Seasoning. Has anybody used that? I love that seasoning. Whenever I go to the store and see it, I always buy them out. So, if you can never find them at Kroger, it's probably my fault because I'm always buying them out. So, we were totally out of it this day and they were coming over in a few hours. So, I went to the store to get more Greek seasoning, but they were totally out of the brand that we normally get. And so, I quickly scan just up and down. My worst nightmare is trying to find a spice in those. I never understand how they're organized because it's not alphabetically, no matter how much some people say that it is. So, I'm scanning. I finally find a replacement, different brand. I take it home. I cook. It tastes a little different, but it was still good. And we had a good time that night. Well, the next day I get a text from my wife with a picture. And she says, do you know this says greens seasoning, not Greek seasoning? Well, in my defense, you can imagine if that was turned ever so slightly and you saw G-R-E-E and you were looking for Greek seasoning, it's a no brainer at all. But I'll tell you this, it tastes just like Greek seasoning. So, I don't know. I don't know what the difference is, but it totally worked out. So, I admit I'm not always the best listener. And sometimes I move too quickly in order to catch the details that I need to pay attention to. And while these are funny examples, not listening can sometimes carry great consequences. Sometimes you can miss some important instructions, some important details that you need to pay attention to. And now as important as it is for me to listen to my wife and to pay attention when I'm buying from the store, how much more important is it for us to listen to the Lord? And whether we admit it or not, sometimes we move too quickly in our lives in order to hear God speak to us. And sometimes we're moving so quickly that either we don't wait to hear God speak or sometimes we're moving a little too quickly and we mishear what he is wanting us to do. Do you know the Lord likes to talk? Pastor Steve used to say all the time that God is a talker. Here's the question. Are you a good listener? Are you good at listening to what the Lord has to say or are you too busy to take time to hear what the Lord has to say to you? I know, I believe all of us want to know God's will for our lives so often we're seek and we want to know what it is that God wants us to do, how he wants us to act, what he wants us to know. But are we going to discipline ourselves to take the time to listen and to pay attention to the details? We're going to talk tonight about what the Bible says about how we can hear God's voice, how we can expect to hear God's voice and what we can do when we hear God's voice. And we're going to look, I love, this is why we're walking through this semester of praying God's word. This verse is a great way that teaches us how God speaks to us but it's a great promise that we can pray back to the Lord as well. The big idea tonight is this, God is speaking, are you listening? It's not a question of if God is speaking, he is speaking, are you listening? We'll jump in tonight with Isaiah chapter 30 verse 21. God is speaking and he says this, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way, walk in it. When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Now contextually, when we look at this verse, we see Isaiah is talking to Judah. The nation of Israel has experienced a civil war and they are split. There's the northern kingdom nation of Israel which is a much larger kingdom. And then there is the southern nation of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital, much smaller. But for the most part, the northern kings were continually wicked just over and over again. From start to finish, they had wicked kings who did not follow the Lord. The southern nation of Judah though, for the most part, they really did try to follow the Lord at times, but they had some kings that would pop up here and there that were wicked. But they had many kings that really did seek to follow the Lord. But in the midst of this situation, they were not listening to the voice of the Lord. In fact, they were going in this context of Isaiah chapter 30, they were going and seeking an alliance with Egypt. They were needing help and they were fearful for attacks from enemies. And so they were going to Egypt and asking Egypt to protect them. And they wanted comfort from God's prophets. So Isaiah would speak to them and they would reject the words of Isaiah. They did not want to hear correction. They wanted comfort. They wanted to be told that they were right. And Isaiah is telling them that rejecting God's word will only lead to their destruction. But that when they return to the Lord, he will restore them. And this is the context of this verse. When Isaiah, God through the prophet Isaiah is saying to his people, if you return to me, if you just turn back to me, I'll restore you. I'll do these things. And you will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it, whether you turn to the right or to the left. And we see God is saying, if you follow me, if you pay attention, if you listen, I will speak to you. So as we walk through Isaiah 30, 21, at the end, I want us to take time to use it as a prayer guide just right here in this moment. But first I want us to look at three things that we can learn from this passage.

Three ways that God speaks to us, three ways that we can know and hear the voice of God. The first thing is simply this. When we wanna hear God's voice, we can know that there is a promised word. God promises, he has given his word that when we listen, he will speak to us. And so much more so now in the New Testament time, but even there in the Old Testament, God would continually speak to his people, and they could expect that if they tune their ear to the Lord, that he would have a word for them. Pay attention in Isaiah 30 verse 21, it says, your word shall hear a word. He doesn't say that you might hear a word. There's no wonder here, there's no trying to figure out how we could possibly hear God's word. God says that when you pay attention, when you turn to the Lord, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying this is the way, walk in it, whether you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. As we said a moment ago, God's people were continually turning away from the Lord and trusting in their enemies and the nations around them instead of the Lord. But God is saying, if you pay attention, a day is coming when God's people would no longer need to follow the worldly guidance of those around them, but that the Lord himself will speak directly to them. And this is a great promise, because he's not just saying, I will speak to your leaders, I will speak to the prophets among you. He's speaking to the very people of God and saying, I will speak to you, you don't have to search for me, you don't have to go to anybody else. Even here in the Old Testament, there's a promise that they would hear a word from the Lord. And this, in many ways, was true, absolutely in the Old Testament times, but so much more real and true for us today as the Holy Spirit has now been given to all followers of Jesus Christ. When you repent of your sin and you turn in faith to Jesus Christ, the Bible says in that moment, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. And he keeps you until, he is the down payment given to you as a promise to know that you're going to make it to the end. Jesus is the author and he is the perfecter, the finisher of our faith. And the Holy Spirit is the one given to us in order to show us you will make it to the end. And Jesus said this about the Holy Spirit in John 16, 13. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he's not gonna speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come. What Jesus is saying is that, in fact, Jesus said, don't mourn, don't be sad about the fact that I'm going to go away. It's better for you that I leave and the Holy Spirit come, because when the Holy Spirit comes, he will live and dwell inside of you and he will speak to you. He is that voice within us saying, this is the way, walk in it, walk in it. And while the Lord once spoke through the prophets, he now speaks directly to his people through the Holy Spirit. But while God promised to speak in a new way, and while he said, this is something I'm going to do, I'm going to do this for you, the reality is, like I said, God is a talker. He has always been a talker. God has always been speaking to those who have asked for him to speak. God has always spoken to those that have listened to his voice. The Bible says in Jeremiah 33, verse three, God is speaking. He says, call to me and I will answer you. And I'm going to tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. We don't have to wonder if God is going to speak to us. We don't have to beg him to speak to us. When we align our hearts with his and when we open our heart to his, he will speak to us. We know that he has promised that he will speak to us. We don't have to beg him to do it. God has always paid attention to his people, but so often his people have neglected him. But God's always been a talker. Are we listening? Not only is God's word promised to us, but the second thing we see in this passage is that we have a promised word. But Isaiah 30, 21 also tells us that it's a personal word. God will give a promised word, but he will give a personal word as well. When he speaks, he doesn't just speak generically. He doesn't just speak to the crowd. He speaks personally to you. And that's an incredible thought to think, like Sam was talking about earlier, that we can say that we have not only met Jesus Christ, the king of the universe, but that we know him and just as amazing, he knows us. You know, sometimes we say that we know somebody, but they don't really know us. We've maybe met them or interacted with them, but they may not feel the same way towards us in terms of knowledge, but Jesus knows us better than we know him. And he speaks personally and directly to us. Dr. Rogers used to always say that God doesn't love all of us. God loves each of us. And that's an important distinction. He speaks not just to all of us. God will speak to each of us. It's a personal word. He says in Isaiah 30, 21, "'Your ears shall hear a word behind you, "'saying, this is the way walking it "'when you turn to the right "'and when you turn to the left.'" While there are times that God does give generic, general instructions to his people as a whole, most every time you see God speak in the Bible, he is speaking directly to a person. Now, he might be speaking to a person to give a message to the whole, but God speaks directly to people. And listen to the personal way that God says that he's going to speak. In Isaiah 32, verse eight, we read these words, God speaking, "'I will instruct you. "'I will teach you in the way that you should go. "'I will counsel you with my eye upon you.'" See, God is not just giving us a general set of instructions for how to live morally and how we're supposed to generally follow his rules. There are general principles we have in Scripture that all of us are to follow, but God speaks directly to each of us. The Bible says in the New Testament, to him who knows what he's supposed to do and he doesn't do it, to him, it is sin. And what that means is that there are gonna be certain things that are a sin for me to do or not to do that may not be a sin for you to do or not to do. Now, I'm not talking about the big things that we would all think about when it comes to certain sins, but sometimes God's gonna tell me to have a conversation that he's not gonna tell you to have. Sometimes God's gonna tell me to serve somebody in a certain way, he may not tell you to do it because God is a personal God and he speaks personally to us. Many of our founding fathers of the United States were Christian men and many of them feared the Lord and loved the Lord and sought after him. And much of that is reflected if you read the founding documents of our nation, it's very clear that there was a reverence for God and respect for his word and for his way of doing things, but not all of them were Christians. Some of them would even believe in God and want to understand God and even seek to understand God, but they had never given their lives to Jesus Christ. You may not know this, one of those people, we don't know at the end of his life whether or not he ever came to know Jesus as his Lord and savior, but one of those men was Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was what we would call a deist. He believed in God, but he really didn't believe that he was personal. He didn't believe that we could truly know God. He did not believe much that we have in our Bible. You see, Jefferson believed in God, but his view of who God is is very different than what we would believe in really what the Bible teaches. In fact, he would agree with the fact, if he were here today, he would agree and say that the Bible that I hold right now speaks of a different God than the one that he believed were true. And so much so that he took his Bible, and we have it now, it's called the Jefferson Bible. He actually took a razor blade and he cut out many sections in his Bible that he did not believe were true. And anytime the Bible would speak of a miracle or a prophecy or God's providence, anytime God would step into the world and directly influence something, he would cut that out of his Bible because he did not believe those things to be true. He relied on what he could see and test and touch with his own hands and see with his own eyes. And he rejected the idea that God was personally involved in the world that he created. He believed that God was distant. He believed that God was impersonal. And he liked the ethical teachings of Jesus. He kept much of the Gospels that when Jesus would teach and talk about the morality and how we are to live, but he wanted to separate them, the ethical teachings of Jesus, from what he would call the supernatural corruptions in the Bible. And so Jefferson's Bible would be completely unrecognizable to many of us today, removing verses such as John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Although men like Thomas Jefferson did not believe that God was a personal God, the Bible is very clear that God is a personal God. King David would not understand at all what Thomas Jefferson was talking about, especially as he wrote in Psalm chapter 23, verse one, the Lord.

my shepherd. I shall not want." To David this relationship was personal. To David there was a very much of knowing God and being known by God. God was not just a shadowy figure that could not be known. He was not just the creator who spun the world into existence and then backed away to go and watch how things would turn out. David's personal shepherd was God himself. And the Bible says that Jesus is our good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. What do shepherds do for for the sheep? They lead the sheep. They feed the sheep. They protect the sheep. And that's exactly what Jesus does for each and every one of us. And when God speaks to us he does not speak just generically and generally. He speaks personally to us and we can know that when God speaks he will give a personal word. Now I want to tell you that the eyes of Jesus are always on his people. He never takes his eyes off his people. The eyes of the Lord are always on us watching over us. We are never lost. We are never lost from his eyes and never lost from his attention. In fact Jesus said that in Matthew 10 verses 29 through 31, are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father noticing. But even the hairs on your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore you are of much more value than many sparrows. Jesus says if God's going to notice the single sparrow that falls from the ground, do you not think he's going to notice you? You are worth so much more than a sparrow, but God even notices them. From the very moment of our conception the Bible says that God Almighty personally knits us together in our mother's womb. As I walk and pray each morning and use many of the verses that we're talking about this semester, I always pray for my wife and for each of my children by name, and I pray for Asa, Auggie, for Ellie, and for Meg, and now I'm praying for this baby that's coming on the way in January. And one thing I pray and ask that the Lord himself would personally knit this baby in Rose's womb and that he would protect this baby, because I believe even though I don't even know the gender of this child yet, that God's eye is already on this child and personally taking care of this child. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made by his very hand. He knows every day that we will live and he cares for every single one of us. So we see from this passage not only that God will speak to us if there's a promised word from God, but that he speaks personally to us when he speaks. But the last thing I want us to look at in this passage is that when he does speak, he gives a specific word. He speaks personally to you, but he will give you a specific word for the specific situation that you are in and what you need to know. He speaks, he does not speak in generalities, he gives you a specific word. Isaiah 30, 21, Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way. Walk in it when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. There are many decisions that we make on a daily basis that the Bible does not speak directly to. What we're supposed to do, what conversations we're supposed to have, who we're supposed to check up on, who we're supposed to marry, where we're supposed to go to school, all of these things in life are not things that we can find a direct verse and God will answer that question. What we're supposed to major in, what city we're supposed to live in, where we're supposed to buy a house. But I believe that God speaks to us on every single one of those things and when we listen, he will give us guidance and he will give direction. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to hear the specific voice of God in your life? Don't you desire for God to speak to you and show you what you're supposed to do, what his will is for you? This should not be a unique experience for us as Christians. I think we all can, who have walked with the Lord for any amount of time, can say, oh at times, I can point back to times in my life where I heard God tell me what to do and I knew without a shadow of doubt that God was calling me to do this. And those memories are great and keep us trusting the Lord, but that should not be a unique, strange, special occurrence for us as Christians. We should hear the voice of the Lord on a regular basis. And Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would guide us in that way. When the Holy Spirit lives within us, he doesn't just tell us general truths, he gives us very specific things that we're supposed to do. The Bible says in Luke 12, 11 and 12, and Jesus is giving his disciples like, hey, you're going to be brought before the courts, you're going to be persecuted, but when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, don't be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. In other words, he is going to tell you exactly in that moment what you're supposed to do. So sometimes, now we don't like this, sometimes it is in that very hour. God does not always shine the light as many steps ahead as we would like. Sometimes he just gives us the next step, sometimes he just gives us the little corner, the edge of the next step. But we know that when he speaks to us, he will give us what we need, and he is not going to leave us without direction. You know, Jesus was teaching and he said, talking about how good God is to us, and he said, if you then, none of you as parents and as fathers would, if your child needed a asked for bread, you wouldn't give him a rock. If your child was asking for fish, would you give him a scorpion? Of course not. And the Bible says, and Jesus says, if you then being evil, you have sinful hearts that you are corrupt by sin in your heart, if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who trust him and follow him? And I believe it's in Luke, the version in Luke where the account of that where Jesus says, how much more will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And so as we seek the Lord and as we seek his voice, we can know that God will not withhold it from us, and we should expect that we will hear a specific word from the Lord. And one of the ways I believe God speaks to us specifically is through a renewed mind that he gives us. You know, Romans 12, 2, we'll talk about it in probably about a month or so, but Romans 12, 2 talks about needing to renew our minds as we seek the Lord. But 1 Corinthians 2, 16 tells us this, for who has understood the mind of the Lord as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. See, when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches that God transforms your life absolutely. He gives us a new heart. He takes out our heart of stone. He gives us a heart of flesh. He gives us new life. But the Bible also says that he gives us the mind of Christ, meaning that we can discern with our minds what it is that God wants us to do. And when we walk with the Lord, when we listen to his voice, we can expect that the thoughts that we think when we're walking with the Lord are in agreement with the mind of Christ. Adrian Rogers was pastor here for many years until he retired and went home to be with the Lord later that year in 2005. But I was listening to a podcast of his the other day, and he said this, and I'll be honest, I had to rewind it and listen to it again and really think about it, but I really do believe that what he says here is true. He says this, when my heart is clean, when my motive is clear, and when I'm walking in the Spirit, I can assume that what I think and what I desire is the will of God. I can just assume it. You say that's arrogance. No, it's not. You see, the devil wants to put us under some sort of a pall, some sort of the idea that we couldn't possibly know the will of God. Of course, we can know the will of God. That ought to be the normal condition that we know the will of God. See, God is a good father. He is not trying to hide the truth from us. He's not trying to hide his will from us. And when we're walking with the Lord, like Dr. Rogers said, when your heart is clean, when your motive is clear, and when you're walking in the Spirit, you can assume that the thoughts that you think and the things that you desire are from the Lord. He goes on that message to say, but what if I get it wrong? What if I'm following the Lord the best of my ability, and I think he told me to do this, and I was wrong, and I just got it wrong? What about that? He said, in that situation, the Holy Spirit has been placed inside of us, and he will blow the whistle on your life. Have you ever experienced the Holy Spirit blowing the whistle on you? If you haven't, I would encourage you to really seek the Lord and make sure that you have trusted in the Lord and that you are his child, because the Holy Spirit does not take lightly the sin in our lives. And when we sin as Christians, it should bother us. And when we begin to walk outside of the will of God, it should feel different to us. Things shouldn't line up. It should be noticeable to us as Christians. And this happened to the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was a godly man who wrote a bunch of the New Testament, was the greatest missionary ever known. But there were times that he tried to do certain things and that he wasn't allowed...

it, the Holy Spirit would stop him from doing it. And we read in the book of Acts, in Acts 16, 6, and 7, we went to the region of Phrygia and Galatia, and having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, which he wanted to do, Paul wanted to go to Asia and proclaim the gospel. But the Bible says that the Holy Spirit forbade him from doing so. And when they had come to Mysia, they attempted to go in Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. You know, sometimes we read that and think, well, that's the Bible times, that God must have built a wall or given him a voice from on high that says, no, don't go over there, I want you to go over here instead. There are times when God spoke audibly in the Bible, but a lot of times when we see that God spoke to people, it never says that it was an audible voice. I believe that the Spirit of Jesus turned Paul and his followers and those who were helping him, not through an audible voice, but through the inner working of the Holy Spirit, the same way that he speaks to us today. And as Christians, hearing from God should be our number one priority. Remember last week, we talked in John chapter 15 about Jesus is divine, we are the branch, when we abide in him, we bear much fruit. What did he say? Apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from knowing Jesus and abiding in Jesus, we have nothing that we can do on our own. But when we abide in Jesus, he will bear fruit in our lives, and I believe he will speak to us and he will give us that voice behind us saying, this is the way, walk in it, whether we turn to the right or when we turn to the left. Without God's guidance, his leadership, his direction, we have nothing. And he promises to speak to us, he promises that he'll give us a personal word, a specific word. So what do we do when we don't hear his voice? When we don't hear the voice of the Lord, the answer is not just to work harder, it's not just to strive a little bit more or to listen a little harder or anything like that. It goes back, John 15, abide in Jesus. And he does the working in our lives. And one of the best ways we can do that is just by spending time in his word. As we read God's word, the Holy Spirit, I believe, some people would disagree with me. I fully believe, and I have experienced it, that the Holy Spirit speaks to us outside of scripture. He doesn't just use the Bible. Now, I think the primary way that the Holy Spirit speaks to us is through God's word. But he will give us specific words for situations, but it will never be contrary to the scriptures. In fact, Paul says that, he says, hey, if an angel appears to you and gives you a message, take it and run straight to God's word and test it and make sure it is in agreement with the word of God. So God is never going to tell you to do something that he forbids in his word. He's never going to tell you not to do something that he commands in his word. And the more we spend time in God's word, the more I believe that we will recognize his voice. But here's what Jesus said in John 10, 27, talking about being our good shepherd. He says, my sheep, they hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. It should be our natural state as sheep of Jesus to know his voice and to hear his voice. I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were talking about trying to understand what God was calling us to do and how we know. And there was something that an opportunity one of us had to do something, and it just didn't seem right to us. And in that moment, though, everything on the outside said, this is a great opportunity, take it. But we just had that feeling inside that said, don't do this. This is not the right decision. This is not what you're supposed to do in this moment. And I told this friend, I said, if I can't trust that I can hear my shepherd's voice in a situation like this, then I have nothing. If I can't believe that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me in that moment, then I have nothing to lean on in my own strength because I know I'm not smart enough to figure it all out. I can't see tomorrow, but we know that God sees tomorrow just as clearly as he saw yesterday. And he knows what is best for us, and he will be our good shepherd who speaks to us. So I want to encourage you, practice hearing the voice of God by spending time in Scripture and asking him to speak to us. We're going to pray here in just a moment and pray through Isaiah 30 verse 21, but use this as a prayer. Just like each week when you walk out tonight, there's a there's a card that has this verse on it that I'd encourage you to take and put it in your wallet, put it on your mirror, on your car. I know some people said they put it on their coffee pot. Some people have put it in their car. Just don't read it while you're driving. Brother Steve always did it and scared me to death. And so I would encourage you not to do that, but maybe before you turn the car on, you can pray that as a prayer to the Lord. But put it in a spot where you can use this in order to ask the Lord to speak to you. Ask the Lord and thank the Lord that he promises to speak, that we don't have to beg him to speak, that he is a talker. We can thank him that he speaks personally and he is personally involved in our lives. And we can ask him for a specific word for that day, for that moment of what he wants us to do. So let's just take a moment and I want to encourage you. I'm going to give you a prompt. We'll do three quick prompts here and we'll be done. And as I give each of these prompts, just take a moment right there and in your heart, I encourage you to pray this back to the Lord. And then I'll close this in prayer in just a moment.