Vanessa Caruso: 0:01

Welcome to the bear with me podcast where we aim to integrate belief and practice in the Christian life.

Andy Withrow: 0:18

Knock Knock Vanessa Who's there?

Vanessa Caruso: 0:21

I didn't know that we were gonna start with knocking. Oh, right. That's a great way to start. Just KNOCK KNOCK.

Andy Withrow: 0:27

KNOCK KNOCK. Yeah, I don't know any good knock knock jokes.

Vanessa Caruso: 0:32

Me neither.

Andy Withrow: 0:32

Do You know one?

Vanessa Caruso: 0:35

Oh, I'm sure I do. Interrupting cow. That one classic. Yeah, classic. Kids love that one.

Andy Withrow: 0:44

Yeah, I think although all the ones I can think of are everyone's gonna know those. So let's not even go there. But why are we talking about knocking?

Vanessa Caruso: 0:50

Oh, because last time we talked, we ended our episode wondering what does it look like to hear the knock? So the idea was that God is communicating all the time. And that is demonstrated by the parables, but specifically by the parable of the sower, where there's so many seeds being sown indiscriminately. So to mix metaphors, we were saying, you know, it Oh, it's there's, it's easy. There's an opportunity every day to choose to be connected to Christ. But then we asked, well, how do you hear the knocking? Like if the knocking is happening every day? How? How do you hear that?

Andy Withrow: 1:35

Yeah. It's this sort of strange for me, it's a sort of strange play on, on kind of the like, if you grew up in the church, you may have run into this, this idea that, Oh, you didn't have enough faith for this thing or that thing? And that's becomes a really maybe unhealthy, very unhelpful framework to to evaluate our own art and spiritual lives. But if you kind of turn it around, because I struggle, I struggled to talk about this kind of concept sometimes, because I don't want to be the pastor saying, Oh, you don't have enough faith? Oh, yeah. But if if the idea isn't so much like, well, it's not about I don't have enough faith for God to do something. What if it's the other way around? I'm like, No, God is doing something using the trust that he's there. And if you trust that, what Jesus is saying, hearing these parables like, no, that kingdom is in your midst, it's just under your nose. You sometimes you just have to trust that it's there. So what if we lived our lives acting as if behaving as if God were present? And speaking to us? For me, I would say he'll and I will start paying attention to what's happening around me and not just thinking that it's all happenstance or coincidence, or doesn't have any sort of connection. Not that everything needs to say, Oh, this is what God has, you know, there's, you know, that can drive us nuts in not be helpful. But to try it on to say, Okay, what might God be speaking to me in this moment? So this is where Gordon Smith goes, yes. Yeah. The voice of Jesus. He's talking about Christian tradition. Talk about Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Wesley, and Jess what? exams that

Vanessa Caruso: 3:24

guy, Ignatius, Ignatius, thank

Andy Withrow: 3:26

you. They're all three of these. They're very come from very different traditions, always. But they all have these overlaps in terms of paying attention to the world around them, kind of Bible and what word of God in one hand, what is what is the voice of Jesus sound like maybe familiar with it? And we try to listen for him in the experiences and the events in the world around me. What in discern what is God speaking to me? It's really exciting stuff. So, so what are for us? What might be some of those, those prompts or those knocks of God speaking to us in our lives?

Vanessa Caruso: 4:05

Yeah, I was thinking about this as I walked home. Last time, we talked from here from the studios. And I was thinking that knocking using that metaphor is either felt or heard, you know, like, if you're near a door and there's a knock, there's like a bit of a vibration. Or if you're in another room, and there's a knock, you hear something, and you're like, was that a knock? So, so thinking about that, I went to okay, how do I hear or feel throughout the day, like what makes me reachable? What makes me accessible? And it reminded me of the concept of the spiritual senses, which I've been learning about in the program I'm in and those are things like Taste and see that the Lord is good. All these things in the Bible like Using our physical senses, but in a different way for God. So there's like this whole history around the spiritual senses. It's not like talked about a ton. But the idea is that we actually can grow our spiritual senses are seeing or hearing in spiritual ways or tasting or feeling. Yeah. And though in my in the reading I've done about it for school, the number one recommendation is to immerse ourselves in the gospels, like in for our imaginations to be formed by how Jesus lives and responds to things and then and then those faculties are heightened. The seeing, feeling tasting, touching, I missing one smelling. So that came to mind like, Oh, this is a spiritual census issue. And, you know, I trust people that say, you develop your spiritual senses by being in the gospels, it's a very scent, stool, sensual experience, there's lots of eating and feeling and touching and hearing, you know, going on. So that's, that has helped me over the last couple of weeks, just remember, like, what usually feels like not a very big deal to read the gospel lectionary passage for the day or to join morning prayer. So it's reminded me that that's not in vain, you know, the, like, 510 15 minutes that it takes to read that Gospel passage for the day with this openness, like God gives you access to me to heighten my senses. Or to speak to me through this story about Jesus, whether I'm doing that with other people, or by myself, that that came to mind as like a pretty great start to a day.

Andy Withrow: 7:01

Yeah, I like that I like you mentioned early on, this is a learning thing. And we've talked about this a lot. There's this perception that a lot of us have, whether we reflect on it or not that anything spiritual should be easy, just come to us. And I think it breeds a lot of discouragement among anybody who's spiritually seeking but Christians in particular, who feel like they don't have a lot of God experiences. And if it's not, and so it can get easily interpreted I think, like, God is not broken into my life. Yeah. In these ways. And in a wonder if we flip it around, say, Well, what if he is in it, it's just it's a learning it's a it's a learning the alphabet of how to discern in and see when God is showing up that all of us have to kind of figure out and just like babies and infants and toddlers growing up, we stumble through until we kind of learn our to get our footing and understand language and can start to, to engage in that way. But I think it's a turnoff for a lot of for a cultural moment to think, to compare learning how to hear the voice of God or having to be in this relationship with like, weight training or exercise or things that actually take a lot of intentionality like, Hey, I'm gonna go three times a week for 20 to 30 minutes, I'm going to start slow and we're going to build up over time, and I'm going to take a chunk of my life and actually reoriented around this but when you read I think you read a lot of the lot of the Christian those who've gone before and actually have engaged in this like that's what they do is like okay, we're going to experiment or I'm going to try to really make this this routine in my life because I because I have this desire which is exactly what we've been talking about in the parables is like, is there is where's the will at? Where's the desire for this? Yeah, and even if your prayer is who I want to want that, like that's take it like it's just takes a little muscle, it's just takes a little seed, right? So this is really encouraging. So just take what you've got the very teeny tiny bit that you've got it and start investing that and say okay, I'm gonna pray five seconds a day. God would you make, would you? I want to want would you make the desire grow and at least start there. If you got more than that. Great, then use that in and take five minutes a day or 15 minutes a week or whatever the thing is, So Vanessa is promising to write a blog on our website entitled Bear. Bear with me podcast.com

Vanessa Caruso: 9:58

That sounds right or is it ca o Hmm,

Andy Withrow: 10:00

notes.com Okay, great. Bear with bear with me podcast.com I'll double check that but. And so I think I asked her, because I didn't want to write it. To write something if someone only had what was it? Like, if you only had 15 minutes a week? Yeah. Or if you only had 20 minute if you had, but if you had 30 minutes week, what would you how would you spend your time? Yeah, if you had an hour a week, how would you spend your time? Yeah, or something like that. Just give some a menu of options for anyone who's just wanting to get into this from maybe a place of zero to a place of one? Yeah, okay, I can here's here's a bit of reorienting my life. And that God is so gracious and so good that he'll take this very tiny stuff that we have at the very beginning. Oh, yeah. And make something out of it. Thank you feel like I'm getting us off topic or the nights out.

Vanessa Caruso: 10:51

That's all on topic.

Andy Withrow: 10:55

And the immersing yourself in the Gospels. The other other thing of just Yeah, learning like I think that's part of the, the intentional work of learning the language of God, this is, if this really is God's words to us, then let's learn the languages learn what he sounds like, let's learn what the voice of Jesus sounds like. So when we do come up against it, in our when we hear the voices in our own heads, which are often our own voices, or just our own thoughts, they Oh, that one sounds an awful lot like what I read in the gospels, that sounds an awful lot like Jesus like doing on your own. Maybe I should pay more attention to that one game that Scott actually saying something in my life, that that's those are, those are both what you said those are both the ways I would say that's where I hear the knocking is like, Does this sound like what I've what I've heard before in this in this setting?

Vanessa Caruso: 11:46

Yes. And the other, the bookend to the day that came to mind that we've talked a lot about, so I won't talk about it too much is this some kind of end of the day review, which I should write a blog post for this too, because I have a new way of doing an examine, that's just been really helpful for me. And so I go in, in seasons of doing that nightly, and then seasons have not, and I've just been in a season of doing it nightly, but I'm a few weeks in. And only in the last week have I felt like something opened in the section like after, you know, pausing to ask God to help reflect on the day, which is like a three second prayer like God, I don't want to just, you know, remember my day like a movie, I actually want to see what's important from my day. And then noting the gifts from the day. It's kind of like a real simple gratitude list. And then looking for those moments in the day that brought me to God and away from God. After that, I put a little like frowny face, just to symbolize Do you have anything that I want to apologize for? Or that I don't feel great about? Or the I need to like, say something about, you know, like, confess, and for several days, weeks, I didn't have anything for the frowny face. I was like, I just can't think of anything. which can't be true. Knowing me, Andy. Right. Right. Nothing for the frowny face in the last week. I have something almost everyday for the frowny face.

Andy Withrow: 13:25

Oh, that's great. Yeah. No, that's

Vanessa Caruso: 13:27

good. Congratulations. It is great, because I think it's so it's so dim in there. And it takes it takes a lot of time. And just like opening the door to that basement to say anything in here. And most days, it's like Nope, you're great. Nothing. There's nothing to think about. Don't worry about us down here. Yeah, we're fine. And then but just continuing to open that door and just ask I'm I started to notice things that I've that I do a lot but it's just that I wasn't aware of them like little one recently it was like a bit of a lie. A bit of a lie. So you know and then just like naming that and thinking do I tell my friend that I said that? Do I just confess it to God right now. It's it's uncomfortable. So those are the knots that I'm like, that's a pretty big knock. You can't not respond when you when you become aware of something that you said or did that was for your own ego or purposes or out of anxiety or fear. That's my other. My book end of the day would be the knocking good, yeah.