When God Nudges You

His face is tone changed. He's like, you know what? Can I be honest with you, man? And I was like, sure. He's like, I actually don't like party. I don't like drinking. I don't like doing alcohol. The only reason why it's because I'm known as a party guy. And they accept me. But I honestly hate it. And at that moment, my everything that I thought about him just changed. The bell rang. I went home. I didn't share Jesus with him. And so, but in my mind, I was determined. God, I'm Monday when I go back to school. I'm going to share your love with you. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Maguire podcast where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. It's always great to be with you, man. And I reminded how those of us who are part of the body of Christ were all the same. We're family. Yes. Yes. Yes. People might look at us from just say, those two guys probably don't even know each other. You know, he's an old guy. But when we're together, sharing, it's just, it's so much fun sharing stories. I love your heart. Yeah. Well, Jesus is upon us, right? And in us and so, that's the thing we reflect. It's love and his joy. Yeah. Yeah. Hang on. Have you always, I mean, how far back were you sharing your faith? It seems like you've been doing it. You didn't just start. You've been sharing your faith for a long time. Yeah. How far back does it go for you? You know what? I was trying to share my faith because I was like a teenager, a young boy as well. But I do remember there was a shifting point in my life that really motivated even more and realigned me to why I share my faith. And I was in high school. I had a friend. His name was Brent. And we had a guitar class together. And the Lord put it in my heart, share my love with him. But he was one of those cool, popular guys and everyone loved the party guy. And I kept making excuses. I don't want to. Yeah. We ought to all do it tomorrow. But it was so heavily. It was like, it was in God's voice in your heart. It was like in your belly. It was that strong. But I kept making excuses. I didn't do it. We call that the Dutch. The Dutch. You get this. Oh, man. You always have to follow the Dutch. You know, you should do this. I don't want to do this, but you should do this. When you follow the Dutch, you live in the fog. You live in the favor of God. Yeah. And I would love to say that. There was like, I was a medium, but I was kind of disobedient. I kept pushing back. One of our biggest. You're speaking about 99% of the people that are watching this right now. And I think a lot of us, we deal with this thing that I like spiritual procrastination. There's no accountability to it with your prayer life, your biblical life or sharing. So I think sometimes we've got spiritual procrastination. Yeah. And some of that pushes us away from the world of God. I wonder. We don't have to imagine very hard to understand what you're talking about. There's no accountability. But anyway, so I felt nudged to share Jesus, but I had just approached them and asked them a question. And I'm like, Hey, Brent, why is it that you party and do all the stuff? And he said, his face is tone changed. He's like, you know, what can I be honest with you, man? And I was like, sure, he's like, I actually don't like party. I don't like drinking. I don't like doing alcohol. The only reason why is because I'm known as a party guy. And they accept me. But I honestly hate it. And at that moment, my everything that I thought about him just changed. The bell rang. I went home. I didn't share Jesus with him. And so, but in my mind, I was determined God on Monday. When I go back to school, I'm going to share your love with him. I'm going to share how good you are. There's a facade in front of many people. Yes. could say most. It's a persona that they've created as a protection for themselves. Get people to like them. Yeah. And it's amazing how fast you can pierce through that. Oh my God. Persona. If you see it, they're beyond that. That's not the real them. Yeah. Hard. There's a person that God's dealing with. It's convicting. Yeah. Yeah. So you saw that. You know, it was kind of. And so in that season, so I went on Monday. I was like, determining to share Jesus with him. So I get to school that next Monday. I walked into school. And everybody was crying. And I'm like, what's going on? Yeah. They told me, didn't you hear? I'm going to hear what? Brent. He passed away this weekend. And I'm like, what would he Brent? Red hair, Brent guitar player. We played soccer together. He's like, yeah, he passed the way he was at a party, got drunk. They were boxing and he fell hit his head and didn't didn't make it. And I was heartbroken. And everybody was crying because he passed away. But I was crying because I was broken because I had the opportunity to share Jesus with him. And I just kept procrastinating. And so I was broken hearted. Oh, man, I had the opportunity. And I didn't do it. And I went to my youth posture. And he just kind of encouraged me. He said, Amen, well, take this as a lesson. You know, I'm pretty sure number one, somebody shared Jesus with him. So he had that opportunity. But secondly, make sure to never miss an opportunity because God is talking at your heart. And from that moment on, I committed myself to say, I will share Jesus no matter where I go. I'm not going to have another Brent in my life. And we preached the gospel because we preach Jesus. And people say, well, you only preach Jesus because you might die today or die tomorrow. No, we preach Jesus because you might live today or you might live tomorrow. And so from that moment on, it just encouraged me of the why. It's not just sharing Jesus, but it's also like you say, a nudge or a timely manner. We have to be obedient to that. So ever since then, that pushed me forward to be more more enthusiastic. More of this is my purpose. This is the reason why I'm here to share the love of God. We don't know God's timing. But when you get that nudge, the God's serious. Once you learn that lesson, you know, that you can't depend on people that you're going to have many other opportunities. We don't know. Yeah. And there's a timely thing that God just puts in our heart. And we have to be obedient to that because when we procrastinate or push it later, man, you never know. You're putting your own agenda into the situation. Boy, really are. You mind? I love your heart, man. Love you too. Find a hang it out with you. And, man, think of what we have ahead of us right now, right at this moment. I mean, every day, it gets darker and darker. And the darker gets the easier it is to do exactly what you're talking. I know. Thank you.