When God Nudges You

00:00 - Speaker 1His face, his tone changed. He's like you know what? Can I be honest with you, E-man? And I was like sure he's like I actually don't like partying, 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, everything that I thought about him just changed. The bell rang. I went home. I didn't share Jesus with him. 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. 00:27 - Speaker 2Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar 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. 00:42 - Speaker 3It's always great to be with you, Eman, and I'm reminded how, those of us who are part of the Ignited, it's always great to be with you, iman, it's always great. I'm reminded how, those of us who are part of the body of Christ, we're all the same, we're family. 00:51 - Speaker 1Yes, yes, yes. 00:52 - Speaker 3People might look at us and just say those two guys probably don't even know each other. He's an old guy. But when we're together sharing, it's so much fun sharing stories. I love your heart. 01:06 - Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. Well, Jesus is upon us, right and in us, and so that's the thing we reflect it's love and it's joy. 01:11 - Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, Amen. Have you always. I mean, how far back were you sharing your faith? It seems like you've been doing. You didn't just start. You've been sharing your faith for a long time. Yeah, yeah, how far back does it go for you? 01:25 - Speaker 1You know what? I've always tried to share my faith since 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 we put up a guitar class together and the Lord put it in my heart share my love with Him. He was one of those cool, popular guys that everyone loved, the party guy. I kept making excuses. I don't want to. I don't want to. 01:51 - Speaker 3We all know those excuses. 01:52 - Speaker 1I'll do it tomorrow. 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. I kept making excuses, I didn't do it. 02:02 - Speaker 3We call that the nudge, the nudge. You get this nudge. Oh, man, you always have to follow the nudge. You know you should do this. I don't want to do this, but you should do this. When you follow the nudge, you live in the fog. You live in the favor of God. 02:17Yeah, and I would love to say that it was like I was obedient, but I was kind of disobedient, I kept pushing back One of our biggest You're speaking to about 99% of the people that are watching this right now and I think, a lot of us we would deal with this thing that I like spiritual procrastination. 02:31 - Speaker 1There's no accountability to it with your prayer life, your biblical life or sharing. 02:34 - Speaker 3Oh my. So I think sometimes with that Spiritual procrastination. 02:44 - Speaker 1Yeah, it's no accountability, but anyway. So I felt nuts to share Jesus. But I had just approached them and I asked them a question and I'm like hey, brent, why is it that you party and do all this stuff? And he said his face, his tone changed. He's like you know what? Can I be honest with you, e-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 everything that I thought about him just changed. The bell rang. I went home, I didn't share Jesus with him. 03:25 - Speaker 3And 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, I could say most. It's a persona that they've created as a protection for themselves, to get people to like them. 03:36 - Speaker 1Yeah. 03:36 - Speaker 3And it's amazing how fast you can pierce through that oh my gosh. Persona. If you see it, they're beyond that. Susana, if you see it, they're beyond that. That's not the real them. In the heart there's a person that God's dealing with. That's convicting. 03:47 - Speaker 1Yeah, you did that, you saw that it was kind of, and so in that season, so I wanted, on Monday I was 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? They told me didn't you hear? I'm like, hear what, brent, he passed away this weekend. And I'm like, what do you mean? Brent, red hair, brent, guitar player, we played soccer together. He's like, yeah, he passed away. He was at a party, got drunk, they were boxing and he fell, hit his head and didn't make it. 04:18And 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 it. And so I was brokenhearted. Oh man, I had the opportunity and I didn't do it. 04:34And I went to my youth pastor and he just kind of encouraged me. He said, hey, man, well, take this as a lesson. You know, I'm pretty sure, number one, somebody shared Jesus with him, so he had that opportunity. 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 tugging 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 preach 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 there's also, like you said, a nudge or a timely manner. We have to be obedient to that, so ever since then that pushed me forward to be more enthusiastic. 05:19More of this is my purpose. This is my purpose. This is the reason why I'm here to share the love of God. 05:23 - Speaker 3We don't know God's timing, but when you get that nudge, 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. 05:38 - Speaker 1We 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, you really are. 05:46 - Speaker 3Iman, I love your heart, man. 05:48 - Speaker 1Love you too. 05:49 - Speaker 3Fun hanging 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 it gets, the easier it is to do exactly what you're talking about. 06:05 - Speaker 2Thank you. If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast.