Episode 292 - Three Views on Hearing From God with Nicky Gumbel, Kim Avery, and Jeremy Lin

The best way to fight against idolatry is to seek the voice of God.  

So, what does that actually look like? 

In this episode, we're going to hear three perspectives from three incredible leaders around the world.  

We'll head first to the UK to hear from priest and author, Nicky Gumbel for a chat he had with Henry about a framework he has for hearing the voice of God. 

Then, we'll make our way to the U S for another conversation with Kim Avery, business coach, and author of the prayer powered entrepreneur. 
And lastly, we'll stop in Taiwan to hear how pro basketball player, entrepreneur, and investor, Jeremy Lin keeps prayer at the center of his routine.

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.

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Episode Transcript

Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.

Joseph Honescko: Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about idols, what they look like, how they sneak into our lives, and how we can combat them. And even though we've heard from various entrepreneurs, there has been some consistency in what people have said. The best way to fight against idolatry is to seek the voice of God. So what does that actually look like? And this episode, we're going to hear three perspectives from three incredible leaders around the world. We'll head first to the UK to hear from priest and author Nicky Gumbel for a chat he had with Henry about the framework he has for hearing the voice of God. Then we'll make our way to the US for another conversation with Kim Avery, business coach and author of The Prayer Powered Entrepreneur. And lastly, we'll stop in Taiwan to hear how pro basketball player, entrepreneur and investor Jeremy Lin keeps prayer at the center of his routine. All this coming up on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm Joey Honescko. Let's get into it.

Henry Kaestner: Entrepreneurs are always feeling the stress and pressure of I've got, should I do this deal show and I do this deal. Yeah. You have a framework of the five C's about how to seek counsel. Seek God's word. Can you just briefly go through?

Nicky Gumbel: Well, we call them the five Cs, but but I'll simplified.

Henry Kaestner: Please.

Nicky Gumbel: And just to give you five words. Okay. First word this is how does God guide us? How do we hear God? So often in the New Testament we're told to listen to Jesus. Listen to God, listen. How do we hear God? Okay, so here are the five main ways across the traditions, across the churches, down the centuries. Number one, I'm going to say read. So how did you come to faith? You read the New Testament. God spoke to you as you read and it changed your life. What do you do every day now? You read the Bible and what do you do? You're praying as you read it. You're praying, Lord, please speak to me. I want to hear your voice. And different passages can speak in different ways. So when you were really thinking about, you know, giving and everything spoke to you about getting the five loaves and two fish, they spoke to you about giving because God's Spirit speaks through what he has spoken. So it's not just he did speak in the past, but he still speaks through what he has spoken. That's why you can read that passage maybe tomorrow, and you read it in a totally different way and got to speak to you about something completely different. You need to go and buy some fish or whatever. So, that's the first thing read and that's the most is more important that we hear from God than that we talk to God. It's much more important that he speaks to us, that we speak to him. I always read the Bible on my knees because it's like, Lord, I want you to speak to me. I'm humbling myself before you, and I want to hear your voice. So that's number one. Number two is the Holy Spirit speaks to us as we pray. So, the first thing I do in the morning is read the Bible. Same thing I do is I walk around Hyde Park, which is my way of praying. If I sit in this chair, I fall asleep anywhere. I can even fall asleep standing up. But I can't fall asleep walking. So I still get distracted. I get distracted if I'm sitting, standing, walking and there's so many distractions. But I'm trying to pray and sometimes I'm most successful. But I'm trying to pray and to listen to God. Yeah. And, you know, at the moment I'm preparing my talk for the leadership conference, and I'm praying, Lord, as I will run, I thought, please speak to me. What do you want me to say? I want to know. I've got this meeting today. Please help me. I need your wisdom, Lord. So second, when the Holy Spirit speaks to us as we pray. And you know, I guess the thought comes to my mind. An idea comes to my mind like, in a very mini way, entrepreneurial idea comes to my mind as I'm praying I will write it down when I get back. I will straighten it, and I write down that idea, that thought that's coming to my mind. So number one, read number two, pray. And the Holy Spirit will guide you as you pray. Number three, talk so God doesn't guide is purely individually. He guides us as the church. So talk to your pastor, talk to your friends, talk to your fellow entrepreneurs. Get the wisdom in the room. Yeah, because otherwise we're saying God only speaks to me. So I don't believe you speak to anybody else. That's why I read commentaries, because maybe God spoke to someone else about this passage in the past. It's not just going to speak to me. I'm preparing my talk for the leadership conference. I'm reading what other people say about it and think, wow, they got an amazing insight. So same with you. What am I going to do about my future? I'm going to talk to my, you know, the young person. I can talk to my parents. I'm going to talk to my pastor. I'm going to talk to my connect group leader. I'm going to talk to my friends, get their wisdom. And that's the church space. We're not on our own. We're part of a community. So read, pray, Holy Spirit, talk. Think. Yes, think. God has given as minds. You know we're created by God. God created something pretty amazing. Your brain, your thoughts. And, that's God given to. And so think through the issues. If some people think that if it's common sense, then it can't be God. But most decisions are common sense. You know, I'm gonna have breakfast if I need to say should I have breakfast this morning Lord or not common sense. You need food, eat breakfast. Most of that is huge number. Just the sanctified common sense. If you pray, Lord, please give me wisdom today. Please guide me by your spirit. Then you're just doing whatever is the common sense, reasonable, rational thing to do. So that's use your mind. So think so. Read. Pray, talk. Think. Fifth one watch. What's the circumstances? Because God can guide you through the circumstances. Now the circumstances are not a door might shut and you might think that's God guiding me might not necessarily be. You know, sometimes you have a few time or you might think like your business your first three years, like it didn't seem to be, but you kept going because you felt it was the right thing to do. So you got to watch the circumstances. But ultimately, you know, I always pray, Lord, if this is wrong, please close. The door. And if it's right, please open the door. And if God opens a door, no one can shut it. So what's the circumstances? And sometimes you look back and, you know, I look back at my life and I think. Thank God you shut that door. I believe passionately it's the right thing to do, I believe. You know, I was trying to get into a set of chambers, and if I got into that set, I would've had to give a commitment to stay there. And I didn't get in. And I'm so thankful I didn't get in because I would have stayed working as a barista. I'm so glad to be doing what I'm doing. Not working as a barista. So sometimes God shuts the door. Sometimes God opens a door and you have to watch the circumstance. That's providence. So if you take those five, they've been emphasized by different parts of the church, but all five are important and all five are helpful in making decisions.

Joseph Honescko: Nicky breaks down those five simple ideas. So well read, pray, talk, think and watch. It sounds pretty straightforward when he puts it that way, but if we're honest, these things can still be a struggle, especially the prayer part. Whether it's finding that regular time, making it a priority, or just simply not knowing where to start. So many entrepreneurs struggle with that consistency in their prayer life. And in this next conversation, Henry and Rusty are going to talk to Kim Avery, who's going to share her own journey of becoming a prayer powered leader, and she'll talk about how anyone can implement more steady rhythms to hear from God.

Henry Kaestner: So, Kim, if I'm honest, prayer is something that I .. Probably the most lip service to. On one hand, I intellectually understand how important it is. We've been talking recently at our staff and with some of these FDE groups. So, you know, you may know this already, but we have this eight week FDE course where we walk entrepreneurs through the marks of a faith driven entrepreneur. And just today, we're talking about the lessons from the good kings of Judah in Second Chronicles, and how even the good kings of Judah were not seeking God out before, making important decisions, or talking about how important prayer is. And then we're all kind of just owning the fact that we all just do it really poorly. And you have understood that that's a reality. And that's something hard for people to push through. And yet it's really important enough. And so you've written a book to tell us how to do it. So really looking forward to today. Thank you very much for being with us.

Kim Avery: Thank you. And can I just begin with a quick true confession? I'm a prayer. Flunk out. And I deserve to be in that room with you and the other people. So just as a fellow journeyer who understands the importance of prayer but never really understood that, like, how do I integrate this into my every minute, I guess, of my day? And so I wish I could say from that moment when I started praying, you know, God became my functional CEO and everything was just sailing along fine. But truthfully, I had a lot of misconceptions about prayer. I tended to think of prayer in these kind of weird, spiritual, floaty categories that it's somebody who intercedes for people overseas or people who do prayer walks around the city and the city of Chicago, or people who fast for 40 days. And those are all wonderful things. And I'm thankful that God uses prayer warriors like that. But I knew that. I knew that I knew that God called me to build a business, which meant I had to do the marketing. I had to service the clients. I had to figure out the vision and the mission and all of the things in between. And I had no idea how prayer played into the very rightly busy life of an entrepreneur. And so I think, like a lot of people, most of the clients that I work with, I kind of disconnected prayer from my everyday business life. I pray in the morning, Lord bless this business. And then I go work hard all day. And truthfully, my operating engine was similar to if it's going to be. It's up to me, you know, through all that, my self wisdom and self-sufficiency and knowledge and power and strength and connections. And then at the end of the day, when I was exhausted, if it was a good day, I give him a high five. God. And if not, you know, I think, did he bless me? Did he answer that prayer? How would I even know? And that's when I realized that if I looked at my business, all my clients businesses and all the businesses I knew of people who were not Christ followers, they all looked very similar. And that's a tragedy. Why in the world, if my CEO is the all knowing, all loving, all resource, all connected, God, would my business look the same as someone who didn't know God? And that's what sent me on a hunt for okay, there's got to be a better, different way to do this.

Henry Kaestner: So that's an interesting framework. And I think it's an exercise for us all to go through. And that is does my business look different than if I was just a secular CEO. And how do I know. And what does that even look like.

Kim Avery: Right. And so for me, it began a hunt through scripture from beginning to end, saying, what do I know that I know? So not just assume, well, God maybe wants me to make this amount of money or have this boat or this yacht, or do these kinds of things, but just clear scriptural promises and promises and principles that God has laid out in Scripture that apply in many ways to all of us, and in many cases specifically to business people and entrepreneurs. What do I know that he is working on in me, through me and for me? Because Scripture promises. So then how can I pray in conjunction with the way he's working? How can I cooperate with him on what's important to him and when I do it that way, and I nail down those things that I actually do see growth and improvement and differences between the way I do business and frankly, the way I used to do business.

Ruty Rueff: I find that fascinating because being in conversation all the time throughout the day in prayer is not an easy thing to do. So I think sometimes what we end up doing is we end up going, well, this is my hour, this is my 30 minutes, this is my 15 20 minutes. Talk to us a little bit about how, you know, we can extend that through the power of prayer all day long.

Kim Avery: Yeah. Thank you for asking that because I'm passionate about that question. And I think about it this way. And I know that you all are investors and you work with a lot of investors, and I am not. Don't ever give me your money to invest. Just hint. But suppose that I wanted to become an investor and somehow one of you, or maybe even Warren Buffett, got wind of it and said, oh, I really am excited. This is important to you. This is what I'm going to do. Kim. I'm going to pull up a chair. Right next to you all day, every day. If you have a question. If you need a connection. If you lack wisdom. If you're discouraged, you just turn to me and ask me. I said, thanks, Warren. That's awesome. And every day I came in and sat down on my desk and ignored him and went about my business all day long. But then at the end of the day, or maybe once a week, I met with him and said, any input, Warren? Any thoughts on how I'm doing? That's the way I was treating God. And as complicated and as simple as realizing God's closer than the breath that I breathe. And he's so much smarter than Warren Buffett, and he knows everything, and he cares about my business, and he has a plan for it. And so if I just learn to pretend he's there, no, he's there, but pretend physically that I see him and turn to him and ask him, you know what? He's really smart. And things go differently. Not always perfect, mind you, because he's promised us in this world you have tribulation. That's also one of his promises. But things go so much better if I see him and I train myself to do business with him as my partner instead of on my own steam.

Henry Kaestner: As you talked through this, I think about. So the question I'm gonna ask you here in a second is, are there biblical examples of leaders that you look at that did the prayer thing right? One example that's been an encouragement to me is Nehemiah. Nehemiah. So oftentimes cited as this leader. And you can just do this case study on business leadership marketplace through looking at Nehemiah and the rebuilding in Jerusalem. But one of the things that really makes an impact for me early on is that Artaxerxes, he asked, Nehemiah, and seen him stressed out about the status of Jerusalem. He says, what do you want me to do? And the action that Nehemiah did wasn't to say, well, send me back or give me money or anything like that. It says that he prayed. And I bet it wasn't king. Hey, hold on a second. Let me spend my time in my devotions tomorrow morning or tonight, and I'll come back and let you know, or I'm. Excuse me. Only go to my prayer room right now. I bet you like he did a quick, short prayer like Heavenly Father, just give me the right words right then and there. And I like that example because it makes it feel like prayer is more successful. And so what you just said, it was so helpful for me is Warren Buffett sitting right there. You're like, Warren, what should we say? Right? What should we ask for? Yeah. Are there stories also that you look at in the Bible? And maybe Nehemiah is the lowest hanging fruit because you said it's often it's a business example, but are there other ones that you look at to where you like? You know, that biblical hero kind of really nailed the prayer thing.

Kim Avery: I don't know if we think of this in conjunction so much with prayer, but an example that I've been meditating on recently is when Daniel was in exile, and we all feel a little bit like exiles from the modern cultural norm these days. But when he was in exile with his three unpronounceable friends. When you talk about biblical names.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah.

Kim Avery: And the person who was in charge of training them basically said, eat this food. And it was against their dietary laws. And he said, basically, test us, test us, let us eat vegetables in this simple diet for ten days and see, just see what happens. And I feel like that's in a sense God's invitation to us as entrepreneurs. Will you just test me? Will you try running your business through my power instead of your own? And just. It's an experiment that can't fail. Which is part of why I wrote the book is a 31 day, just one prayer point today. Pray it throughout the day. Pay attention to what God's doing. Notice. Do it again tomorrow because we don't want to try. We want to train, right? Try. Never works because we fail and we stop. But if we were all to run a marathon, we would train every day. So we train ourselves in the discipline of prayer. And then back to Daniel and his friends. Ten days later, it saw that they were obviously much healthier and doing better than everyone else. To the point we don't know the time span, but at the end of that first chapter in Daniel, it says, And God gifted them with skills and knowledge beyond all their peers. And and that just makes sense that if we prayed and partnered with God, that that's exactly what he would do in us and for us.

Ruty Rueff: Yeah, I love that. I love that I've always loved the example of Daniel in the business world because, you know, Daniel had to be equipped to actually work with those people that did things that he didn't believe in. Right. He had to work with all of the, you know, sorcerers and all these different things. And and yet he was their boss. And I always thought that that was fascinating because, you know, how is it that he was able to do that? Well, and it's probably because he had such a reliance on God, and God spoke so clearly to him on how to do that. I would imagine you've got amazing examples and stories of people who have adopted sort of the prayer chain all day long, you know, that vibrant communication with God. Can you share some of those stories?

Kim Avery: There's always two sets of examples, right? There's that people often think, first of all, externally just, okay, do I make more money? Right. Is the business more black than red this year? Do I get that contract? And again, we don't know exactly what God is promising in the external realm because as you all probably know, what of God's favorite way of growing our businesses is by growing us. And so he does like to work internally as well as do things for us externally. But I think just personally an example that I'll share on both levels. First, externally, several years ago, about two and a half years ago, our daughter unexpectedly passed away. And right after that I just felt the Lord saying, you know, just lay down these private clients, just work here and just work there. Just honor your grief, take space. And of course, as somebody who worked very hard on building her business all these years, I was like, but what about but what about but what about? It's just trust me in this, trust me in this. And so for the two fiscal years, in two and a half years since then, every year I've made more money, a lot more money than I have in previous years. I've worked less and to the point where I get to it. I look at my account and I'm like, I've no idea where this money came from. I just, I really don't. And he's like, well, I mean, we can, you know, pick it apart and figure it out. And I really don't want to know. It's just fun to see. God said, do less, trust me more, don't worry about it. And then internally, I hear this again and again as God is raising up prayer powered entrepreneurs literally around the globe. Is that worry, hurry and stress that we tend to carry. Feeling like it all depends on us and the weight is on our shoulders just disappears and people stop them in their companies or their friends and family and say, how is it you can enjoy the weekend when you know you still have so many things to do? Why is it you're not worried about that when it used to drive you crazy? But it's the power of knowing that God hasn't learned to see how he always faithfully provides.

Henry Kaestner: That's very powerful. So much has been written or shared about prayer that it almost seems like there's nothing new to write or say about. And yet you found some new things to write and say about it. What's one thing that you've learned about prayer that might surprise us?

Kim Avery: Well, first of all, I don't think I've said anything new about prayer, and I think all the prayer books that needed to be written have probably been written. I think what's interesting to us in this era in point in time when we live, is we are so inundated with information. We all suffer from information overload. Yet the natural human tendency is to think, if I know just a little bit more, if I learn just a little bit more if I and it's not that kind of book. Right. What really leads to transformation is taking information, combining it with implementation until we train in it long enough that it's full integration into the way we live and do business. And that's what this book does for you. It's a prayer experience, an invitation almost, to a daily treasure hunt with God to take what you already know about prayer. It's simple. It's childlike. Your father will provide. Just ask and watch and see what he will do, and then slow down and live it out. And it really is a transformative process.

Ruty Rueff: Kim we have many listeners who are not solo entrepreneurs right there, entrepreneurs growing a business and have lots of people around them in their companies. And they're not all believers, but yet they want to incorporate prayer into their business. How might a business owner, maybe you got some clues and tips, you know, weave prayer into a culture without it looking over the top or to, you know, pushing my faith on you, or even hokey.

Kim Avery: Yeah. Which always leads to resistance, which is the exact opposite of what we're trying to communicate when we do something like that. That top down, driven approach doesn't honor, I think, the invitation of, you know, interacting with the divine. And so, like most things with prayer, it's more about small seeds. If I put a fragrant room air freshener here in the room, it wouldn't necessarily be noticed right away, but the smell would slowly grow and reach everybody who is in the crowded room. And that seems to be how God is growing prayer powered entrepreneurs around the globe, and people in large companies and ministries as well as small, and that people are just honoring the fact in simple conversations. May I pray for you? I mean, they don't even mean right there, right then. I have never personally had anyone say, no, you can't pray for me, right? And then checking back, how did it go? Or our company at the top. We're stopping and we're praying about this. We just want you to know we're going to watch and see what God does. Just the organic, living life out loud in relationship with God is mystifying, but very curiosity provoking to the people who surround them, so that now they're not defensive. They're asking. What's with that? Or will you pray for me? I worked on this. Worked on the wrong word. But this interactions with this gentleman for two and a half years, I often say, is there any way I. Perfect. No. No. Don't. No, no. General, general prayer. You know, after two and a half years of my love offensive. This is the way I thought of it. When I would occasionally feel led to ask you to say, would you pray for my granddaughter? She's really struggling, and it just opened up relationship with us and opened up his mind to the fact that God can do things.

Ruty Rueff: Absolutely. And how can an entrepreneur who's just busy and got jam packed schedule and trying to feel like they're servicing too many constituents from their investors and their board and their employees and their partners and their customers? How do they fit prayer in the midst of all of that?

Kim Avery: How do you not? It's the rhetorical answer. And then when you think about it more deeply, again, I'm a huge advocate of brief prayer, breath, prayer, conversational prayer, and starting small before each conversation. Just train yourself with a post-it note in front of you to Lord. Show me how to minister to this person in a practical way in this conversation. Amen. That's a it's just a sentence. It's just paying attention. But God is already at work, and I've said this several times, but if I could just go back and unpack one phrase that I think is so key in this conversation, which is we have to be training, not trying. If we try to pray more, pray better, pray harder, life will interrupt our best attempts and we'll go on to the next thing. We'll, buy the next Christian book, we'll do the next whatever seems to be working for people. If we realize that a praying lifestyle, a praying business is what we want, then we just train in small ways, the same way we would train for anything with reminders and accountability partners and opportunities, and not beating ourselves up on days that don't go well and just picking up where we left off. And of course, most of all asking God to help us in this training process.

Joseph Honescko: If you want to hear more from Kim, we have a full length episode with her that will link to in the show notes. But as we come to a close here on this episode, we're going to do something a little different than what we normally do with these three views podcasts. And what we're going to do is pull from a soon to be released video story we're doing with Jeremy Lin. When we film those videos, we go through this process where we do extensive interviews, and in the conversation with Jeremy, he started talking about this incredible idea about faith being a muscle that needs to be trained and exercised. So as we start to close the loop on this idea of combating idolatry, we wanted to highlight some of Jeremy's insights for what that has looked like in his own journey as a pro athlete, but also as a faith driven entrepreneur and faith driven investor. This will be the last feature on the show. So I'm going to say now, just thanks for listening and if you found any of this helpful, please rate the show, review it, and share it with others. And as always, feel free to reach out to us at podcast at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org. We're grateful that you joined us. Now let's hear from Jeremy.

Jeremy Lin: You know, it's interesting because whenever we talk about strengthening a muscle, everyone understands that you get a trainer, you get in there, you get reps, you get reps, you increase weight, you do it over time. It's muscle. Right? And you know, in the Bible it talks about faith as a muscle. It's something that needs to be exercised, worked out right, like to be used. And that's something where I've realized, like my faith muscle needs to be something that needs to be trained. And one of those ways to do it is to intentionally block off time every day. Right? Like I needed to block off time every day. One pastor actually gave me a really encouraging piece of advice. He was like, anytime you're going through anything, whenever you're struggling, just spend an hour with God, right? Like a daily, right. Like that was his advice. Like, whatever you do in that hour, it's like up to you. But whenever you're really strong and you're struggling, spend an hour with God, right? Because in that hour, like, you don't know what's going to happen, but you're strengthening that faith muscle. You're working it out with God, and naturally it's not so much what you do or what you can do for God. It's the fact that you just open up space. And now God is coming in and he's doing what he's going to do. He's manifesting in my life. He's changing me. And the way that he does it, like is different every time. But it's the fact that, like, if I open the space up, if I open that door, he will come in and he will come in and he will change everything from the inside out. And so to me, you know, practically, it's just like I try to spend time with God daily in in those moments when I pray to God consistently, when I pray to God consistently, God, I need encouragement. Or God meet me in this place like it's very, very eerie. But he always and this is what works for me. It doesn't work for everyone else. But what he pretty much always does for me is he highlights this one verse. And so I'll see one verse and a bunch of times in a short span of time. Right. So one example was after Linsanity, I went to Houston Rockets. I was about to lose my starting position again. Like very embarrassing. I was extremely sad and very anxious. And as I God, you need to help me through the season, he didn't give me my starting position back. What he did was I saw Joshua 1:9, 7 times in the course of two weeks and it kept popping up. I remember there's one person who I hadn't spoken to in a year. He was like, hey man, you're on my mind. Joshua one nine. Right? Then I listened to a sermon. Boom! Joshua 1:9I read my daily devotional, Joshua one nine. All this stuff happened seven times in two weeks. The last one was the craziest. I opened my drawer. I had lived in this apartment for a year and a half. I opened my bathroom drawer. I was cleaning it out, and I'm like, what is this necklace? I find a necklace in there and it's Joshua one nine. In this verse talks about, you know, do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. You know, like basically says, the Lord will be with you wherever you go. Even if that's the bench, even if it's, you know, not as a starter. And I didn't realize until like 3 or 4 years later, this whole time I was like, where'd that necklace come from? Because it's not mine, I don't read. So 3 or 4 years later, my little bro was like, yeah, actually, that was mine. Where did you find it? I was like in my bathroom, like drawer. And so these are kind of some of the craziest things where like God doesn't always change your situation. But he'll meet you. He'll meet you where you're at. And when he speaks, listen. And when he speaks, use that as a way to speak to yourself consistently. Constantly. Like, what is God saying to me? And how can I continue to remind myself of that?

Joseph Honescko: Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be. We've got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There's no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.

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