Greater Things
A podcast about how faith fits with your everyday life. Matt interviews various speakers from around the globe and invites them to share their own experiences. For those who are asking big questions around faith, religion, church, and life.
https://www.greaterthingsinternational.com
Greater Things
Beyond the Noise: Finding Your Unique Voice
Discerning God's voice amidst the noise of everyday life presents a profound challenge for many believers. In this illuminating conversation with Naomi Byers, we explore the intricate art of hearing, testing, and applying divine messages with both confidence and humility.
Naomi's journey from high school chemistry teacher to prophetic pioneer offers a fascinating perspective on spiritual discernment. With her unique blend of scientific thinking and spiritual sensitivity, she unpacks how God speaks through multiple channels—dreams, Scripture, creation, and even through her children's unexpected pronouncements (what she affectionately calls "clangers"). Her testimony reminds us that divine communication transcends our limited categories and invites us to expand our spiritual receptivity.
The heart of our discussion revolves around testing prophetic words with wisdom and community discernment. Unlike superficial approaches, Naomi advocates for a comprehensive process that honors both the seriousness of speaking on God's behalf and the biblical mandate to "test everything." For those navigating the often confusing landscape of modern prophetic ministry, her balanced methodology offers much-needed clarity.
We dive deep into understanding your prophetic gifting, challenging unhealthy hierarchies that create unnecessary division within the church. "Each individual, you are the most powerful prophet in your own life," Naomi declares, shifting focus from aspiring to positions toward embracing our unique design and purpose. This perspective aligns perfectly with the Joel 2 vision of the Spirit being poured out on all flesh, empowering every believer to hear and respond to God's voice.
Using the powerful metaphor of pottery, Naomi describes spiritual formation as thoroughly messy yet beautiful—much like staying on the potter's wheel while being shaped. Her insights on distinguishing between God-given responsibilities and false burdens cut straight to the heart of ministry burnout, offering freedom to those carrying weights they were never designed to bear. Ready to transform how you hear God speak? This conversation might just be the catalyst you've been waiting for.
www.greaterthingsinternational.com
In this episode of the Greater Things Podcast I'm with a brand new friend. Her name is Naomi Byers and I've been asking her a few questions around hearing God speak and just how does she do it, how does she understand it, and then how does she apply that into her life? Well, today on the Greater Things Podcast, I'm with a new friend of mine. We've caught up, I think, once before this time, and she's come highly recommended to me by the Lana Engelbrecht. She was insistent that I meet Naomi, and I am so thrilled that I have so taken. Was I? By the first time I met with her, I invited her to come straight onto this podcast. But, naomi, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm well, thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:It's an absolute pleasure and I've been really looking forward to this conversation. As with all the conversations I do, I don't really know where we're going to go. I don't send questions out as to what we're going to be doing and how we're going to be doing. It bar one question, and that is the question of who is Naomi. So I wonder, naomi, just to introduce yourself to everyone listening, can you help us understand you, who you're married to, the wonders that God has placed around you, the cat that you just put out of the room, all of that sort of stuff. But then just get more curious. I want to hear who is Naomi Byers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for the invitation, and the cat may return at some stage. I have two, but this one is very insistent. So, hi, I'm Naomi. Who am I Well? Me, who am I Well? I would say I'm a wife and a mum. I'm a wife to an amazing, high achieving, very hardworking husband who works in education and in the public sphere in a way that he would probably prefer not to be seen, but he's a very, very gifted individual, very passionate about education. I won't say where he works, just for I know he won't want me to do that, but he's incredible. We actually also have a farm, so he's currently there. He'll be coming back at some stage today. We have a farm called Mount Moriah. We have cattle on that farm, a crazy donkey who thinks he's a dog Hilarious and we have two beautiful daughters, isabel and Abigail, both just finished high school this year. We are now officially on school holidays as the time of this recording. I'm so, so, very, very thankful. For Now.
Speaker 2:I am, at my heart, a little bit eccentric. I am most certainly a teacher, so I've just recently done redemptive gifts and I found out that redemptively, according to the Romans, 12 gifts I'm a teacher. It's in my DNA. I spent 15 years as a high school chemistry teacher. I'm very, very passionate about education. I had to leave it as a result of physical illness nine and a half years ago now and have found myself in the ministry sphere pioneering something new online in the prophetic, but redemptively. I am actually a teacher. I love to explore ideas. I like to go deep with facts. I'm a massive nerd, including a nerd about Star Wars, lord of the Rings, you just actually even Star Trek, let's go there, even Star Trek. I love science. I love Trek Like I love science. I love science fiction. I love fantasy, love getting lost in a really good story and I have two crazy cats, one of which often interrupts on my broadcast, so Rosie may show or may not show herself. That's a start. Matt, that's a start. I, that's a start.
Speaker 1:I need to confess something straight away, Naomi I hate chemistry.
Speaker 2:Can we still be friends though chemistry?
Speaker 1:That's why I had to put it out there right from the start.
Speaker 2:I tell you this, guys, I'll tell you this Teaching senior chemistry was more straightforward and easier than battling in the ministry space. I'm just going to be real straight up with you Teaching chemistry, I'd miss it. It was far less complicated, trust me, it was far less complicated. But I love to know how the intricate parts of matter interact and there's nothing more exciting than what happens in a chemistry lab. I'm just saying it's risque, and there's an element of my personality that loves to take risks, loves to live on the edge, often to my own detriment. But that is very. Yeah, I miss it. I really do miss teaching chem.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got the name for your podcast Living on the Edge of a Petri Dish. How's that sound?
Speaker 2:Living on the Edge of a Petri Dish? Yeah, yeah, why not as long as it's sealed, because Petri dishes actually smell. Did you know that?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't.
Speaker 2:They really smell. Yeah't, they really smell. Yeah, yeah, they're stinky, sorry.
Speaker 1:Now we've got all the chemistry out of the way. One of the things that fascinates me with people when they share who they are, is often the things that they read in their interest Prophetically. That opens up a world for me. They read in their interest, prophetically that opens up a world for me. So people who are into fantasy or science fiction they are pioneers because, like even with the Star Trek thing and I've got to say I'm more Star Wars than Star Trek my wife would. She's a bit of both and she loves the both the worlds. So I think you get on really, really well with her. But going where no one has gone before for people who are so invested in science fiction they're often the ones that change is something that they'll wrestle with it, but they're actually okay with it because they'll see possibility and opportunity. But for science fiction, you're out where no one has been before. Does that prophetically land with you, naomi?
Speaker 2:It, does it prophetically lands with where I am right now, in my current season of pioneering in the prophetic, and I gosh, I mean I've really wrestled with the idea of God. Did I hear you right? Is this really where I'm supposed to be? This is really strange. But I do find that he consistently, consistently encourages me in that space to keep going. But it's not easy being a pioneer, but you have to be. You wouldn't do it unless you were wired for it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that again that you shared that too, because it's a thing that for pioneers like I think for the longest time, naomi, like it's felt like a bit of a Lone Ranger sort of sphere where and I think if you feel like you're on your own sometimes you need to slow down and turn around to see who God's brought with you in those places. But, identifying with the whole concept of pioneering new things, for myself too, sometimes loneliness can be our greatest enemy. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Without a doubt, loneliness can preach really loud when you don't have much community around you, and certainly for the last three years where we've been so we are bi-locational. As I said, we own a farm out regionally, about an hour hour and a half northwest of the Brisbane CBD here in Australia, and it's beautiful, but it's been incredibly isolating and as I've been stepping more into and wrestling with the message and the mandate that the Lord's given me, I've had to really battle discouragement and loneliness and even the accusation that comes in from the enemy, sometimes through other people, that yeah, I'm a lone wolf or I'm rebellious or something of that sort. These are real things that pioneers absolutely have to wrestle with and it can definitely preach really, really loud. But I have found that God is very faithful in those without Without fail. Every time I felt really lonely and discouraged and I just lent into the Lord and said I need some encouragement. Today he's given it to me every time, without fail.
Speaker 1:I love that. So just a question how does Naomi Byers hear God's voice?
Speaker 2:That's a great question hear God's voice that's a great question Multiple ways and probably have always heard God's voice, if that makes sense. It was raised in a Christian home and knew the Lord quite early. So as early as I can remember I've heard his voice, probably, um, initially in dreams and visions. Um, just yeah, just simply. There are dreams I had when I was a small child that I still remember. They were very, very impactful. Um, through the still small voice, within the impressions, the nudges.
Speaker 2:He's always spoken to me through creation. To the point like I am a real softy, I will watch a dolphin show and I'll be bawling my eyes out and not be able to explain why. I'll see the beauty of a. I'm very, very moved by creation. So he speaks to me through creation. Since I was seven years of age, he's been speaking to me very specifically through his word and I've been studying it since that time and as that has grown in terms of the prophetic gifting on my life, you know, I have come to spaces where I've heard his external audible voice once and the last few years, internal audible as well. Yeah, and here's probably one of my favourite ways that I hear God through my children. I hear God speaking through my children sometimes, particularly my youngest daughter, she just comes out with absolute clangers. Can I share one, because it was just so fun?
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well for people who live overseas, you might have to tell what a clanger is as well, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use so much Aussie slang and don't recognise it, so apologies, overseas friends, a clanger means like it's, you know, hitting a bell it really resounds. It's resounding is what I mean by that. So I am someone. If we're talking more about me, I am someone who tends to wear my heart on my sleeve, as my husband says. I sometimes go off reservation and get into my feelings. It's true, I, just I. I I'm not very good at hiding how I feel. So my kids have heard some of the brutality of being in ministry and I remember it was earlier this year.
Speaker 2:I was at the dinner table, probably griping about something I don't remember, but I was definitely griping, and my youngest daughter turns around to me eating her meal and she says I feel a bit vulnerable sharing this, but I'm going to share it anyway. She turns around and she says to me mum, don't be surprised at what's happening to you. God has called you to be part of a move of God here in Australia. Wow. And then just went back to. I said, excuse me, and she just went back to eating. And then, when I asked her more about it, she's like oh, it's gone now, I'm just kept. And she followed up. She followed up with another one.
Speaker 2:If I, if I could share this one too, because it was hilarious, and once again I was griping, definitely, was definitely griping at the table. And she's gotten up, she's finished dinner and she's exiting the room and she's like Mum, this is David, saul and Samuel. All over again. She's like Mum, you're David, they're Saul, samuel is the voice of God. That's what's happening to you, okay? And then she left. It was just boom, wow. So, oh, my goodness, the voice of God is so rich and so diverse and if we lean into hearing him in every aspect of what he's created, who he's created, we are not going to miss hearing the voice of God.
Speaker 1:So everyone listening? That's two clangers right there. I think I'd probably describe it as a mic drop moment. You know when your kids just say stuff and you just go. Where did that come from?
Speaker 1:But this aspect of hearing God speak, though, naomi, this is one thing, because I'm passionate about helping people discover that God voice for themselves and so, similar to you, I grew up in a place where the Bible was the predominant way that anyone would teach that God spoke, and we even had that corny phrase back in the 80s or the 70s that said if you want to hear God speak, read the Bible. If you want to hear him speak out loud, read it out loud. And corny, very, very corny. I get it, but I'm an active listener of God and so often when you hear people in the prophetic, they say I hear God do this and I hear God do that.
Speaker 1:In the one-on-one conversations I like to go well, how did you hear that and how did you test that? How did you know that that was from God? Because, like for pioneers, like what you said earlier was did God really say this to me? Did I mishear what he was saying? How does Naomi then test these words that come from God. Like, dreams are a classic way for me of testing them as well. But how do you do it? What's your process?
Speaker 2:My process certainly developed over the years. So if there's something I receive that's weighty and it usually comes in dreams if it's something weighty, I will sit with it with the Lord for a period of time not a specified period of time just as long as it is needed for me to actually it's more than just being able to receive the message. Because of the weight of what it is the Lord's asking me to release. There's an element of me having to become the message where you know, just we know, many prophets in scripture were asked to eat the scroll and while it was beautiful and sweet in their mouth because God's words are sweet when it hit their stomach it became as bitter as gall, because the reality of assimilating and becoming the message is really, really difficult For me when I've had I'll give an example of a word that's almost 12 months old now that I released just before Christmas last year. It's still on my social media, if anyone. I'll be taking it off the pinned position in the next little while, but it's up for the moment.
Speaker 2:That came out of a dream I'd had in August of 2018. And I'd sat with that dream for a period of time, and there's even times where I released part of it on social media twice before, and the Lord really, because it was a weighty. It was a weighty dream, essentially, is it okay to share just a little bit about. I won't share the whole dream, but essentially part of what I saw in the dream was this massive wave hitting the shore where there were sheep being hotly pursued by wolves, and this divided wave hit the shore. The wolves were completely obliterated, the sheep were now riding onto the wave and I had a word. That word is called the sea of glass and the coming redemption, and the Lord actually urged me to release that before Christmas last year. I wanted to wait until January of this year, but he really urged me to do it, and that was concerning what we have seen play out all of this year and even just things that have been revealed in recent days of those platforms and those wolves actually being immediately exposed to what they were and immediately removed, which we have seen. We have seen that take place Now.
Speaker 2:That was a weighty thing to sit with because I knew what God had shown me, however, many years ago, but I didn't have the courage to release that in a public sphere and I was also cautious, like I was cautious about what I released just out into the airwaves. I had to really sit with it and really become the message and have the boldness to release what it was that God was saying and hence it's important. So I find that when you've got weighty things, if you've got something that's encouraging for people, that's different Like if you've got a prophetic encouragement for someone I don't think you need to overthink that too much. You just encourage someone.
Speaker 2:But if you're carrying something that's a weighty message, wisdom would say sit with it for some time with the Lord, and I have found consistently that if it's God, he will not leave you alone about it. He is very persistent and continues to open up more things. So I use resources like the Divinity Code and Billy Wong's the Dream Interpreter. They're helpful resources, but nothing is. It's all second pardon me or secondary, just sitting with the Holy Spirit and allowing that word to really become a part of you so that you can release it in purity and in a way that's actually going to bring and affect change from what it is that you're carrying. I hope I answered that question okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did. And it's again for when people are listening. It's every time like the Bible says don't scoff at prophecies, but test them. Most times when you say to somebody, hey, how did you test that? The answer for me, nine times out of 10, naomi, was did you have a piece on it? Now, that's a cool thing to do, but I think testing God's words goes into community. It goes into a much broader place than just going. Do I feel good about that word? Yep, let's just do that word.
Speaker 1:One of the ways that I test the words that I get given or I receive is can I find encouragement, can I find a challenge in it that balances these words for me? So when I hear someone say I've got a word from God for you, you go. That's cool. Am I allowed to test it? There was one time, naomi, a person said no, I wasn't allowed to test it. And I said I don't want it. And they're like what? And I said well, you're telling me that I can't test it. So that goes against everything I believe. So I don't want it. And then they said to me don't you want to know what God said? Well, I'm curious, but if I'm not allowed to test it, then I'm not going to receive it. So I never found out what that word was. But for me, I look for the challenge. And that's not the discipline, that's not the punishment, that's not any of that. That's God, where do you want me to grow in this word that you've just given to me?
Speaker 1:And so, like, when I hear of a dream of a wave that comes and washes away the wolves and leaves the sheep for those, for lots of people, they'll identify well, I'm the sheep and that's it. That's going to be great and it's fantastic. But the wave is the interesting part for me, because for me that's the move of the Holy Spirit, right, and so it's moving through. And I know, a number of years ago, with a church here in Sydney, I was seeing a bunch of people from that church and they were having dream after dream after dream, naomi, about waves hitting this particular church, and where were they standing and how did they survive that? And so the fear that the dream represented to them was very challenging.
Speaker 1:But to sit in that place of going, okay, let's just test this and let's see. And so when you see a lot of people having dreams around, one thing, it's one way that I do test things. My ears go up when people go. I've had a dream of this wave that's coming through and it looks like it's going to be destructive and at some level it might be, but there's something else that's inside of it, so I look for those encouragements and challenges in there. Does that resonate with you?
Speaker 2:Oh, it absolutely does.
Speaker 2:And I agree with you and want to add, in terms of my process anytime I release anything weighty to whatever it may be, whatever community or whichever audience the Lord is calling me to, I will absolutely get it tested and weighed with some trusted friends, without a doubt, and who also can be critical friends, who can actually challenge hey, maybe you need to relook at your interpretation here.
Speaker 2:So, without a doubt, that goes without saying. That needs to be done within community, absolutely, because it's very scriptural to be testing and weighing what words that is, and that is a new testament thing. We need to test and weigh the words because the, the spirit's been pulled out now on all flesh and therefore, um, we are now all, like the old testament, sons of the prophets, as in. We all have that ability to come in under the Spirit of God and be able to be released under the unction to prophesy or can prophesy. Now we truly are the Joel 2 generation, but we're also people and we can misinterpret things or interpret things through the lens of our own understanding and our own biases. And it is a really good idea for us to test and weigh within community and, as you said, if you've got a number of people having similar dreams with very similar themes, then that's actually exciting because we know God is speaking. But yeah, hopefully I've answered that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think this is what the helpful part of it, naomi, like it's just allowing people to go. Okay, let's hear how unique these things happen for each other, because often if you go to a course, you'll hear how that person does that very thing, and often it may not be explicitly said, but it's like do it this way. And if you don't do it this way, then you're not going to get the same outcomes that I get. But I don't think the kingdom revolves around one pattern of belief, of behavior, of program. I think the kingdom happens very organically and very uniquely. And allowing people into that place of going well, I don't hear God like that and you go, that's okay, that's absolutely okay. So let's talk about how you engage with God and let's see how God might be speaking to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, because each of us are made individually and we can very easily fall into the trap of comparing our gifts with one another, which is ridiculous, because God has given each and every one of us amazing, unique gifts. There isn't a person on the planet that hasn't been spoken into the earth with a unique design and purpose it's something that maybe you know this is my opinion but with something that really only they can do, something that's written of them in heaven, because God does make unique one-offs and if we lean into our identity and who it is that he's called us to be, we won't find the need to compare or compete with others in the kingdom, because the kingdom has so much room. There's space for every one of us. It's not about platforms or things like that. It's about the fact that there is so much work to be done.
Speaker 2:The harvest is great, but the labor is a few, possibly because we're so busy getting caught up in comparing ourselves to one another, forgetting the unique, awesome creations that we have are and the, the amazing destiny that we have. And if we recognize that a lot of the envy and the striving and a lot of the nonsense that we see go on wouldn't exist. If we stepped into an understanding of who he's already created us to be, it's a clinger. We stepped into an understanding of who he's already created us to be, it's a clinger.
Speaker 1:One of the other things you said which I utterly agree with is the concept that all of us can hear God. Therefore we can speak God, if I can put it in those kinds of words. So and I love hearing that from you, naomi, because that's been one of the areas of even my own, the way that I operate in the kingdom that's been critiqued, as in not all of us are prophets and there's only some people who are and everyone else is not, and I'm like, yeah, that sounds a whole lot like division to me, rather than what 1 Corinthians 14 would speak over me about. I want you all to prophesy.
Speaker 1:This is part of what I think like in this day that we live in, if all of us can hear God, then it's in my interest to hear it from other people, to hear Him from other people as well, interest to hear it from other people that hear him from other people as well. And that's where I love listening to the story, the heart, like even the science fiction part of it, because, again, like, these are the people. When you hang out with them, you get to discover something more of the wonder of God, and when we're in conversation together, there's this divine collaboration that draws us into a greater perspective of the one that we call God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I understand and can appreciate what you're saying about how, all right, I'm just going to go after this sacred cow, but just giving people a ding, ding, ding trigger alert sacred cow about to be slaughtered um, some of the things we've done. So my upbringing has been in Pentecostal circles, but I have spent time in all kinds of churches and I'm currently in a Baptist church at the moment, so I had lots of experience across the broad church. But that's my background and there's a lot and certainly has been for the last 20 years or so a lot of emphasis on apostles and prophets, fivefold, but specifically apostles and prophets, and I get it, I understand the importance of it, I understand the importance of their function within the body of Christ, but I would emphasize the word function rather than title, because part of the reason why we have this disconnect is that, in some ways, some fairly poor teaching about apostles and prophets being the foundation of the church and they are, in terms of their doctrine, and we're talking back to the first century here, but I'll leave that one alone. For now they are.
Speaker 2:However, what's inadvertently happened is we've elevated the, you know, like the office of apostle and the office of prophet, and I don't even like to use the word office, I just put it out there. That's another sacred cow. It's not actually in Scripture. I understand the Greek word doma or domata being the plural of that In Ephesians 4, I understand that is different to charisma or charismata, the Greek word for gifts, in the Corinthian correspondence. So I understand that there are distinctions.
Speaker 2:I think we have elevated it so much and unfortunately it's created an unnecessary separation between us and them, and in doing so, people have wanted to aspire to being something like a prophet or an apostle, and I just lord knows why. I why? But because we've inadvertently glamorized it and made it look like something sparkly and decorative, where, in essence, the truth of the matter is, matt, that each individual, you are the most powerful prophet in your own life. Each individual, you are the most powerful prophet in your own life. You get to foretell the promises of God, you open them up in Scripture. Take the prophetic words that have been spoken over. You wage war with them. You are the most powerful prophet in your life. And if we look at it in terms of that, then we have less of that, us and them.
Speaker 2:So I won't unpack too much more of that because I've done some theological study in this, read a lot of literature around the growth of essentially the progression of the prophetic right through scripture and I tend to see a continuous thread of prophecy that runs right through scripture all the way into the New Testament and the emphasis is on the sons of the prophets.
Speaker 2:The sons of the prophets are who we see in the book, particularly the books of Kings, but they're there in the school of the prophets. We know that existed during Samuel's time and onwards, so there's evidence for that in scripture. But I believe that they really were a foreshadowing of the spirit being poured out on all flesh and we can now all prophesy. And I think that that is where the emphasis should be and rather than worrying about or chasing a title and I'm not saying that there isn't a need for prophets in terms of those who carry a greater level of authority or have a larger sphere of influence in the body of Christ, not saying that that doesn't happen but we may find we have a bit more health in this area in the body of Christ if we pull back away from titles and positions and move more into function and who God's created you to be. I hope I haven't opened up too large a can of worms on that.
Speaker 1:Well, what everyone's getting to witness is the teacher at work. And that's the important part of any conversation of identity. Because, again, if you know he went into some other sphere of anything other than teacher, we'd probably get this really weird conversation that's happening of trying to be something else. But the joy of listening to you speak, the value that you place on the Word of God, the value you place on the thread that flows through Scripture a friend of mine calls that the metanarrative. And the metanarrative of Scripture showing the kingdom and not the title.
Speaker 1:And I think in the culture we're in, the comparison stuff that happens not just in churches but it happens in our whole world like I want what they've got, so what do I have to do to get what they've got? But often what I've found is people will say I want what you have, but they're not prepared to go through what you've gone through to get what you have. Now, for people like you and I, we're very willing to allow people into a place to learn how we've got what we've done and not just said, well, wait till you arrive. And that, to me, is the heart of a teacher. The heart of a teacher is to open up the wisdom that you know, the experiences that you've had, to show that chemistry at some level can be interesting.
Speaker 1:But this is the part of and I guess, naomi, you know as well as I do some teachers or someone up with that inverted commas. Some teachers, you sit and you just go. I need to, well as I do some teachers or someone. I put that in inverted commas. Some teachers, you sit and you just go. I need to have a very long sleep right now, and other teachers three hours disappears like it's about three minutes, and I'm sure your chemistry classes would have been like that for me.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is a really kind compliment. Thank you, matt. I would like to think that I would have made chemistry interesting for you. The eccentricity that I carry certainly made me quite unpredictable in the classroom and usually fairly entertaining. So when you're teaching science to little kids like the junior level, junior high school kids, you have to make it exciting. It just, you know you lose kids, their attention spans that of a goldfish. They need to be engaged. So I am yeah, I feel very encouraged by that because I think I can get deep down rabbit holes off into facts and people are like, oh my gosh, you lost me at, like you know, 20 minutes ago.
Speaker 1:But that's again why we're all so unique, because, like for me, because I have a high value on scripture as well, like I have studied it, like I went to college to get my degree in theology in itself to learn and to understand just the way people think.
Speaker 1:Part of the things that I love to read is historical fiction, because I want to read how God turned up inside of culture and how people engage with him and to see the thread or the metanarrative of God throughout the histories that we know. And things like that are very important to me, but they're not important to a lot of people, like some people couldn't care less about history. But this is the unique part of each of us, if we can express who we are and again opening up ourselves as teachers to help people discover those truths that are in us. So for yourself, it sounds like there's theories that you've probably learned in life, but now there's applications in those theories that become transformative, not only for you, but when you've actually gone through the transformation, I think you actually carry like a real authority to speak of that transformation. So it's no longer just an idea, it's not just a theory. This is something you've applied into your life and you've seen what God has actually done in your life. Would that be fair to say that about you too, naomi?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what you're saying boils down to the elements, like the core elements of discipleship, because we know that the Great Commission is to make disciples, not make converts make disciples. And to me, what that looks like in my life is taking someone alongside me, as you said. Not that they have arrived, hello, rosie, not that they have arrived, that they are in the process, which means it's messy, which means it's almost like a parent-child relationship a little bit. You scoop them up, you take them along with you. There is gentle and loving correction that happens within relationship. Because you're there, you're doing life together.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think that that is the essence of what it is that we need to be doing is to, if you've laid down and paid the price for something that God's called you to do so in my case that's, you know, pioneering in the prophetic and moving in a space that looks a little bit different to what we've seen then I feel a responsibility to take those who feel pulled in a similar way along the journey with me and teach them practically. If you want to walk in this level of authority and if you want to walk in this, you know, whatever. If you want to use the word anointing, we can. But if you want to walk in, that here is what I've done in order to get to this place. So if you want to be there, this is what it looks like and I think that ultimately, it's all about discipleship and taking people along for the journey, taking on board the fact that it's going to be a messy process, embracing the mess and loving people into wholeness and maturity in what God's called them to do.
Speaker 1:That's perfect. So the idea of discipleship I think I know for myself there's some words and we mentioned this briefly off air that when you're in churches and you use words like discipleship or evangelism, they often have connotations that are subconsciously interpreted, or maybe consciously. Discipleship for me is the concept of helping a person know that God loves them. God loves others and he wants a relationship with us so that we can love God, love others and love ourselves, and each of those are as important as the next. And so the concept of discipleship for me is inherently based in love. And when I look at the church, when I look at my own story, I think I was taught the love of God, I think I was taught to love others, but I definitely wasn't taught how to love myself. And that's the part of process that for so many people in our culture, in our day, they come to that place and they say, well, I've served, I've served, I've served, I've served, I've served, I've served, I've done, I've done, I've done, and it's like cool.
Speaker 1:But how have you loved? How have you loved self? How have you honored self? How have you rested? How have you done all these things? And these, for me, are the root of a lot of these discipleship type questions that we say so when a church says we are big on discipleship, often what I've seen is that means they do a lot of Bible study and that's good, that's cool, I'm very okay with that. But I'm looking for the transformation, the heart transformation stuff that flows from that not just from a knowledge point of view but from a heart point of view to go okay, this is where I started the journey that I've got with God and this is where I'm at at the moment. And if I can see where I've come from, to know where I am, I can actually see where I'm going and that to me, is a very helpful prophetic thing as much as it is a life thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think that something you touched on before I'd love to emphasize is the whole idea that loving others because we know the greatest commandment is to love God with everything that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourself is the second. But we often miss the fact that we are supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and because we're so outward focused on what do I need to do, do, do, do, do so it's not identity-based, it's what do I need to do in order to get to here. You know I want to be in.
Speaker 2:I don't understand people saying they want to be in ministry. I actually personally don't understand that. I really wrestled with God over this, but I think perhaps they're wanting something that they think it is and it really isn't, and thinking that they need to go through a bunch of things, to check off a list in order to, you know, to be. But that's not formation. If you think about the work of um, I hope the bin is not making too that we've got the too much noise in the background good, good, um.
Speaker 2:So if we think about pottery, love doing pottery with my kids I'm not terribly great at being on the potter's wheel. My 12 year old is she can smash that clay down, she can center it, she's just a natural. And scripture actually talks about us being on the potter's wheel with the master potter shaping and forming us. And if anyone's done poetry not poetry, it's poetic about it. Sometimes, if you haven't done pottery before, you can have that. If you're not careful, you haven't done pottery before, you can have that. If you're, if you're not careful, you don't know what you're doing that that that clay can flick off the. It can come straight off and hit the walls and it's it's. It's pretty intense that process.
Speaker 2:So the process of formation and growth is thoroughly messy. There is nothing neat about it. You do pottery, you are covered in clay from head to toe. It gets in every little space.
Speaker 2:So we can't avoid the process of becoming is formation and it's messy. Which means and this is something I'm still very much working through personally, if I can share through we have got to come into acceptance of who we are and who God's created us to be, and loving and embracing who we are, because if we don't, we have an imperfect lens by which we can try to love others, but it's coming from a place of striving and doing rather than actual rest and being. So my encouragement to people would be to pull back a little bit from all of this doing and really assess how much you actually love and value who God has made you to be, because if you don't, it doesn't matter how much doing, striving, ticking boxes that you do you actually won't be formed until you yield to the process under the hands of the master Potter, who knows what he's doing. So stay on the wheel, everybody. Stay on the potter's wheel.
Speaker 1:I think I would like to do another podcast with you on the concept of rest, naomi. Like, maybe we can tuck that one under our hats for the next time that we have a conversation because, again, the concept of loving so well, like, I don't really know what the health crisis you went through went, but it obviously knocked you off your feet for quite some time. Rest is not something that our culture does well at all, but I would love to have a whole podcast on just hearing you unpack what rest looks like. Can you give me a grab for the next podcast? Like, is there a phrase or is there a paragraph you could drop on me?
Speaker 2:I would say gosh. I'm still very much in process about this. It's imperative that we understand that loving ourselves, which actually has to come prior to loving others, it's like love your neighbour as you love yourself. The other way around, loving yourself looks like understanding. Let's call it the peas and carrots. From the peas and carrots, what is your or my responsibility and what is completely outside of your control. So a lot of the reason I know for me personally, something I am still coming out of is taking on false responsibility, false expectation.
Speaker 2:I'm going to bring in some scripture here. Galatians 6 talks about bear one another's I think it's verse 2, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. And if you drop down to a few verses below that, it says and each one shall bear his own load. I haven't done a specific word study of burden and load, but I know that there are different words in the Greek Wow, and I believe that we take on a lot of false burdens in the guise of loving others that really become a load upon us.
Speaker 2:We know Scripture also says that Jesus is the one whose yoke is easy and his burden is light. So part of what I had to wrestle with in terms of coming into rest is understanding what is my responsibility and what is absolutely not, and what is not has to be let go. Yeah, it completely has to be let go, because I think a lot of the reason we stumble and find ourselves in burnout and I've been there is because we are carrying burdens and loads that we were never designed to carry. It's false responsibility, and sometimes we can package it up and guise it to look like Christianity and Christlikeness, but it isn't, so there's a grab Thank you.
Speaker 2:But as briefly as possible.
Speaker 1:I love it. Naomi, I'm going to put a sila moment in what we're doing at this point in time. I want to say thank you for sharing your heart and your space, your family, with us as well, your cat as well. Next time I want to talk about the crazy donkey he's awesome.
Speaker 2:He's awesome um he's awesome. He's also very naughty sometimes. Yeah, he's cute.
Speaker 1:But thank you so much for allowing us into your space.
Speaker 2:Thank you for letting us see the teacher. You are more than welcome, Matt.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. Well, for everybody else, this is the Greater Things podcast. We want to say thank you for hanging out with us and we'll be back in your ears next time. Bye, for now. You can find us on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, or go to our website, greaterthingsinternationalcom.