Can You Really Hear God's Voice? // Jamie Winship

What if hearing from God is more practical than we've been taught? We revisit one of our favorite conversations with Jamie Winship as he shares how discovering his God-given identity transformed the way he approached fear, relationships, and everyday life. We explore how learning to recognize God's voice shaped Jamie's work as a police officer, why identity is deeper than our vocation, and what it looks like to follow Jesus in ordinary moments. If you've ever wondered whether God still speaks today or how to live with greater confidence in your identity, this conversation offers a compelling invitation to trust Him in every part of life.

What We Learned

• Identity comes from God—not from what we do, what we have, or what other people think about us.
• Fear is one of the greatest obstacles to living the life God designed us to live.
• God often meets us in ordinary moments and unexpected places, not just traditionally "spiritual" environments.
• Our vocation is not our identity; our identity is what brings life and purpose into our vocation.
• Learning to hear God's voice is a discipline that grows through asking questions, paying attention, and practicing obedience.
• Abiding with Jesus means inviting Him into everyday conversations, decisions, and relationships—not just spiritual activities.
• God frequently reveals Himself most clearly in places of darkness, desperation, and uncertainty.
• Obedience is hearing God's voice and responding, rather than simply following rules.

Resources Mentioned

• Living Fearless — Jamie Winship
• Identity Exchange
• Becoming What You Believe
• Trueface
• Serpico (1973)
• Athletes in Action

Produced by Sound of a Rose — https://soundofarose.com

Transcript

Introduction to Jamie Winship and episode overview

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Jamie has this way of talking about hearing from God that feels a lot less complicated and a lot more relational. In this conversation, what stuck with me most was how often God met him right in the middle of ordinary moments. Police work, hard conversations, times of fear, uncertainty, and how that shaped the way he lives and loves people. I think this episode is worth revisiting because so many of us are trying to figure out what it actually looks like to follow Jesus in real life, not just in theory. And Jamie's stories are compelling, but underneath all of them is the invitation to trust God, that he's present and speaking way more than we realize. So here's part one of our conversation with Jamie Winship.

Jamie’s background and journey into faith

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Welcome to the True Face podcast. My name's Robbie Angle, and I'll be your guide as we have conversations about what we can learn from what's going on in our lives. Most of us get stuck in our relationships with God and others, and we end up wondering: is this really all there is to it? Here's a question. What if God isn't who you think he is in neither are you? The grace-based relational discipleship resources at trueface.org and on the app, TrueFacelife app, will help you answer that, serving the church and the individuals to help you live into your true identity. And this conversation with Jamie will help you do that. Whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you get this, please subscribe, share, and join the growing tribe of Jesus followers at TrueFace.org. So I'm super excited, y'all, to introduce uh Jamie Winchip. He's a former Metro DC police area officer, and he spent 30 years living and working in the Muslim world, teaching people how to hear from God and live in his kingdom. Jamie and his wife, Donna, speak around the U.S., around the globe, helping people find their God-given identity and experience a life of freedom. They live in Tennessee. He wrote one of my new favorite books, Living Fearless. And he's got all kinds of resources at identityexchange.com. Uh my wife and I did the Becoming What You Believe course, which was awesome. And Jamie, it is an honor to have you on the True Face Tribe. You feel like an old friend, but a new friend. I'm such uh so excited to meet you, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Well, thanks. It's great, great to be here. I'm I'm just looking forward to our conversation. Even our little um before we got on here conversation was intriguing. So I'm looking forward to this. And we're close. We live close, apparently. So that's that's great.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Oh, yeah. So, all right. So uh before we jump in, I need to give you some context of how I learned about you and Living Fearless. So I turned 40 a couple months ago. I'm in my midlife crisis right now, but that's a you know topic for another day. You can help me on my identity there. But we I was in on the beach, Cayman Islands with my wife and uh close friends of ours. And we have the question uh, if you could have lunch with anybody, who would you want to have lunch with? And we all go around. I said Tim Keller, on and my wife says, uh, and you know, you Living Fearless was the book she brought to this trip. And she was like, I'd have lunch with Jamie Winship. And I was like, Who is Jamie Winship? And then she's like, Well, he's like this, it's amazing. This book I'm reading on identity. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you mean what your husband does professionally speaking and writing on identity? And you want to have lunch with this guy? She's like, Yeah, but it's different. It's like, you know, like more specific, unique. And I'm like, whoa, baby, who is this guy? What does he look like? How old is he? I'm not saying I was insecure, Jamie, but I was like, what in the world? You want to have lunch with some other guy who has an identity ministry, not True Face? Your husband. So I didn't like you. I started researching, checking it out. And dude, you and Donna have been such a blessing to my wife and I. And I have heard your voice more in my house than some of my shy kids over the past few months as Emily has listened to pretty much everything out there on you. So uh I it's just the the the nature of the ministry, your life, your impact. I say all that to say thank you.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Oh yeah, I mean, uh, that's I appreciate it. And uh yeah, that's that's really a compliment. Uh yeah, I don't know what to say. I'm humbled by that. So thank you. It's great to be here with you. I hope to get to meet your wife, even though I will tell you that my that my oldest son is your guy's age.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

So hey, that's what I told Emily. I'm like, look, the insecurity felt better. He's an old guy, and we're okay. I'm okay here.

unknown 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So I I told her next time we come up to Tennessee, we're close enough. I'll take you up on that and and make my wife's uh wish list lunch happen. I'll buy you lunch, Jamie, if I'm up there.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Absolutely. You can come to my house. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Let's go. That's a road trip that's worthy of a road trip. Uh and that's on film. So, Jamie, give us those are some high-level context, but tell us a little bit about your story and and who you are for those listening.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah. Um, well, yeah, I mean, the the title of that book, Living Fearless, was really it's a been a long journey of the question of if the number one exhortation in Scripture is

The significance of fear in scripture and life

SPEAKER_01 5:41

don't be afraid, if that's if that's the if that's the exhortation that God felt was the most necessary to say um most frequently in Scripture, then there must be something to it. It must mean that we that fear is a big deal in our lives. And so um that's that's really was a question, and it's a it's my own struggle. You know, we we write and we speak from our own struggles. So it's not that I've overcome fear, uh, it's understanding fear and what to do with it and how to use it, really, was the idea. But my my background is um I grew up, my mom was uh is a very pretty strict independent Baptist, and my dad was not so much involved in church. Um so I grew up in this kind of weird combination of do whatever you want and and legalism. And so I could see kind of both ends of that. And I I grew up loving the Bible, loving scripture, um, wrestling with the legalities of it, but um, but loving the word, and I still do. I just absolutely, the deeper I go into scripture, the more I love it, the more mysterious it is to me. Um, but so we weren't allowed to go to movies though, or listen to music, that kind of thing, bad music. And um, and so really the beginning of my whole journey

Early experiences with God and identity

SPEAKER_01 7:06

was um it was by breaking a law, actually. I I snuck into a movie and um that I didn't even know what it was, and uh and had this interesting contradiction going on in my mind, which I think a lot of us wrestle with, is I went into a place that I was taught God couldn't go. Now that's that's critical because if you have a God that can't go certain places, then you have a limited God, right? Um or a God that separates himself somehow from space. The omnipresent God is somehow separate from certain locations. Anyway, so I go in there leaving the presence of God, go into this theater, watch this movie, and the movie happens to be the movie about New York City police officer Frank Serpico, true story. Um, and the movie's just so moving to me that I actually start to cry during the movie. And I I I've never had an experience like this before. I was 14, so eighth grade, and I'm having this very deep emotional experience, encounter, really, in a place where God can't be. Now, this would be a theme for the like the rest of my life is going to places where I've been told God can't be or doesn't want to go or something like that. Um, but this is this is how identity works. It's already inside of me. All of this is already knit together by God in me. And it's the I'm beginning the discovery of process of who I actually am. And it's astounding, and it's not so a formula, and I couldn't plan it. But so I'm in this location, and the movie is so moving to me, and I keep watching this amazing police officer stand against corruption in New York City, this noble character, and I keep saying, that's me. I that's who that's who I am, that's what I want to be. Um, and it was it was really distinctly, that's not what I want to do, it's what I want to be. It's who I want to be. Like that was the idea. That was what was so moving. It's like I just want to be in the profession of law enforcement. It's like I want to be like that person. And um, because I'd seen police shows before, but so at the end of the movie, uh, because of my independent Baptist culture, I I knew I needed to make some kind of commitment. So I went forward at the theater, because that's what you do in the independent Baptist church, you go forward. And uh I actually went forward and I stood in the front of the theater and I just wept. And I just said to I didn't know that God could be there. I felt like it I was maybe he wasn't there, but something that was there was so powerful. And I just made the commitment on that's what I'm gonna be. That's what I'm gonna be at age 14. And so I'm 63 now, and I've never, ever veered from that commitment on that day. So it was an altar call by God in a place that that, and I love this, that my identity would respond to. It was because God calls each of us in our own identity in the way that our identity most responds. And because we've lost track of that, we keep trying to call people, so to speak, in places and in identities that aren't theirs. And so we make commitments and we go forward, so to speak, without understanding who we are, and it later doesn't work out, and you know, we feel like, well, I went forward and I made a commitment, I never did it, and all that kind of thing goes on. But that was so moving to me. And so then I began to look for people like this. So I had a model in my mind, and humans can't do what they've never seen. Um, they need models. This is the amazing value of Christ is God incarnate that we can look at, and as the writer in Hebrew says, but you have seen Jesus. Like that you have seen Jesus. No matter what you've seen, you have seen Jesus. And so I started just looking for people in my life like that. And the next one was at age 17. Um, I

Models of identity from mentors and life experiences

SPEAKER_01 11:22

when I was in the hospital for surgery after a wrestling incident that I thought would make me not able to go into the police academy physically. I wouldn't be able to pass the test. And this amazing physical therapist came to work with me. And she she said to me, I'll never forget this. She was a 27-year-old single mom from West Virginia. That's all I know about her, um, who worked through night at night to get through school and get this job. And she came in and she sat with me, and in five minutes, she looks at me and she says, You know, your body will heal. The problem for you is gonna be your anger. That's what's gonna hurt you, is what's inside of you, not your physical body. And she took it upon herself to try and heal that. So, and I I cussed her out. I was so mad. I wasn't, you know, I hadn't embraced Jesus fully. I was on this journey, and she started to talk to me about Christ being the solution to bitterness and anger. And I'd never heard that before, and never in this context. And so what I observed, and I cussed her out, and she would come back every day like she'd never met me before, like everything I said to her, and I was nasty. She would come back like completely clean slate. Hey, how are you? Let's get going, let's work on that anger, let's work on your leg, you know, and all that. And I would cuss her out again. Five days, she just would come back. And I knew that she was more powerful, that her love for me, a stranger, was more powerful than my hostility towards her. And I really respected that in her. And the other thing I knew about her was she was more than just a physical therapist. Like that was her vocation, but her identity was deeper, and she was a healer. So I knew lots, I met lots of healthcare professionals on that floor, but nobody like her. And it wasn't just that she was a Christian, she was actually using, she was operating in her identity, in her vocation. And I and I I recognized it at 17, and I and I started to pray because she was a big prayer, and I started to pray and I started to ask God, God, can you make me a police officer like she's a nurse? That's the only way I knew how to say it. Whatever she's bringing to the vocation of healthcare, I want to bring that to law enforcement. And it had something to do with deeper than your vocation. And so that, and so that was the next model in my mind. And I just went into university, and um, the wrestling coach with athletes in action was the same way, number three in the nation in wrestling, same kind of person. Wrestling wasn't where his identity was. And he would talk about things deeper than wrestling, and it was so beautiful to me. And so, but it well, they were rare individuals, unfortunately. So I was in the, you know, I was going to church that whole time, but I was not seeing people like this. I was not seeing people who understood at a deep level who they were, and they were bringing that into whatever vocation they were in. Instead of getting their identity from their vocation, which a lot of people do. And so through all that, I came to faith in Christ and um got deep into the word with the wrestling coach. He was a great teacher on meditation and prayer and discipline, and then um graduated, met my wife in that process, um, and then went into the police academy and started this career of asking God, um, what's another way to think about law enforcement? Really, that was my question. Like I I did well in the academy, you know, I made it through my probationary year. And then when I got cut loose, my question to God was, this in my mind, this isn't working. Like, this isn't working. We're locking up the same people every week. Um, we're going to this, you know, it's just it doesn't ever, nothing seems to be being transformed. And so, in this role, in this vocation as police, going into homes that no one else can go into in the worst times in their life, but not being allowed to evangelize because of the regulations in the police department, God, what can I do? What how can I bring the kingdom in this environment in a way that I don't know where to learn it or how to do it? And so that began this whole search of can God talk to me in a way as a police officer to

Hearing from God in real-time police situations

SPEAKER_01 16:00

say, teach me things about law enforcement that the police academy never taught me. And if he if he can't, how would he do it? And where in the Bible are examples of it? And that's how I began my journey in law enforcement. You know, lots of amazing things happened over those five years. And then in my fifth year, I got a phone call from the CIA. They wanted to interview me about what I was doing in the police department, and that launched uh us into a whole nother world. But that's basically how it started.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

So just uh, I mean, a couple aspects of that. The the principle of places God shouldn't be, and the flip side of that of like, is there places God is, like on Sunday morning for 60 minutes more than others, is just such a a lie and a confusion to us. Uh, the second principle I wrote down is just the richness and the and the miraculous ripple of impact of believers who God brought into your path, like the wrestling coach, like the nurse, living out of their identity as primary professionally. So many men and women that we talk to are like, yeah, you know, if I get, if I save up long enough, I'll get out of this and do ministry. And it just breaks my heart of like, um, i if we live it out of our identity first, what is that? And before I want to segue into hearing from God in that development, but what when you think of, when you see so many Christians professionally not, what what was the difference between most of us as Christians versus that nurse? Like, how do we overcome that?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, looking back at all of it, I would say that most of us, most humans, whether we're grew up in a Christian tradition or not, get our identity from what we have, what we do, and what people think about us. I mean, that's how we're taught. Like these are the most important things in life. What you do, not who you are, what you do gives you identity. What you have, you know, your possessions or and what people think about you are just the you know, it's like that's mostly how we learn how to receive identity. And and so what you don't learn is that your identity comes from God and it's unique to you, right? For whatever reason in creation, God goes to great lengths to make uniqueness and distinction a major part of his creation. So each of us is created individually and unique. And so to call myself a police officer has you know is not part of what God knit together in my mother's womb. What he knit together was my own unique identity, and that identity gravitates towards the world of law enforcement. So beautiful. When young people understand this, it's not a big like, what's God's will for my life? It's like, where does that identity come alive? Like it's in you, it's already in you. Where is that beautiful identity moving towards? You know, raise a child up in the way they're already bent, and in the way they won't depart, in the end they won't depart from it because it's built in them. And as long as they get their identity from God, that's the way they're gonna go, and they're gonna be really good at what they do. And so I the the wrestling coach, he was number three in the nation. He was superb at wrestling, but the reason he was was because that was the place where his identity was most alive and free. And so he was he was just committed to it because it's where where God, you know, let him let him move and the most freedom and power. And so I, you know, I was on my way getting my identity from religion. So when I would talk to like Christians or people who do evangelism, all they were talking about was how to go to heaven when you die. Like that was the theme of the talk. And um, I I like I wasn't so concerned about where I was going when I die. I was concerned about like what happens while you're here. You know, like my Muslim friends would say to me later in life, like, you Christians are only interested in the virgin birth, the death, and resurrection. There's no other Bible to you. What about the life of Jesus? What about his life? Isn't that the thing that's so amazing? Um, and that's a real challenge. It's like, yeah, it's not all about dying and going to heaven. It's about how do you live this life in the kingdom? And to do that, you cannot do it in a false identity. It's impossible. Um, and so yeah, so that was the these these these coach, like the coach, he would he would say, We're gonna get up at 4 a.m. He would tell the team, we're gonna be up at 4 a.m. tomorrow. You're not allowed to use an alarm clock. You're gonna learn how to hear God wake you up. And if you don't get up, you know, these are this is the ramifications. And then when we would get and and we could wake up at 4 o'clock, it was unbelievable. And then we would meet together and he would make us go through the previous day in connection with what we were studying in Ephesians at the time, and where we where we deviated from the beauty of Ephesians in the past day, and then we would relive the day mentally as if we had walked in the book of Ephesians through the day. And what that did was make us so aware of the present tense that because we knew we were gonna review it the next day, and that's and in that discipline he taught us how to wrestle. Remarkable, right? And so he wasn't he wasn't a wrestling coach, he was, but he was he was a discipler of men. That's who he was, and that's where his identity was. Wrestling was his vocation, and that was all for.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I imagine that's a pretty stark shift from the Baptist upbringing to hearing from God, that that approach to a relationship of hearing from God. So for us listening on different spectrums, what would you want us to know about listening or hearing from God and what we have what is possible on this side of heaven?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Well, I think the first thing to know about it is is it biblical? Like we have the God who speaks.

Biblical basis for hearing God's voice

SPEAKER_01 22:27

That is God. God is the God who speaks. And the difference between an idol and God, the true God, is that idols don't talk, they don't communicate. God does. God is is He is the voice. You know, Jesus is the Word of God incarnate. And so that was a challenge for me because I was raised.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Like if it's not in the Bible, yeah, the Bible is the Word of God. That's how He speaks, right, James?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Exactly it. And if you can't find it in the Bible, which really, I mean, come on, that doesn't really make any sense, honestly. But but when you're in a domestic dispute and you want to know, like, what do I do to end this? Not to like stop it for the night or crank these people through the system that they've already been through a thousand times. How do we bring transformation in this moment right now? God, can you give me an idea of what to say and what to do right now that would be different than anything I've ever thought of at this point? The only way to do that would to understand that was I didn't have time to get a Bible out and look up verses about it. It was like, could God in the moment, in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, where Jesus says it's better for you if I leave you and give you the Spirit who will guide you in all truth, you know, and inspire you and point you to Christ. Um, what would that be? Could God give me ideas? And if He could and did, like He did to people in Scripture, how would I know it? Like how would I understand it? And it was just a discipline, like the wrestling coach would say, try it, do it, evaluate it, do it again, try it again, did it work? Try it again, do it again, and document it. And so I just kept a listening notebook with me. And I would say, okay, in this domestic dispute or in this situation, I ask God these questions, and this is what I thought. Hearing from God is the free flow of thoughts that go through your mind when you fix your eyes on Jesus and ask him a question. That's what it is. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and the exact representation of the invisible God, the part of God that we can visualize, Christ, and asking the question, Jesus, what would you do? What do you want me to know? What do you want me to do right now in this situation? But then, and so I would do it and I would have an idea and I would do it and I would watch the result. And then I would note it and I would write it down. But then when I found out what was super interesting, I'd be in a conversation with my wife, and I would do the same thing. I'd say, Lord, what right now in this conversation, which is turning pretty tense, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to do right now with in relation to her? Because he loves her more than I do, because he knows her better than I do, he knows me better than I know me. Isn't he the one that should be guiding this conversation? He's the we're ministers of reconciliation, and he's the reconciler. Like, wouldn't, shouldn't we, and this is what my whole book is about. Isn't that abiding? Isn't that what abiding is? Just to um just to be with Christ in everything and not learning how to abide. Abiding is a decision. You just decide to abide. But in the abiding is what you learn, is where you learn everything. And so that's what I would do. And and it had, but the thing is, it had to be so practical that I had to be able to testify in court as to what I did. So it couldn't be some bizarre. I had to be able to articulate it in front of jurors.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

So I I've been asking these questions and and practicing the reps of God, what do you want me to know and what do you want me to do? And I'm I'm newer in these reps. And is it it the the confidence and the reps as a discipline? I'm watching my boys learn basketball. The more they're shooting, the more confident, and the better they get at hitting it. You like this is disorienting for me. I've been a professional Christian for three decades. And uh, you know, it I I it's a it's a stretching, really cool uh season for me of hearing from God in these early reps. My confidence is not there yet in that in the reps and the disciplines. We you were in your 20s, coming from a Baptist thing, the story of the kid in the car, the kidnap situation um has been disorienting for me. How unpack that story and how did you get to a point of trusting that voice so quickly in your faith journey?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, that's really a good question. And again, it you know, everything that everything that I say here or share, you can go back. We can go back and look through the scriptures and go, okay, well, those guys, this is what they were doing, right? It's it's like we have a we have a Bible, we have the scriptures that are case studies in all of this, right? Over generations and genders and different situations, and we can go back and look at it and go, okay, this is how they thought about this, this is what what worked and what didn't

Trusting God's guidance in critical moments

SPEAKER_01 27:37

work. So that's the beauty of the scriptures. But so yeah, in that situation, dispatched to this is in the 80s, so no computers, none of that stuff, just good old-fashioned police work, and get dispatched to uh a missing kid at an elementary school, go to the elementary school, the kid doesn't get off the bus. So there's a scramble, it's been two hours. Um he somehow didn't make it on the bus, is not at the school. Interview the kids at the bus stop. No one really knows anything, they're little, and um, but he's clearly gone. Talk to the parents, it's not a domestic issue. And you know, in the 80s, this was really unusual. And so just the time, you know, every hour is like, forget it, we're never gonna find this. We don't have any witnesses, we don't really have anything. So we form a perimeter, we do everything you're trained to do, but it's in these situations, like this is where you call out to God. Because it's not because, you know, I'm a Christian and I should do it, it's because we don't who where else can we go? You alone have the words of life, Jesus. You know, when Jesus says to Peter, Are you gonna leave me too? It's like, where will we where else am I gonna go? There's is there no one better than you to come to? And so I was talking to the father, me and my partner, and he was, you know, obviously hysterical. And I had two little sons at the time, and I was feeling his emotion. And I said to him, I'll, you know, we're gonna find you, we're gonna find him. I promise you, we're gonna find him, which is the worst thing you could do, and against protocol. And my partners chewed me out, like, what are you doing? You can't say that to a parent. And I don't, I said to my partner, I don't know why. It just came out of me, I don't know why. I said that. I know not to say that. So we split up, I got in my car, and I I was driving around the area, and I and so this just out of kind of desperation, I said to the Lord, Look, you you you know where this kid is, don't you? I mean, isn't that true? You know where he is, and you could tell me where he is if you wanted to, and it but if you were gonna tell me, how would I know? How would you do it? And would you do it? You're the God of justice and all of this, and um, like how would this work? I just want to know. And I was sitting on the, I was I had pulled over and I was sitting on the side of the road, and I just asked that. And this is like it was super important to to people, to believers, ask God questions. Like, we don't ask God any questions. Uh, it's so interesting to me. Like, ask him questions and then wait for an answer. Like, don't ask rhetorical questions to God. Ask him, don't tell him stuff, ask him stuff. And um, I feel like God has said to me so many times in my life, stop telling me the way things are. People in the Bible are always telling God the situation as if he doesn't know it. Right? As if we know more about what's going on than God does. This is this says what we believe about God. I know more than God, actually. Right. And so um I feel like God's many times said, stop telling me the situation, ask me the situation and listen to what I said. So that was like so one of the very first times I I did it at this kind of level, but it's just a desperation kind of thing. And so I asked them the question, like, how would I know if you were gonna communicate this to me? And then you just become super aware of everything around you. Pay attention. You ask God a question, pay attention because I think I think as in Psalms, I was reading Psalms the other day, he he he he answers even in the wind. Like his answer is even in nature, his answer is everywhere. So it's not just in the Bible or a voice, but it's just like everywhere. Look, pay attention. And he loves to wow us with how he does things. So I was just sitting there and this car came past me, just going the speed limit. Slowly, we were on a residential street. And as when the car went by me, I just got really sick to my stomach. Like someone punched me in the stomach. And so, like, okay, I asked God a question, I asked him about this kid, I asked him how I would know if it was he was communicating, and I felt this terrible feeling in my stomach. And it's what like the old cops would say trust your gut, trust, learn to trust your gut. And so I'm like, okay, ask a question, sick to my stomach, that car, I'm stopping them. Like, why not? So the thing that obedience and hearing from God, obedience is the definition of obedience in Hebrew is to hear and respond. It's not to follow laws, it's to hear and respond. That's what obedience is, and obedience is better than sacrifice. Hearing and responding to God is better than sacrifice. Um, so it so I stop him, you know, I pull him over and I actually cut him off, and I got out and I looked in this car. It's just a guy, and the car's empty. And so I could have stopped right there, but like, no, no, no, no. And so I make him open his trunk, and he opens his trunk, and the kid's in the trunk of the car. He's not hurt. And um, and the guy is just shocked that I stopped him. He was really kind of smart. He was just staying in the area, he knew we were we would expand the search out. He knew that, and he was just waiting till we it was far enough out where he could just get out. And um, and so he was shocked that I stopped him, and then uh I was shocked, and the kid was we were all shocked. And when when I called the detectives who came up on the scene, you know, um, that the detective who I spent a lot of time with after this, he said to me, Good job. What's your probable cause for stopping that car? Like, what's your probable cause? And I said, Well, I was really honestly, I was just asking God, and he said, nope, no, no, no, no. He said, No, you have to be able to testify in court why you stopped this car, and that's not gonna be admissible. That's not gonna, and so then, like, so that happened, but I love this about God. He said, This has to be explained in the real world to make sense to people that don't believe in God. What a lesson that was to me. So not only did the event occur, but if you can't, as as Habakkuk says, if you can't write it down so other people can read it and move with it, it's not all that valuable. Like it's just something that happened. It's a one-off, you know, it's amazing and cool and everything. But what, but what's the real value in that? The real value in that was God speaks, God moves, and there's a way he communicates. And in our, it's like he's always met me at the level of the desperation of the prayer, I think. You know, because those kinds of things don't happen all the time, just like in scripture, they don't happen all the time. They there's huge gaps in these amazing events, but they do happen, and they happen at the level of your desperation. I really love that. And so if you say to God, I want to, I want to meet you at a level I've never known you before, then He's then you better get ready. You better get ready to go to that place. To be in, you want to be in that place where you need him at that level, then you better, there's a lot of props that are gonna have to go out of the way. Right? So, so but that that incident, you know, got me officer of the year, and it taught me so much about how God moves and the and the level at which he'll move, but that it has to be explainable to the world in a way that they can move in it and move with it. You know, does that make sense? Otherwise, it's just another guy telling a miracle story and wow, my nice life, my life's never gonna be like that, and oh well, and it was a great retreat, and I gotta go home and deal with the real world. Like that's then we separate ourselves from it.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

So real for those listening thinking that of like, wouldn't that be amazing? I mean, you were in your 20s when that happened, and you have been trusting that voice with confidence for you know 40 years now. Um how is that sensitivity to has that changed over time? Um give us some context as of your own journey. And I also want to know if if there's been a gap in where you feel like the response has been less present or just the progressive nature of those reps in practice.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Yeah. Wow, we could talk about this for such a long time, and it's such good questions. So so like when I so in that in the the beauty of the working in the police department was I was in darkness all the time. All the time. And and because I was in the darkness, the light really shin. It was so gorgeous. Um, and then you know, and I could just could

The evolution of hearing from God over time

SPEAKER_01 36:44

day after day, like just depending on like what I was doing, I could, you know, there were the there was a night where I was dispatched, and I was really in this phase of like, oh God, you the darker the room, the brighter you shine. Which, which it when you start to believe that, it makes you move towards the dark, right? It doesn't make you, it doesn't allow for you to avoid the darkness, which is a mistake. We make it all the time. And if and you know, we all know this, when you withdraw from the the light, from the dark, the dark advances. And we and and Christians have a tendency to try and move away from darkness and congregate in their own little groups, away from darkness. We're trying to get away from the darkness instead of we should be moving into the darkness, like the early church, you know, would do. But so I like so in that in the you know, I was 24, 25 when this was going on. And so it's like a it's like a young entrepreneur. I was just like, let's see how far this can go. And and I realized with the Lord, like you can't go further than he's willing to go. He's all he's like, he's way ahead of us. And and what the way God honors faithfulness in Scripture is not with money and all that stuff, he honors it with greater responsibility, greater uh authority, greater influence. You may go you may be coming more poor, as the Chinese believers will tell you, but you gain greater influence and and and impact. And but you you you have you you lose a lot of the things of the world. But and so, like just in this one night, I I got dispatched to this thing where a guy was on PCP and he was screaming and yelling. And PCP in my day was a you uh um lethal force. If you knew, if you could smell ether, you could use lethal force on a person because so many cops have been killed fighting people on PCP that you can't hurt. And so I came into this courtyard and there was it was like two in the morning, and there was this guy standing screaming his head off. And um, and and I walked, uh, you know, I got within 20 feet of him, and I could smell the ether, and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy. Um, and so I drew my weapon because you know that's that's the protocol, and I just aimed center mass as they train you, and ready to just stop aggressive action, and um ready to shoot him. And but the whole time I was saying, God, speak, go. What do you like? This is probably isn't your way to do this, but this is what else is there? And this woman comes running out and gets between me and the guy, and she gets on her knees in front of me and she starts to pray to Jesus that I won't shoot the guy. And it's it turns out to be her husband. And so I holster my weapon and I'm like, can you get this? Can you get him in the house? Can you get him to where he won't come out because I'm now I'm now liable. Like that if he kills you, like I'm liable because I'm on the scene here. And it was a big risk to let her try and so, but I let her do it, and she got him inside, and I just prayed God, don't let him come back out, don't let him hurt anybody. Um, and it was just all quiet the rest of the night and into the next day, and they're like, okay. And then months later, I get dispatched to the other side of this apartment complex to there was an escape mental patient on this basketball court, and I and I go to try and talk him off the basketball court in my car, and we get in this struggle, and we fall down, and my gun slides out of my holster when we hit the ground, and he's on top of me, and this gang from that neighborhood came up and onto the court and they picked up my gun. And I knew, I knew the lead guy, because I knew who he was, was gonna shoot me and say this guy did it. I knew he because he had my gun in his hand. And I just said, Lord, like what you know, what do you what do you want to do here? Like, what is this situation? And um, it's so bizarre how it happened. And the basketball court is this high fence around, the gate opens up, and on the basketball court comes the guy from the previous event. He's he's from a different gang, and his gang is with them, and they come onto the basketball court and get around me in a circle and push the other gang away. And I'm just looking up into the face of the guy who was gonna shoot. He's looking down at me and I said, I need my gun. And he just snaps his finger, and my gun comes sliding back through, and I holster it, and I said, I gotta get this guy to the car. And his gang stood around me in a circle all the way down to my car. I opened the door, got in, and I looked at him and I said, I said, thank you. And he said, he said to me, he said a few things, but he said, Thank you for not shooting. And so it's like you learn, you know, you learn that God, in the deeper the darkness, the greater he speaks. And so that same kind of incident, I became great friends with that family. I would go eat dinner with them. They came to faith, they became these amazing people in the neighborhood to bring transformation to that community. All of that when when my job said to do this, right? God said, We can do your job at a higher level than what you think. But you've got to learn to hear my voice. And so that, so it wasn't like that all the time.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

In fact,

Next episode teaser and closing remarks

SPEAKER_00 42:29

hey, I'm gonna jump in and pause this conversation because we're gonna continue and come back in uh the next episode for the second half of our conversation with Jamie. So make sure you like, subscribe, follow this podcast because you are not gonna want to miss the next part of this conversation with Jamie Winship. Thanks, y'all.