Spiritual Synchronicities with David Chotka

How do you know when God is talking to you? That’s what we’re talking about today in this episode with Reverend David Chotka.

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David shares profound times God has spoken to him and the ways in which these spiritual synchronicities have influenced his life. He also dives into the content of his books and shares the signs you can look for to know when God is talking to you.

On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast:

• Why David decided to add author to his list of accomplishments.
• The time David prayed about an upcoming event and what the result was.
• How David managed to land an amazing speaker for a Faith in the Family event.
• Where he moved to study for his master’s degree.
• What David’s books are about and why he feels commanded to write.
• The individuals who mentored him throughout his life.
• How to know when you’re getting a tap on the shoulder from God.
• What peace and joy actually are versus what people think they are.
• Example of times David felt God talking and how he tripped into these moments.
• What he has made the object of his prayer.
• The events that he has coming up and how he’s feeling about them.
• The best way to reach out to David.

Connect with David

Website: https://www.spiritequip.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZwMNSLtIjfP7XIni6PXHw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpiritEquip

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TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to the Live Love Engage podcast on today’s show. How to know when God is speaking to you. Stay tuned. I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of the Love Method, and author of the number one Amazon best seller, Live, Love, Engage, How to stop doubting yourself and start being yourself. In this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically so you can create a life and business with more impact, influence, and income. Welcome to Live Love, Engage.

Namaste, and welcome. Welcome back to another addition of Live Love, Engage. And I am delighted as always, when I get a chance to interview interesting people for the show. And, uh, This gentleman, I, I had a chance to actually, I don’t always get to talk to people beforehand, but we had a lovely conversation a few weeks back and he is a delightful person who is also a, uh, minister.

So I wanna welcome Reverend Dr. David Chotka to live, love, Engage. Thank you very much, is a delight to be here. I’m very thankful for the opportunity. Well, I am looking forward to our discussion cuz this is a, uh, like I said, you have, uh, you’ve got a wonderful personality, you’ve got a great sense of humor, and hopefully you’ll get to share that with our audience today.

So let me share with. Everyone out there who’s, you know, watching on YouTube or you’re listening to this podcast, uh uh, just who this person is. So he is the Chair of Alliance Pray, He is a prayer mobilizer, a sought after media guest, an ordained pastor for more than 30 years. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see.

He is also the author of three books. And, not only that, he’s also has led seminars and conferences, both, uh, nationally and internationally in over 17 countries. He develops resources and training tools to equip God’s people for works of service. And, yeah, the books he’s written are, Hey, there. Hey, are you there?

Sorry, it’s, it’s me gut. Okay. I’m gonna start it over again.

I’m, I’m at my notes, but I’m also looking at your book there, so it says that title to you. So, hey, are you there? It’s me, God. How to listen, test and know when God speaks. That’s what that title’s about. . I love it. That’s much better. Yeah. See Much better than I could have ever done. See, this is, this is awesome.

And that, that is his latest book. He’s also written Power Praying and Healing Prayer is God’s idea, uh, which is actually a book that I got to read and that he actually coauthored with Reverend Dr. Maxi Dunham. And, uh, that was a, a book that, uh, Described as something like healing, which can seem complicating and intimidating to make it simple and accessible, and, and it was.

And so. I was originally gonna ask you actually about that book specifically, but I think I wanna ask you instead what, what has prompted you to become an author, you know, as, as if you don’t have enough to do in your life, you know, . So what, what prompted you to write all of these different books? Well, you know, every, I, I’ve had, uh, three, actually four mentors who came into my life.

And, uh, the, Hey, are you, there’s me. God book describes one of those moments, but all four of them have been internationally respected scholars who had itinerant ministries in local church ministries and who wrote, uh, and made contributions to, to the Lord’s work. So I’ll, I’ll tell you what, how this all began.

So, I was a pastor and in the States I would’ve been United Methodist, uh, in Canada. I was United Church of Canada. I’m now Christian Missionary Alliance, but regardless of. Who cares, . But I was, I was, uh, serving in a church and it was an isolated northern congregation, and it was a lonely time being a single guy up in the high north and, uh, not having a lot of peers around me.

And over the course of time I wanted, I, I got invited to organize an event that would help our area, our regional cluster of, uh, of pastors and leaders. And so we met in a church and we spent the whole ready day trying to make the plan. And of course, we’re broke. We’re all small churches, we. Money . And, you know, I’m, I’m pastoring my church and they’re pastoring their churches.

And we, we, we actually came up with the idea that the, the area region was called a presbytery and they wanted to do a faith in the family event for our people. Now, all of our churches were less than a hundred. There was one church of 200, but all of them were pretty tiny. Wow. And if you know anything about Canadian, ge, It was parallel 53, which is, uh, three hours north of Edmonton, which is the city of a million, but it was nothing up there except trees and rocks and waters.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. That’s really up north . Well, not for a Canadian. There’s, if you got in the car and drove 10 more hours at 60 mile an hour, you’d come to the Arctic Circle. Right. But, uh, even regardless of that, it was an isolated northern town. And, uh, we made all these plans and of course we had these grandiose, magnificent, large visions.

And if you’d have seen our list, you would’ve, Gloria, you would’ve been so impressed. Uh, we had these world class speakers, number one, number two, number three, and we had two other speakers at the end of the list. Number four was a guy who lived about 35 mile down the road, , and he would do the event for 50 bucks in a love offering.

And that was our budget. And then number five was somebody else who lived in the town over from that, and he would do the, the event for 50 bucks in a love offering. And of course we didn’t have, You know, we didn’t have the timeline or the big audience and that kind of thing. We had to do it quickly, and so we spent the whole day doing this thing.

We come up with a budget and my committee looked at me and said, You’re the chairman. I said, I am. And he said, Well, you know, a phone call. In those days, it was 1985 when this started. In those days, a phone across the border was 50 bucks. Mm. And if you talked for a long time, that was a P minute rate that was exorbitant, and we didn’t have any money.

And these were American presenters mo, for the most part. Mm. And they wanted big cities, you know, and they wanted a large honorarium and they wanted a four star hotel or a five star hotel, and they wanted a conference standard and they wanted to have a book table and all the kinds of things. And us little dinky churches couldn’t afford to do that.

And so they all looked at me and said, Well, David, if you wanna waste your dime, you can make those three. But they’re not coming . So we recommend that you start with number four or number five, right? And if four says no, do number five. And if five says no, find somebody and just give us the event. Do it in three months out.

So we all laughed because we’d spent the whole ready day doing this thing, and I drove back to my little church. I drove two and a half hours and a gravel road to get. And I went to bed and I got up the next morning and I had, This is how this all began. I had a prayer time that was banal and ordinary and flat.

I had a list of people in the hospital. I was praying for them, and I had a list of friends that I was praying for them, and I sang him a praise and I read a scripture and I finished my prayer time. And then I got up from the floor and I. You know, maybe I should pray about that event. . So, so I now back down and I had this list and number one, number two, number three were there.

And they all told me not to start there, but I thought, well, you know, I could at least talk to God about it before I just closed the door on the thing. And so as I began to pray, I said, Lord, should I, Candidate number one to come to the presbytery to do a faith in the family event. The only way I can describe what happened next is I felt an internal, how do I say this?

A negative internal collapsing of all my internal muscles pushing into the middle, like a punch in the stomach. I took that to be no . sounds like it. And then I had this, this thing happened to. I suddenly saw something in, in the eye of my imagination. It was like a long flat highway. If you’d been to, uh, North Dakota and been in one of those roads, you could, that’s flat balded prairie, and you can see for miles and miles and miles, and it was like one of those roads or southern Saskatchewan or southern Manitoba, if you know Canadian geography.

Anyway, it was one of these roads, and this was November of 85, and at the end of the road I saw two calendars overlapping February, March, 1987. And then, I had something that’s only happened to me once in my entire life, and this is when it happened, and I, it’s never happened since. I heard an audible voice.

I can’t tell you if it was male or female. I can only tell you that it was commanding. It was not like a human voice. And the voice said, Call this man. Ask him to come to your church, not the presbytery. He will come then, and then it. And I leaped off, off, off, off of the floor. And I, I, and I went over to my bookshelf and I grabbed one of his books.

I found his publisher and I dialed, uh, four night, what do you call that? Four one to get the information. I got his publisher. I called the publisher and I’ve already spent a hundred dollars . Our budget was 50 bucks and love offering. And as I was talking to, as I was talking to the, uh, so I called the publisher and I said, Oh, by the way, can I have this man’s phone number?

And they gave it to me and I dialed the number. And a man with a beautiful English voice answered the phone. Hello? I said, Hello. My name is David Chotka. I’m, I’m serving such and such church in Northeast Alberta, and I’m wondering, and, and, and he said, Wait a minute, before you go any further, I do have to ask you a question.

I, I said, Are you, are you this man? He said, Yes, I am, but I have to know something. I said, What is it? He said, How did you get my phone? I said, Well, I called four 11, and then I called your publisher and I got the number and I dialed you, and suddenly this very nice English voice became extremely agitated and he raised his voice and he said, I told them to give that number to no one.

No one, You were the very first to call. I had that number change two days ago. It’s for my business purposes and my business purposes alone. I, I, I told them not to do this and I thought, Oh no, this is $150. It’s gonna outta my pocket. It’s all gone. And so I said to him, I am so terribly sorry. Somebody’s made an awful mistake.

Here’s what I will do. I will hang up the phone, I will tear up the phone number, and please do not tell off somebody who made an honest mistake and he said, No, no, no. Talk to me. Talk to me. You’re on the phone. It might be Jesus. It might be Jesus. He said, So I, and I did. I made a mistake. I, because I felt honor bound to ask him for the other event, even though I’d had this note.

Yeah. And so I said, Would you come and do a faith in the family event for the presbytery of Northeast Alberta? And he said, No, I have a policy. Three months after I write on a topic, I stop speaking on that and it keeps me fresh for the next, right? Mm-hmm. , I said, I am so sorry. I have disobeyed the Lord. I have to repent.

He said, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, would you come to a little tiny United Church at Northeast Alberta? It’s got 60 people on a Sunday after you drive three hours on a gravel road from Neon . And he said, The size doesn’t matter. Yes. Yes, I must come to your church, but I have three conditions. And I thought, Okay, here’s, you know, here’s the pricing ticket.

So he said this, number one, I will pay my airfare and there’ll be no honorarium. Number two, I will bear all my expenses. And number three, I must mentor you for at least a year, or I will not come. I said, What? And he repeated this, and then I, I, Gloria, I did not pray. I said, Yes, . Absolutely. Yeah. And so, so this, this famous guy, Little tiny Laish Alberta as a town of 2,500 people, my church had 60 people in it.

It was, you know, And he’s gonna come to that church to do an event and mentor me for a year. So, so, he said, There’s only one problem. I said, What’s that? He said, I can’t come into February or March of 1987. I said, I know . And he said, How did you know? So I described the vice, I described the prayer time, he described the committee meeting.

I described the whole process. And he, and he, you heard, he laughed and he said, That’s the very thing that I am studying. I am writing a book on the Holy Spirit and the evangelical tradit. And if you would have me speak on that, I will come to your church. Then I said, It’s a deal, and I stuck. If I could have stuck my hand through the phone, I shook it, but I got, he said, Be in touch will be on this number and we’ll set up the details.

But the next day was the best part. I belonged to a ministerial association and in that group I was the Methodist guy and there was, uh, an Anglican. You call him Episcopalian estate. There was a Catholic priest who was a Catholic, charismatic guy named Zepi Poni, very Italian. There was a Ukrainian Orthodox priest named Stephan Soroka.

There was a full gospel pastor and there was a Mennonite guy who was pastoring the Baptist church. And there was me, you know, so. We all got together, and I’ll just speak straight with you. Every time we tried to pray together, we’d argue . . Why? My goodness. Yeah. So anyway, we had come up with a formula that worked and here was the formula.

Uh, four of those six churches used set readings for their Sunday services. It’s called the Electionary if if people from non liturgical backgrounds or non-Christian backgrounds. So there’d be a reading from the Hebrew scripture. There would be a psalm, there would be an epi reading, and there would be the gospel.

Right. And everybody in the group believed the Bible was God’s faithful word. And so, uh, so, and then four, four of the six churches used the same readings. And so somebody in the group said, Look, we can stop arguing if we just serve coffee. Have a little hello, say a prayer, listen to the scripture and pray the text.

And so that day, the next day after this phone call, it’s the Tuesday meeting. We all gather, we say our hello and it’s in my home, and I pull out the lectionary. We share the readings and we assign who’s gonna read which. And the first reading was the Prophet Samuel pouring oil on King David to make him the king and to mentor him.

Mm. The next reading was the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy and talking about the faith of his mother and his grandmother and how he’d become a father in the Lord to him. Mm. The reading after that was Jesus spending all night in prayer to select the 12 so that they might be with him and he might train them and mentor them and coach them, and so on and so forth, , and then there was a psalm of praise and we start to pray and the Mennonite guy who was pastoring the Baptist church, praise this.

uh, wait a minute. I, I have, I have to tell you what happened. The, the guy who said yes, his name was Dr. John White. He was an inter varsity author who had written 22 books, and, uh, I, he had said he would come and he, he said that he was studying this issue. So the name came out after that. So I’m in the prayer meeting and the next day, and the pr and the, and the minute I guy says this, Oh God.

Every one of these readings is about an older guy mentoring a younger guy who’s getting started in life. If only we had something like that up here in Laish. And when I lived in Winnipeg, Dr. John White was at the University of Manitoba and I really wanted him to mentor me. And of course it was impossible, but if you could send someone like John White to Laish, wouldn’t that be amazing?

And then the Eastern Orthodox priest started to pray with a thick Ukrainian accent and he said, I be speak Fortu. Peroni priest. I read it. John White book. This week, very good writing. If only a man like John White could come to Laish . And then the Italian priest started to pray. Everybody in the room had read that author and they had no idea about what I had done the day before with the phone call and this this crazy.

So I mean, so when we were all done, they all prayed that God would send John White to Ish, and they looked at me and I said, I just booked them prior answer. Well, so, so here’s what happened. They all looked at me and they said, You booked Dr. John White to come to Lali. I said, I did. And all six churches said, Let’s share the event.

And all six churches shared the event. Oh, good. And then when I was in, when John White came, we did this amazing thing. A quarter of our town came to hear this guy. A whole bunch of people got, you know, filled with faith and learned some things, and we all grew together and then we started to do community things together and we had a great sense of unity in our six churches in that little town.

And it began with that. But I, I, years later, I, so I wound up moving to Vancouver to study because I went to get my master’s degree. John White moved to Vancouver to live, He was in California. When I. And so we were in the same town. And one day I said to him, John, why did you take, And he was an author and he began to coach me on how to write, Okay, this, this is where this happened.

Said to him, John, why did you take a chance on a cold call from a pastor you’ve never heard of before from a northern town when you’d never laid eyes on the town and you’d, you’d given that number as a private number. What? Why did you do that? And he said, Well, David, it’s the craziest. I’d had my birthday and I’d turned 60.

And when I turned 60, I realized that everything that I had ever tried to accomplish had in fact been done. I had written books. I had raised my five children. I had a psychiatric practice. I’d been a sessional lecture at the University of Manitoba and at Region College of Vancouver. I had traveled the earth, I had worked with as, as a missionary, and I’d become a medical doctor.

I had enough money for my retirement. I could marry off all my children. I had surplus and everything was in place, and I said to the Lord, Everything I ever set out to do is done. What do you want me to do with my remaining years? And he had an encounter with the Lord and God spoke to him and said, I want you to find a pastor, make sure he’s poor, pay all the expenses and mentor him for a year.

Go and visit him. Do an event at his church. Mentor him for a year. And after you’re done with that one, find another one. And every year that you live, you are to raise up people to. PA pastors who write and travel and so . Wow. So he said to the Lord, Who should I select is my first pastor? This was on Sunday on, and the Lord said, I will tell you tomorrow in the morning.

And I phoned, Oh my God, , Wow, you. And so that story’s story number three, and the, Hey, are you there? It’s me, God book. But, but he, he, he lived to be 76 or 77. He was 62 when I met him. But regardless of this, I, I, I asked him, Uh, he, he passed away from Alzheimer’s and it was very sad because he was a brilliant mind and he was a compassionate man, and his wife Lori came with him on that trip.

And I knew Lori quite well and, and, uh, I, I, I called her when he passed away cuz I couldn’t get to the funeral. And I said, Lori, I am so sorry I couldn’t come. John has been a great influence in my life, so have you. And I said, What happened? And she said, Well, he got Alzheimer’s, but I have to tell you how he died.

I said, Okay, what happened? She said, Well, you know, he’s passed. He’s met her one pastor a year for the last 16 years. I said, Yes, I know. I was the first. You said, yes you were. There was a Hawaiian pastor who is going to a conference in Toronto. And he landed in Vancouver and he had an eight hour layover before his plane would go to Toronto.

And so he came to visit us. Mm-hmm. And at that point, John Alzheimer’s was profound and sometimes he couldn’t recognize his own wife or remember his name. And sometimes he was clear as bell. It was one of the symptoms of this thing. Right. So the Hawaiian pastor knocks on the door and says to Lori, is, uh, is it possible to visit with John before he goes to his reward?

And she said, Well, I honestly don’t. We can try. And he loved two things. He loved chocolate ice cream, , and he loved Earl Gray Tea Hot like Captain Picard on Starship Enterprise with a lid, . And so she said, I’ll make the Earl Gray tea and get the chocolate ice cream, and we’ll go and see him and if he doesn’t respond we’ll visit.

So the Hawaiian pastor went into that room and he woke up from his Alzheimer’s stoop and had clarity of mind recognized. Lori recognized the pastor, enjoyed his ice cream, drank his tea, and he was talking about that pastor’s ministry and said, Now I must pray that God would bless you to become a leader in your generation.

Would you allow me to do that? And he said, yes. Mm-hmm. . So John White put his hands on the head of the Hawaiian pastor and said, God, fill him with an anointing to travel and write and teach. And then he looked up and he said, Oh my. And then he died. Wow. Yeah. So John White taught me to write. And I feel commanded to return that.

And I’ve had three other mentors. I had Dr. Gordon Fee who was best New Testament scholar, uh, the last generation. And I had now a week with him, and I had Maxi Dunham who co-wrote the Healing Prayer book with me. He was the head of the upper room. He was head of the Worldwide Evangelical Methodist Federation, and it was retire.

He stopped, he stopped traveling when he was 87. and his friend Danny Morris. Who taught me on prayerful discernment. He was the very first discernment author, community discernment author in human history. And Danny became my mentor too. Wow. And so these four people were all local church pastors, five John White, Gordon, Fee, Maxi and Dan.

Four. Four. They all had local churches. Who, And they pastored and they mentored, and they wrote and they traveled. And so that was the beginning of how this whole thing happened. That’s a long, convoluted story for your simple question, . Well, I appreciate it though. And, and, and even though this isn’t exactly what I was originally thinking I was talking about today, I still, I still love it because it’s still an important message for people to be able to be open to hearing.

God’s message and to be able to, you know, really not only hear it, but then take action. Yes. And I think that’s the important point is that you, you trusted that. You know, even if it’s gonna cost you $150 , well, honestly, there was no choice. Yeah. This voice commanded, right? Mm-hmm. , it was, but I did take the step.

You’re right, I did take the risk when I made the call to the, to the, you know, the us find the phone number kind of thing, right? And then the posture too. But you’re right. Regardless of that, you, when, when you know God’s in it, Hmm. You just have to do it. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter what the issue is, you know, and sometimes I, I, I de blunt with you, this book tells you about how many times I was an idiot too, , when I thought I heard the voice, but I didn’t

Because there’s lots of times where you think you’re being guided. But you’re self deluded or you’re, you’re, you’re living in some holiday scenario. Mm. And you’re not looking at cold heart facts. Yeah. And so I wrote this book because I really wanted people to understand what the signals were. Mm. For them to understand when they’re getting a tap on the shoulder from God.

Okay. And there’s lots of ways, there’s, there’s about, there’s about 35 stories of different people throughout history and peers from 20 and 21st century and some of my own testimony Mm. About times when we tripped into hearing the voice. Okay. And most people don’t train you on how to do that. They, they just don’t train you.

And so, you know, all kind, and I, what I’ve discovered is when I tell a story, like the one I just. Somebody tells me a story back, . So, so I told a story to Jack Canfield and as soon as I told that story, he felt compelled to tell me a story back. So he actually wrote the forward to this one. So he wrote the forward to the, to this book because it’s filled with stories that track with the kind of audience that he has.

But I’ve gone to done events, and I’ll just give you the big signals there. There’s three big signals when you know God’s. Thank you. Yeah. I’m gonna ask you. Yeah. Okay. The first one is, is the increase of peace. Mm. Or actually, if you’re about about to be an idiot, the diminishing of peace, , you know, or actually jar, you can get jarred outta your piece.

And any kind of person that I know can tell me a time when they walked into a room and suddenly the piece was profound and they knew they were in the right. Mm. The second is what’s called, So this, this comes out of a text in the book of Romans. It’s, uh, Romans 1417. Uh, the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And so I define those in, in, in the, in the green book that’s back there. And I, and, and righteousness is a sweet walk with your God, where you’re not distracted from it. What you’re focused. Uh, peace is in internal serenity that waxes large when you’re doing what’s right. And joy is not happiness.

Happiness is where you trip into something and laugh. Joy is where you celebrate God’s presence inside who you are despite in external circum. Mm. Now when those three things wax large, God’s talking. Mm. When those three things get distracted or diminished, you’re being warned. Hmm. If the three things vanish.

You’re in trouble. This and, and this, this applies to things that you do that are right and helpful. And this, this applies when you’re about to be a fool and do some sinful, godly, unlawful thing. . That’s it. So, but even applies when you’re doing something that you know is good. You’re volunteering at the food bank.

Where you’re helping a, a clothing drive to help get clothes on people from another culture who are moving in as immigrants. I mean, these are good things, and there’s a season where somebody’s involved in that because it helps the other and it helps you and your peace wax is large and grows, and then the season is done.

And even though you’re doing something good, Your peace diminishes, your joy diminishes your, you’re distracted from your faith. Mm-hmm. . And when that happens, that’s God telling you that season’s done and now you need to move to something else. This the first time it’s ever happened me, I was serving a church in Chatham, Ontario, and my peace left.

But I, I mean, they were fine, nice, godly, righteous people. And I was preaching the Bible. I mean’s wrong with that , you know? And I was coming alongside people in distress and helping them and doing all the things that pastors do, and I had no peace advantaged. And then somebody mentioned the name of a church in the greater Toronto area, and when they mentioned the name, fire came into my spirit, I jumped out of my chair.

My peace exploded, My joy came back, and my walk with God, God focused. So I raised home and I said to my wife, E I think we’re moving to that church. And she said, Oh, David. Have you talked to the elders in that church? . . Have you talked to the bishop? I said, Well, no. And she said, Well, it might be helpful to talk to them too,

So there is this thing called common sense, and you use common sense and you go through ordinary process, but the believer needs to experience, and this is guaranteed to every believer needs to, to have this interface between the presence and them as the constant part of their. And pay heed to those moments when the presence grows large, when the presence is just conson and steady, when the presence diminishes or when the presence is jarred.

And if you can pay attention to that, that’s how he talks. And in fact, that’s what happened to me in that John White thing. Uh, the presence got bad when I said come to the presbytery, the presence became profound when I heard the voice say, Invite him to your church. And so, but I, I didn’t have the language to describe that because nobody had trained me in this.

Sure. So, and this, and it’s also in the Healing Prayer book, the first story in the Healing Prayer book. I had not a sweet clue how I should pray for someone to get well green greener than your average rookie, you know? Yeah. And I walked into this thing with a guy who I didn’t like very much. He had phlebitis and uh, he basically said that he, he didn’t know anybody else who believed the Bible was true.

And what I pray for him, And he was young, he was 27, he was married, no kids wanted to have raise a family. He could have died with that. And I went beside him and I put my hand on his arm to pray and suddenly this presence filled the. It was like breathing, compassion, breathing, fire, breathing, love. And then it came inside of me and then it grew large and I had a picture of of this power flowing through my hand, and I felt this energy going down my arm and into his arm.

Mm. And he said it. He said, What is that fiery presence flowing into my arm? I said, I think that’s the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna be a well. And then I raced outta the room because I was terrified. I’d never done anything like that before. Never had felt anything like that before. But that was God talking the next day at four o’clock in the afternoon, he was back in the coffee lounge at the school.

And he told me that he’d become well, and he, he looked at me and he said, Oh, that prayer changed my life. And I looked at, he didn’t know this, That prayer changed my life too. . Yeah. Cause I had no idea what I was doing. I tripped into these things that all ca that I call in the Green book, Divine appointments.

I tripped into these moments. And I was just being an ordinary guy. You know, I, and I straight up, I got foibles. If you want to laugh a lot, just ask my wife, my foibles and she’ll tell you, you know, I’ve got lots of them. But, uh, you don’t have to be, you know, a paper saint to hear the voice. You don’t have to be somebody who, you know, spends 16 hours a day in a monastery, you know, offering up ablation to the.

To be able to, to hear your vo, to hear God’s voice. In fact, in the scripture, even a donkey hears God’s voice, Baum’s donkey hears the voice . And in fact, when Jesus was in the triumphal procession writing the donkey, only the donkey got it right. , and I don’t if you ever think about it. He was writing an unbroken animal over rough patches of ground that were covered with claws and branches.

Donkeys don’t do that. An unbroken animal will buck the writer. That’s true. And even a broken animal won’t walk over uneven ground. Mm. The donkey heard the voice. Now, if you feel like a donkey from time to time, , this is great consolation. Mm-hmm. . It means that if a donkey can hear the voice, you and I can too.

Yeah, absolutely. Ah, I love that. We could talk all day. I know, but I’m, I’m still gonna ask you, I’m still gonna ask another question. I’m, I’m gonna, Sure. I’m gonna be brave. Uh, cuz this is one I’d like to ask, ask people on the show from time to time. What are you curious about right now? Right now. Mm-hmm.

Well, I’ve, I’ve stuck my neck out to do this kind of ministry as an itiner role. Covid was a terrible thing to stop conference ministry. Mm. And so, and I’m older. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not a young buck anymore. And, and I have a handicapped daughter. , which you saw in the Healing Prayer book. There’s a picture of her, the backside of her in, in a wheelchair.

So, I’m asked, I’m curious to know how this thing’s gonna pay the bills, , but I mean, I’m, I’m just about to do a whole series of events and now that I’m doing it, I’m starting to see, uh, a return on the investment. So in Covid, I wrote these two books. And so, uh, I was, I, I said, I have a bishop who said to me, You know, what you teach is helpful.

I would like to see if I can find a way to pay you for three years, and we’ll do that in a diminishing basis. And at the end of three years, if you wanna continue this, you can, but, uh, we’ll, we’ll subsidize you for three years. Well, the three years comes to an end, December 31st. So I’m asking the Lord, okay, now that the shelter of the cover is done right, I’m not gonna be able to do this and make a living.

But I mean, even in Covid, if it weren’t for Covid, I wouldn’t have written those two books. That’s true. Yeah. And those two books are my calling card. Actually three of them I’ve, I’ve actually written four. This is another one that I wrote, but it’s too expensive and it’s technical. This is my doctoral thesis, uh, published by a company that publishes doctoral thesis.

And you wanna pay a hundred bucks, you can get the book, but you, you’ll be bored after two chapters, right? ? So, so these are the ones that are designed for popular audiences. But what I’m asking, and what I’m curious about is how are we gonna build a bridge? To create points of entry for people to know who I am, to recognize what I’m doing and to create, uh, opportunities for me to be able to work with them and help them.

I’m well known in Canada. I’m the chair of the Alliance pre team, and that’s the organization in my denomination that encourages pre ministries across Canada. In fact, as we speak, I am mentoring people who are going to be praying at our national gathering. That happens every two. And so I’ve been charged with developing that stream of people, and I’m gonna be offering Intercessory Prayer Ministries for my denomination, but it’s a small group.

The Alliance is small, and in the United States there’s about 1200 of those. And that’s a small group in the United States. There’s 400 in Canada, that’s big in Canada, but that’s not a large group. And so, but, and, and if I was in the States, I’d be a Methodist. That would be me, but, uh, Methodist don’t know me cuz I’ve been in Canada.

Now I did, I did an event in a Methodist church in Lexington, and that seems like it’s an intro and Maxi Dunham is one of these great guys and he’s a Methodist, you know, But how, how does this look? How does this thing look? How’s God gonna lead this to happen? And, you know, you make that the, the object of your prayer.

And I did, I, I’d be getting these invites. The last invite that came is to do an event in Australia. Mm-hmm. . And so I, I just booked the tickets two days ago. I’m gonna be flying to Australia and I’ll be speaking to a large alliance church in Sydney. I’ll be doing a pastor’s conference for the groups, and I’ll do another.

On the following Sunday, and then going up to Brisbane and I’m gonna do a conference up there. And so, I mean, the doors open, they happen. and that’s helpful, but it needs to turn into a consistent stride rather than my, And, and you know, back in the old days, I, I’d show up at church, I’d preach my sermon, I’d visit the sick, I’d do the class, I’d get them joined at, baptize them, you know, that kind of thing.

and the church paid the bills. So this is a new venture. And I’m thankful for it, and I’m energized by it, and I’m scared outta my overlo tree.

Well, if anything, uh, you have demonstrated, at least you know, in your stories that you shared today, as well as the, the book that I’ve read that. God will provide. I, I am confident of that because God has provided for you up until now, and I see no reason why it won’t continue. So. If someone listening to this today, or, or, or watching on YouTube wants to be able to get a hold of you, maybe to offer you a speaking opportunity and or to certainly buy your books, where is the best place for people to, uh, reach out to you?

Well, my website, uh, Triple w dot spirit, like spiritual equip, like equip. Spirit equip.com and my booking information is there and my conference schedule is there and links to my three books. Uh, well, there’s four , but you don’t wanna buy that one. That’s right. Links to the three books are there. And, uh, you can also subscribe to my blog and, and my YouTube channel is called Spirit Equip Ministries.

And I have a Facebook page, uh, called Spirit Equip, and I have a personal page called David Achaka. And any of those would be points of entry for that. And if you wanted to be in touch with me, uh, you could, uh, send a note to my, to my, my, uh, there’s, there’s a contact form inside the spirit, Equip. Thing. But if you wanna get really brave and try and spell my last name,

You can look at the screen. I’m gonna make sure you see that David Chaka thing and you go David chaka spirit equip.com. And that’s my, uh, email address. All right. And I live in Windsor, which is right on the American border. So I’m, I’m 50 kilometers or 30 miles depending on what you’re Canadian, American to the Wind County Airport.

So it’s very easy for me to travel across the earth. Very easy. Yeah. A covid was made that very hard. But, uh, it’s not hard at all from there. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m, well, I grew up in the Detroit area, so I have been to Windsor many times. Okay. And it’s a, it’s a lovely, lovely city and, uh, yeah, you’re definitely close to being able to fly wherever you need to be, so that’s good.

Yeah. So. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to spend with us. Uh, it was a delight as, uh, hopefully the rest. All of you have been listening. I hope my, uh, my statement at the beginning, uh, proved true that I, I was sure that we were gonna have a good. Good time today and listening to, listening to your stories and, and your, as I said, you’ve got a wonderful sense of humor and I think that’s, that’s important.

But the, the message as you share today, I think is great. And so I hope everyone will take advantage and, uh, connect with you and, and get your books because there’s a lot of value in there for everyone. So thank you so much for being with us today. Well, it’s been an absolutely delight. Glory, ma the Lord bless you, and I’m thankful for the opportunity.

Oh, thank you. And I also wanna thank. Out there for listening and we’re watching continuing to do so. I really appreciate all of you and, uh, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I hope you’ll share it with a friend, Let more people know about David’s work. And until next time, as always, I encourage you to go out and live fully.

Love deeply and engage authentically. Did you know that a majority of entrepreneurs tend to discount the importance of their work and a good number feel their success is simply due to luck? I know from personal experience that self doubt can keep you from having the kind of life and business you desire.

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