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. David is the Chair of Alliance Pray, a prayer mobilizer, an ordained pastor, and a sought-after media guest. He equips God's people for work of service through resources, training tools, and his books. 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 Quick Links: Join the Live. Love. Engage. Community Intuitive Business Coaching The Live. Love. Engage. Book Support the Podcast with BuyMeACoffee.com Enjoying what you're hearing on Live. Love. Engage.? Subscribe on Goodpods or your favorite podcast platform, and click here to leave a 5 STAR Review. You can also watch the conversation on YouTube. 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,...