Hearing God

On the one hand it’s an audacious thing to consider. How arrogant to think one can actually HEAR the voice of God.

On the other, I see passage after passage where person after person did precisely that. Moses, Jeremiah, Job, Paul, Peter, John...need I go on?

What IS the answer? Does He really speak? Does He speak NOW? To PEOPLE? To people like ME? Like YOU?

How do I prepare my heart to hear?

What can I expect to hear?

Recently my wife and I spent time intentionally listening. We took our model from Eugene Peterson’s practice of years ago: Go hiking. And from the time you reach the trailhead until lunch…silence.

At lunch time we broke our silence and compared notes…thoughts. And for the rest of the day we talked about our experience of the morning.

I heard answers to a couple of things I’d been wrestling with. Not exactly the answers I wanted to hear…could THAT be GOD???

The thing is this: God DOES want to speak. We NEED to hear. So…its just so important that we make the time to engage in “active listening”…a term that takes on new meaning in our spiritual life.

It means we intentionally turn down the background noise of our life. WE incline our heart to wait…and to listen. We rest in scripture. We wait.

It never ceases to amaze me how He speaks. Especially to a guy like me. I’m not good at hearing. Thank goodness…HE is good at speaking.

So…how about you? Tried listening lately? What did YOU hear???