How Can I Hear From God?
by Adam Weber
My wife says sometimes I talk too much.
It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I know it’s true. If you have a pulse, I can and will talk with you. A lot.
“You need to give others a chance to talk and just listen,” she’ll tell me.
Just listen.
This is good advice for having a conversation with a friend, coworker, or stranger. I mean, it’s a basic social norm and a common courtesy that one acquires by the age of 5. It’s important to listen to others. To give others a chance to speak and share. To give each other a turn to talk.
But it’s also good advice when it comes to prayer and talking with God.
To give Him a turn.
To give God a chance to speak.
To listen to Him.
While many of us, especially us extroverts, are good at talking with people, we often struggle when it comes to speaking with God. Prayer can be overwhelming for many because we don’t know the words to speak. That said, when it comes to prayer, the most important part isn’t speaking. It’s listening!
Listening and giving God a chance to speak isn’t just good advice, it’s necessary and vital to having a true conversation with God.
Now, we can hear from and listen to God at any place and at any time, but we must know what the voice of God sounds like.
The best place to start knowing His voice is by opening up the B-i-b-l-e. #SundaySchool. By seeing His words come alive. As we read, we come to understand the character and heart of God. We come to know His promises and truths. His ways. We see what God has said in the past, which gives us a good idea of what He’ll say to us today. And what He won’t say to us. We come to know what His voice sounds like.
Unlike we naturally assume, when God speaks in the Bible, it’s often not in a loud booming voice from heaven that stops traffic. Instead when God speaks, He does so using a still small voice.
Instead of brashly breaking into our lives, He stands at our front door and gently knocks.
Instead of shouting when we don’t listen, we’re told that He draws us to Himself with His kindness, not His anger.
When it comes to hearing from God, often the main question that we need to answer is the most basic one: Do we want to hear from Him?
If we do, we need to give God the space and room to speak.
More practically, invite God to speak and then be quiet.
Turn off the noise. Instead of checking Twitter between meetings, be still for three minutes and listen.
Get into the Bible. Again, we have to be able to recognize God’s voice if we want to hear it.
Declutter your life. Is every ounce of your day full (including every evening and weekend)? Good luck hearing from a God who whispers and quietly knocks.
If we want to hear from God, we need to give Him time.
Time to share.
Time listening.
Time and availability to speak into our lives.
We need to.
Just listen.
Intersecting Faith & Life: Give God the space and room to speak to you today. Put away the distractions and open up His Word — because He has things He wants to say to you.
For Further Reading:
Jeremiah 29:12
Jeremiah 33:3
James 1:22
10 Powerful Ways God Speaks in the Bible
Adam Weber lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He likes typewriters, drives a Rambler, cheers for the Cincinnati Bengals, has 6 chickens, and a dog named Daisy. He's the Lead Pastor of Embrace, an 11-year-old church that has grown to 6 campuses in two states. He and his beautiful wife, Becky, have four kids. Fun fact: He once made worldwide news when a turkey vulture fell out of the sky and onto his back porch during an ice storm. Google it.
Check out fantastic resources on Faith, Family, and Fun at Crosswalk.com!
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