Listening to God!
- Oct 4, 2024
- 5 min read
God longs to speak and reveal wonderful things to us through His Son, His word, the Holy Spirit, through circumstances, through others, through creation, through prayer, and many other ways. The thing is, are we listening?
God wants us to listen to Him. "Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favour from the Lord." (Prov 8:34 ).
Wow! Isn’t that an amazing verse?!
Psalm 23 and Psalm 100, remind us that the Lord is our Shepherd and that we are His people, the sheep of His pasture (Ps 100:3). In the New Testament, this is further reinforced by Jesus identifying himself as the good shepherd who is willing to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).
As Jesus’ 'sheep', we should know Him and identify with Him. We should know His voice, listen to Him, obey Him, and follow Him. How amazing is that for our everyday life!
Our Lord longs to lead His sheep (disciples). A fundamental need in following Him is hearing and recognising His voice to receive the guidance we need.
John 10:3-4 says, “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
So, my question to us all – when did we last hear His voice?
I think that one of the most important places we need to find ourselves to hear and listen to His voice is in prayer. "Draw near to listen" (Eccl 5:1).
Prayer is a relationship, which must mean we give time listening to each other. Prayer must become a dialogue, where we speak with God and allow Him to speak to us. Listening to God must become part of our prayer life.
Henri J.M. Nouwen: “Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.”
Remember Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:1-10. His name literally means “he who hears/listens to God.” Several times God called to Samuel, but Samuel didn’t recognise God’s voice. How often is that our experience? We sit down to pray and then our agenda or our assumptions about what should happen next, actually keeps us from hearing God.
In 1 Samuel 3, God speaks first. Imagine starting your prayer time with God, being still before Him, then allowing Him to speak first!
Samuel’s first experience of prayer is listening. Eli tells Samuel that the next time he hears God call him he should respond, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”
Give time for God to speak to you. Open your heart to receive directly from Him.
Henri Nouwen: “Through the discipline of contemplative (listening) prayer, Christians have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them”
I’m reminded of the hymn, ‘Speak, Lord, in the stillness, as I wait on Thee. Hush my heart to listen, in expectancy.’
What about quietly listening to the Father’s heart and voice today?
In John 4, the Samaritan woman was surprised by Jesus’ initiation of the dialogue, saying, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9). Her question illustrates an adjustment is required in her heart and life. I think it’s so often the case for each one of us. How often we question: “Why the God of the whole universe would want to speak into my life?” But this is exactly what God longs to do, if we would but listen.
What gets in the way of listening in prayer? What are the distractions?
Remember Jesus taught us to eliminate all distractions and find that space to share and be ready to listen:“Whenever you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray ... in private” (Matt 6:6).
Listening prayer is the spiritual practice of intentionally positioning ourselves to hear God.
A great illustration of this is found in Isaiah 6. The prophet is walking so close to God, that he overhears a conversation of the Trinity: "'Who will go? Who will go for us?’ Here am I, send me!’" God replied,“Go and tell this people.” When was the last time we overheard a conversation in Heaven, or God’s response of accepting our call of obedience.
Richard Foster said, “Listening prayer is an act of surrender, laying down our own agendas and desires to hear what God wants to say to us.”
This is precisely what Isaiah did. Some lyrics of a song which seem to echo Isaiah’s experience and his immediate response are: “Write me into your story…whisper it to me and let me know I am yours.”
I have to accept that longing to hear from God in prayer must depend on the condition of my spiritual ears and my spiritual attitude. Do I have listening ears and a listening heart when I pray?
Dallas Willard writes, “Hearing God as a reliable, day to day reality for people with good sense” is possible he says, this conversational relationship with God is “for those who are devoted to the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom. It is for the disciple of Jesus Christ who has no higher preference than to be like him.”
Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track” (The MSG).
Try it! I think Elijah found this out. With all that was going on in his heart and mind, he heard that “gentle whisper!” (See 1 Kings 19.)
Elijah’s plans have been thwarted; he sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud is overwhelming him. Elijah seems to have done everything God has asked, but in spite of all of his successes, all of his miracles, he seems to be a failure. Elijah is sat in a cave, then there was a great earthquake, a great wind, a fire—but God was not in any of these. Finally, God began to speak to Elijah with a “gentle whisper”.
He knew that God was with him.
Pause for a moment
I accept it’s hard to hear God’s voice in the hardships of life or in the hustle and bustle of our everyday life. So often we are too busy to really pay attention to God.
Thinking of Elijah, Warren Wiersbe imagines God saying: “There’s a time and place for the wind, the earthquake and the fire, but most of the time, I speak to people in tones of gentle love and quiet persuasion.”
Just wondering! Why not today set aside time to listen and hear the ‘gentle whispers’ of our God. There’s not a single person that doesn’t need to hear from heaven the ‘whispers of grace’ or the ‘whispers of love’, and then for us to respond.
“Write me into your story…whisper it to me and let me know I am yours.”
Live the whisper-led life as we navigate this interesting journey on earth.
Isaiah 30:21: 'You will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way. Follow it, whether it turns to the right or to the left.”'
R.T. Kendall - 'I live to hear directly from God. I will take any word from Him I can get – however He might be pleased to send it – whether via Scripture, another person’s insights, a hymn or even an audible voice. Yes, an audible voice; not that you could hear it if you were in the same room, but clearly audible to me. I live for insight, thoughts and interpretations of God’s word I’d never seen before. I’m in highest realm of ecstasy when this happens!'
'Be still and know that I am God.'
Come and sit a while and listen!
This has has been a wonderful time, just being with God. An indescribable time of peace, calm and reflection of where God has been in my life and thoughts of ways He has spoken. I do have times I doubt that I know God’s voice and thoughts go through my mind that perhaps I am not a Christian, they are not as frequent as in the past but I hold onto God’s promises and am beginning to recognise the lie that is spoken. The discipline of contemplative (listening) prayer, and having to learn again and again to listen to the voice, it’s not a one time thing, it’s to learn constantly. The verses in Priverbs 3:5-6 are my frequent …