How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

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One of my main takeaways is this: if I were stranded on a deserted island and all I had was a Bible, that really would be sufficient. However, there are so many other ways that God can speak to us, and I want to grow in my desire for those. I don’t want to miss out on all the creative ways God talks to me. God wants to walk with us in daily conversation as he did with Adam and Eve, and with the same intimacy he had with Moses. Occasionally he will communicate through dreams, visions and audible voices as he did with Peter. But mostly he will speak in a quiet, gentle voice as he did with Elijah, sounding ordinary as he did with Samuel (Gen 3:8, Ex 33:11, Acts 10:9-19, 1 Kings 19:12, 1 Sam 3). Pete Greig: The Bible is not meant to be just “read;” it’s meant to be prayed. In many ways it’s a conversation starter for our prayer lives. One of the great ancient tools that can help us to pray the Bible is the Lectio Divina. In this approach we read small sections of the Bible slowly and we may even repeat them several times. We become attentive to any particular word or phrase that the Holy Spirit seems to be illuminating. And then we turn those words and phrases into prayerful interaction with the Lord. We harness our imaginations to bring the Word to life in our own experience. This is not coming to the Bible as a textbook for sound doctrine (important as that is), but rather coming to it as an invitation for meditation and revelation through conversation with God. Pete Greig: I remember someone saying to me once, “God is humble.” And it freaked me out and I thought that can’t be right. And they went, “He is.” He’s not the guy at the party on the dance floor under the glitter ball with the white suit. He’s the guy kind of quietly unloading the dishwasher in the corner. It’s like blink and you’ll miss him. Christin Thieme: I love it. Listen and follow Jesus. That’s the summary of the book. And definitely, we need to read the rest of it to hear more about how to hear God. Pete, thank you so much for sharing with us, and for giving us the gift of this book.

So we have a God who communicates. So that would be a very short book. If the book was the fact that God speaks, it’s just, he does. The issue is psychology. The issue is each of us is wired differently. So how do we receive what God is saying? And sometimes our problem is either that we are expecting to hear God the way someone else does and we’re just wired differently. Or we are expecting to hear God the way he spoke to us in the past, but he’s speaking to us in a new way in our new context. Greig makes it quite clear that the Bible is the language of God’s heart, and therefore if we wish to hear what he is saying, we have to be immersed in the Scriptures. Pete Greig: Yes. But I don’t think I’ve always recognized the voice of God. Right? This is less about theology than psychology. See, the theology is open and shut. God speaks. Like Genesis 1: He speaks, boom, creation happens. John 1: God comes as Jesus, the Living Word. And this is why, if you’ve been around Christians for any length of time, you’ll have heard someone say, quite matter-of-factly: “Oh, God told me this,” or “The Lord said that,” as if it’s the most normal thing in the world (which, in a way, it is). But just try using that line with your GP: “Doctor, I’m hearing the voice of Jesus”; or in a court of law: “God told me to do it, your Honour.” They’ll medicate or detain you before you can shout: “Hallelujah!”As Pete points out, for followers of Jesus, “hearing [God’s] voice is therefore the most natural thing in the world…but whenever God’s word is confused, abused, or ignored, it can become one of the most perplexing and painful things too.” For many, hearing God’s voice has become confused, abused, and at times even ignored. For this reason, far too often, we assume it is impossible for us to accomplish. This book reminds us that it is essential that we develop and commit to intentional practices and disciplines that help us to rediscover our connection to God the Father, the Creator and sustaining life-force of all of Creation. These practices and disciplines – as well as this book – are good reminders that God’s voice is often missed because it comes different than we want to expect; rather “when it comes, as it mostly does, [it is] in a voice hushed to a “gentle whisper.” Far too many followers of Jesus have never been discipled on or encouraged around how to discern the distinctive voice of God, and this book helps them commit intentionally to spiritual practices and disciplines to discern and respond to the voice of God. Sadly, as Pete points out, even those of us who these practices are not new for, can at times, too easily become “distracted psychologically, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually” to hear “the voice of God.” For us, the realignment of our spiritual lives is essential, through committing intentionally to spiritual disciplines and practices. This book is certainly an encouragement towards realignment. The Revd Mike Starkey is Head of Church Growth for Manchester diocese and author of the Stepping Stones for Growth course.

And so when we learn to hear God in all of life, we begin to walk and talk through life like Adam and Eve with God in the garden of Eden. We have a living conversational relationship with him. And so I think the whisper of God is there at the movies, there at the shopping mall, there in the Netflix series, there in the conversation at the water cooler if we have ears to hear. Pete Greig: We live our best lives, and not our easiest lives, but our most joyous, living lives. I’m more and more convinced that the most dangerous thing you can do in life is say no to the God who knows you best, loves you most, and only wants the best for your life. And the safest place you can be in life, even though it may sometimes feel scary, is to say to the God who knows you best, wants the best for you, and loves you the most, “Yes. Whatever you want me to say, wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I will say it. I will do it. I will go there.” Nothing could possibly matter more than learning to discern the authentic voice of God, but few things in life are more susceptible to delusion and deception. When life falls apart and we need God's comfort; in moments of cultural turmoil when we need God's clarity; facing formidable decisions when we need God's guidance; desiring a deeper faith when we need God to say something, anything, to turn the monologue we call prayer into a genuine conversation. And so that’s where we started, Christin, my sheep, stupid sheep, like you and me. “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.” Say yes to Jesus. Listen to Jesus and say yes to Jesus, and everything else will come into alignment. Because he says, “Seek first my kingdom and my righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33) .” So yeah, just listen and obey. There’s no other way. Pete Greig: Yeah. And yet it’s one of the things I love most about God, and I think I probably had to unlearn and relearn most. Because you’re right, our assumption is if God speaks to me, it’s going to be a booming voice. It’s going to be unmistakable, angels, dramatic. And yet, mostly he speaks to us quietly and silently. I tell in the book, lots of examples of times that people just miss Jesus completely. They just miss him. There’s the couple on the road to Emmaus.

Resources

Pete Greig: And this fall, I’m going to be filming a video series, a free video series, discussion starters based around the book, so that’ll be available. If you like the book, that’ll be an opportunity to roll that out with all your friends. How to Hear God is published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the parent company of Bible Gateway. We launched an app about two years ago in 24-7 Prayer called Lectio 365. It’s L E C T I O, Lectio 365. It’s completely free. You can get it wherever you get your apps. And it leads you every day. It’s me and a few of my friends. We lead people every day in just praying a bit of the Bible together. And we actually deliberately read a few verses twice because it’s like we are trying to go deep. We’re trying to marinate in them. And that’s taken off. We have 165,000 daily users now of that devotional. It’s growing every single month because I think people are just hungry to not just study the Bible, but to really grow in their relationship with God through it.