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.
An excerpt from the brand new chapter of Talking With God now in paperback.
