How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

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And Lectio is much more that approach. It’s less about exegesis and more what is God whispering to me through this? And there are four steps to doing it that I outline in the book. The Latin phrase is Lectio Meditatio. That’s just meditate on what you’ve read. This matters because we often confuse theology with psychology. The fact that God speaks is a matter of theology. It’s about God’s nature. In Genesis 1, he creates the universe by his word, and in John 1 we are introduced to Jesus as the Word of God. Our God is the great communicator. But the way in which we hear him speak is a matter not of theology but of psychology. It’s about how our neural pathways have learned to receive and process data, and this varies from person to person. One individual may indeed be flooded with feelings of peace when they propose to their girlfriend, whileanother may be utterly terrified. This probably says more about the way that person is wired than it does about the will of God for their lives. As Greig says, ‘Nothing could be wilder or more wonderful than the human capacity to hear God’s voice’ (p.1). Ultimately, though, Jesus is what God sounds like, for he is the living Word of God. ‘Hearing his voice is not so much a skill we must master, as a master we must meet’ (p.xv).

So he’s still pointing to the authority of Scripture, even though the greatest miracle ever has just taken place in his resurrection.

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Learning to recognise the voice of God is one of the most astounding yet confusing things a human being can learn to do More about what story in Scripture Pete says is a master class for anyone seeking to learn to hear God’s voice. In the section on Lectio there was a tendency towards individualistic discipleship, which ironically was counterbalanced for me in doing the Lectio Course as a group exercise. He does return to the need to hear God in each other later, but there might be a tendency to see this as a separate thing altogether.

Each one of us has been born with an extraordinary superpower: an innate ability to hear the voice of God. Discerning God’s voice is one of the most astounding yet confusing things a human being can ever learn to do. Astounding because, well, what could be more amazing? With four words – “Let there be light” – (just two in Hebrew) God created more than 100 billion galaxies (Genesis 1:3). “The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born” (Psalm 33:6, NLT). What on earth might happen if he were to speak a few words to me? Hearing from God is primarily a discipline that we learn to distil through practice and obedience. The more we say ‘yes’ to Jesus, the more familiar and precious his voice becomes – and in time we will be able to say, like Cleopas, ‘ Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked?’ When it comes to hearing God, the Bible is the language of his heart. Nothing he says in any other way, or in any other context will ever override, undermine or contradict what he has said in the scriptures. 2. PrayerAnd so I’ve had to learn how to recognize the voice of God. And the good news is you do get better at it. It’s a bit like when someone first calls your cell phone. Your phone doesn’t recognize the number. Right? And then you get to know them a bit and you program it in. And after a bit, you don’t even need to read their name on the screen. You just recognize their voice. Christin Thieme: Yep. And your new book, “How to Hear God: a Simple Guide for Normal People,” is brilliant. Thank you for giving this gift to all of us. And we’re going to talk more about how God does speak, because you said it’s not always audibly. But one interesting thing about the book that is kind of a thread throughout the whole thing is Jesus’ encounter with a couple on the road to Emmaus, which you said in the book is a masterclass for anyone seeking to learn to hear his voice. Can you share a little bit more about that encounter? 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. Many people struggle to hear God because they have been taught to listen for his voice in ways that are difficult or even impossible for them to process. An academic study in the United States discovered a correlation between certain psychological attributes and the way spiritual phenomena are experienced. Certain personality types, it seems, simply find it harder to hear God’s voice than others. This is not helped by the fact that a disproportionate amount of the material on listening to God has been written by introverts (representing approximately 35 per cent of the population), who understandably advocate their own preference for quietness, stillness and solitude.

Bio: Pete Greig cofounded and champions the 24-7 Prayer movement, which has reached more than half the nations on earth. He is a pastor at Emmaus Rd. in Guildford, England, and has written a number of bestselling books, including God on Mute, Red Moon Rising, Dirty Glory, and How to Pray.Christin Thieme: So you’ve divided the book into two parts, God’s Word and God’s Whisper. Why did you separate it in that way? Pete Greig is founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement. In 2019, he published How to Pray, on the whys and hows of our words to God ( Feature, 12 April 2019). His new book examines the other side of the conversation: how we hear God speaking to us.