How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

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Nothing could possibly matter more than learning to discern his authentic voice, and yet few things in life are more susceptible to delusion, deception, and downright abuse. I was unfamiliar with the intimate acoustics of God’s voice. Apart from the Bible, I only really expected him to communicate through my conscience (which seemed basically tobe God saying no to a lot of things) and through something we referred to as “having peace”. The idea here was that when you made a good decision, you would be flooded with a sense of wellbeing, but when you made a bad one, you would lose that peace altogether. Christin Thieme: And you write that it can all be condensed into four words, listen and follow Jesus. So, finally, question for you, what happens when we learn to live in this way? Pete Greig: And yet that’s what we love about Jesus. Right? He was ordinary and yet extraordinary. He was humble. He didn’t force himself on people. So if we’re going to learn to hear him, we need to begin to think that his voice might sound a lot like our thoughts. It might sound like a Bible verse. It might be one of those pictures that comes into your head and you think, “Is that just me, or could it be God?”

Having listened to God’s Word in the scriptures and his whisper in the silence, I also try to keep my eyes and ears open to anything he may be saying through the world he’s made. The great theologian Karl Barth argued that we need ‘the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.’ And Jesus urged us to read ‘the signs of the times.’ (Matthew 16:3) The facts are our friends. Christin Thieme: Yeah. I love the phrase you write that Jesus wears his charisma lightly. I think that’s a cool way to put it.Thirdly, when I talk without listening my prayers become my own personal, subjective perspective (which may not be the same as God’s!).

Rarely in any of our lifetimes have we so acutely needed to hear the Lord’s voice: both his word, so that we as hisChurch might navigate such dangerous days with clarity and courage, but also his whisper, so that we as individuals might know the particular guidance and comfort of his presence day by day. We live in noisy and bewildering times, full of distractions. Things are moving fast all around us. And I believe that now, more than ever, we need to learn how to be still, how to slow down, how to plug ourselves in to hear the voice of God more clearlyamid the clatter and clamour of the world. More about what story in Scripture Pete says is a master class for anyone seeking to learn to hear God’s voice. Pete Greig has given us another masterpiece. Wise and winsome, profound yet playful, How to Hear God is the book we need. From the wild charismatics to the monkish contemplatives, there is a feast here for all. A hundred years from now, this book will remain a crucial resource on the journey of faith.' associate senior pastor of New Life Church and aut Daniel Grothe So you’ve got, as it were, the external, objective ways God speaks, and then the more internal subjective ways. I talk about that lovely story of Elijah on the mountain, and God is not in the fire. He’s not in the earthquake. And then God speaks in a still small voice. And so we learn to discern the whisper of God in our lives. Bible Gateway interviewed Pete Greig ( @PeteGreig) about his book, How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People (Zondervan, 2022).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. 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. Most people insist of hearing God’s voice on their own terms. Perhaps we need a newfound willingness to take counsel from a brother or sister, as a mark of humility and surrender. Sometimes he waits for us to humble ourselves. Some people, and I’ve been doing interviews like this, if they’re really, really into the Bible, they sometimes get really nervous that I talk about God speaking in prophecy. But the Bible says God speaks in prophecy. And then others are really into all the prophetic stuff, and they’re like a bit disappointed I’m saying, “No, the main way God speaks is through the Bible.” And both are true.

One of the most astounding yet possibly confusing acts we can do is enjoy a real, conversational relationship with God, the very creator and sustainer of life itself. How should we be hearing his voice? How can we listen to God more clearly amid the clatter and clamor of daily living? What does the Bible mean when it describes God as having a “still, small voice”?Others heard his words but didn’t understand them. So I think having ears to hear means that we don’t just, as it were, hear the sounds of what God is saying, but we receive them into our hearts by faith and they affect us. And so it’s like at church, some people just listen to the sermon. They listen to the talk, and it just kind of washes over them. They’re there because that’s what you do on a Sunday. But others it’s like their hearts are ripped open and they’re responding. I talk in the book about the ABC as a principle of how you know if it’s God or not. Is it Affirming? Is it Biblical? And is it Christlike? If it’s those three things, then it is probably God.