Posted in
Prayer by Jeff Goins on 12/3/2009
Hearing God's voice, what we call "listening prayer", is a part of any AIM
mission trip. In fact, the whole trip (whether it is a team of adults or a youth group) is structured around giving participants practical experiences with prayer.
But this process isn't just for missionaries or people that go on short-term mission trips; listening prayer is something that every follower of Christ should be doing.
Learning to hear the Lord's voice isn't complicated. But it does require some discipline to find a quiet place and to allow some time just listening. Perhaps the hardest part is clearing your mind. With all the noise of life regularly cascading through your mind, it can be hard to hear God's voice. There's no formula, but let me share a few principles that have worked for me:
1. Set aside at least half an hour to start. When you are ready, quiet yourself. If stray thoughts come through your mind, write them down on a separate piece of paper.
2. Read some scripture. Ask the Lord to speak to you through it in a way that you can understand. Ask God to protect you in Jesus' name from deception.
3. Then write down your question for prayer. Pause. This is where you wait and listen. God may direct you to another passage of Scripture. He may share a tender word. Whatever you feel he may be saying to you, write it down.
4. Ask him to confirm anything he shared with you.
Some Simple Strategies
1. Use a journal; it will help you focus. Plus it's a great resource to look back and see the journey the Lord took you on. It also helps fine-tune your spiritual ears to better hear him. Writing down your impression of the Lord's responses creates in you an expectancy that he will respond.
2. Use two different pens. I like to use the first color to record my thoughts and the second pen to record what I sense God is saying. The different colors clarify who's talking.
3. If, when you sit down to pray, you often have a to-do list pop up in your head, then have another piece of paper handy to make a list with any other thoughts that pop up. It's okay and it's natural. Just let them come out so you can focus.
How to Test It
1. Was it a clear word or just an impression? God may give us different degrees of confidence in what he has said. We therefore need to humbly admit our fallibility. Get someone you trust to check your impression and to confirm it or not.
2. Does it exalt Christ? (John 16:14)
3. Is it scriptural? Scripture is our authority. God does not contradict himself. (Proverbs 30:5-6)
4. Do other Christians confirm it? (Proverbs 20:18, Proverbs 15:22)
5. Does God cause it to actually take place? (Isaiah 55:11, Deuteronomy 18:21-22)
How do you hear God's voice? Have you ever practiced listening prayer?
-joshua
If our "word from God" is indeed scriptural, then why do we need Him to impart it to us apart from dedicated study of His Word?
However, this artice encourages being in the Word and taking time to "listen" for God's promptings. Sometimes when I'm seeking out God, and I'm praying for wisdom or guidance or leading, I ask God to direct me to the RIGHT portion of scripture - or bring the right passage to mind. That may be a different kind of listening/Bible reading than the "dedicated study" you mention.
"Bible study vs. prayer" is a false dichotomy. If I read the Bible not in an attitude of prayer, then it's a vain, fruitless pursuit. If I pray selfish things that aren't coupled with biblical wisdom, why would I expect God to answer them?
I don't know everything about this, but I think that the reality is that I can (and should) pray while I read Scripture and that my reading of the Bible enriches my prayer. However, these two spiritual disciplines work best when done together.
This is, of course, a big issue that could be discussed in depth, I'm sure. Do you guys disagree?
That being said, I think "listening prayer" is something that can be unhealthy or even dangerous, depending on who is praying and how they are going about doing it.
The above article says, "Perhaps the hardest part is clearing your mind." Even though the author is primarily referring to clearing the mind of worldly worries or random thoughts, this still bothers me. I don't ever remember seeing where Paul or Jesus or any apostle taught believers to clear their mind. Instead we are taught to fill our minds with God's Word and to meditate on it day and night. Prayer is not passive, but active. We don't sit back and wait for God to fill our blank minds, but we let Him guide us as we study His Word with our minds bathed in His Word.
Also, #2 above REALLY bothers me:
"2. Read some scripture. Ask the Lord to speak to you through it in a way that you can understand. Ask God to protect you in Jesus' name from deception."
It sounds so non-chalant. Just read a few verses, and ask God to use those verses to speak to your situation. The Scriptures don't work like that! They aren't meant to be applied one way to one person and another way to someone else. They carry "inherent truth" in them, that we must discern (with the aide of God's Spirit) through careful study and prayer. We then take that truth and apply it to our lives, not vice-versa. In other words, we don't look at Scripture through the lens of our lives, hoping to find something that applies to "where we're at", but we look at our lives through the lens of Scripture, applying to all areas as we grow in sanctification and holiness.
And the very fact that the author encourages us to "Ask God to protect you in Jesus' name from deception." shows that even HE thinks there is some inherent danger in waiting for some inner voice to speak to us in our minds.
And finally, the verse from John Chapter 10 that Jeff quoted above, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." (John 10:27) is not speaking of something akin to "listening prayer". Read the whole context of the chapter (verses 3-5, for example). There's a lot more going on, and deeper theologies being presented here than that. You won't find any commentary on this chapter that presents the view Jeff suggests above.
In case anyone's interested, here's a link to a 40 yr old sermon series on John 9-10 by John MacArthur:
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermon+Series/221
And I just recently listened to a couple of sermons by blogger/pastor Phil Johnson (http://teampyro.blogspot.com) on John 10 as well. They can be found at:
http://www.thegracelifepulpit.com/philsermons.htm
Both of these sermon resources are relevant to the question that Jeff brought up in saying that he thinks "Scripture itself speaks to this issue of hearing God's voice".
Scripture does indeed speak of hearing God's voice, just not through the listening prayer techniques listed above.
I would agree with this statement that you made: 'I think "listening prayer" is something that can be unhealthy or even dangerous, depending on who is praying and how they are going about doing it.'
However, just because something is potentially dangerous or can be abused doesn't mean that it should be avoided like the plague. I think that we agree on the fact that God speaks to us. Certainly, there's the danger of subjectivity in that belief (whether it be thru reading your own thoughts into Scripture or "hearing" what you want God to say), but to dismiss this idea entirely (i.e. the personal-ness of God) is, in my opinion, to dismiss a central tenet of Christianity.
Like I said, you made some good points, and I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you're saying, except for the suggestion that the Bible is the only way we hear God's voice.
Of course, you're certainly entitled to your own opinion.
On a side note, I thought that this was a good article and response to this issue: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5291
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