Listening is an active process.
I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with Richard about listening to God. Here is my second installment I’m calling Listening 202. I’ve abbreviated both Richard’s comments and questions and my answer. For the whole conversation see Listening 101. Also note question #1 below where I am asking for your stories. I will send the author of any story I publish in this blog with a copy of my book Viral Jesus. I grant to myself the final decision on which stories I post. Ah, the joys of having your own blog.
Richard wrote:
…I suppose the big debate is the general (“don’t kill…”) to the specific (“go and speak to that stranger over there about Me”…). Different Christians debate how specific God is likely to get. Does he just tell us to “make disciples of all people” and expect us to figure out that we are able to enter a discipling relationship with, say, our mate Bob; or will he specifically and prophetically say “make a disciple of that guy over there”? How often does he tell us to go down Straight Street? (Acts 9:11)…
Richard
Hi Richard,
God can and does speak very directly to us. He will give us as much information as we need to obey Him. But, in my experience, listening is progressive. The more I am willing to listen and obey, and the more I actively listen, the more communication I get. I don’t think hearing the voice of God is any different today than it was at the time of the New Testament (I’m not a big fan of the doctrine of cessation, that the supernatural ceased; although I used to be steeped in it).
In my book Viral Jesus I give an example of God speaking to me very specifically when I was reaching a guy I called Amado. While I was beginning to share the gospel with Amado, God told me, “Don’t disparage other religions or you are going to lose this guy. Lead him like you are catching a horse.” You can read the rest of the story on pages 51-54. But, suffice it to say God spoke very specifically to me using a metaphor I could understand, (I grew up on a cattle ranch in Oregon). Was this audible? Not exactly, but it was very specific and I knew exactly what God was saying. And His communication ended up being spot on and very helpful in my ongoing relationship with Amado.
I think one of the key passages on listening is Acts 16:6-10 where Paul and friends are directed, step by step to Macedonia.
Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:6-10)
When we speak of “listening” we are actually using a language metaphor for all types of communication. Very little of “God’s voice” and our “listening” is actually audible, but it is communication. I’ve highlighted in bold the words Luke uses to indicate God’s communication with Paul and friends. Note how specific it was. God moved them from traveling north by foot to traveling west by boat. Also note it was a bit of information at a time. He told them just enough to see if they would respond in obedience. They did, and then God gave them a little more. At the end of the process, there was great fruit…and hardship.
Listening is an ongoing process. One of the quickest ways to stop communication with God is to take over the process, in essence say, “I know what you want, and I’ve got it from here.” Another problem is when we decide how we want God to communicate with us, we want a vision, we don’t want Him to only speak to us through desires or inclinations; we want it to be very direct and unmistakable, etc. We need to understand that God’s communication with us is extremely multifaceted and often subtle. He speaks to our heart and mind (Heb 8:10). He can do that in so many ways, from ideas that pop into our head, to dreams, to feelings, to godly advice…the list goes on. The main issues are that we are intentionally looking for this communication, i.e. “listening,” and when He “speaks,” i.e. communicates in some way, we hear, make sure it is God’s voice (called discernment) and then obey. Remember this is a process, not an event; note again Paul and friends in Acts 16. The main issue is actively joining in the process with Jesus the Lord: ongoing seeking, listening, hearing, discerning and obeying.
- Have you ever had an experience of hearing God that led to fruitful ministry? Send me your story. I’ll send a copy of my book Viral Jesus to every story I share on my blog.
- God still speaks to us as specifically as he did to people we read about in the New Testament. Agree or Disagree? Why?
- How would you answer Richard as to the specificity of God’s communication to us? Does He just give general principles, precepts and instructions, “make disciples of all people,” or does he tell us “make a disciple of that guy over there”?
- What other questions do you have about God’s communication and our listening?
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God certainly can speak directly to us. Over the past few years, I have been on a journey with God that began with a commitment to read the Word and to pray daily. As the relationship grew, I learned to recognize God’s promptings. Am blessed that could share with you a number of times blessed in this way. Being prompted to go up to and pray with a stranger (turned out to be exactly what he needed at that moment). Being prompted to bring a specific book to a lady at church, who upon receiving it responded “I wanted this book. How did you know?” Being prompted to give $20 to a person who then broke into tears, having prayed 10 minutes earlier to somehow have just that amount! Being prompted to text people at what turned out to be the exact time when they needed to hear the message of the text. I could give other examples too
It would be a blessing to me to read your book. God’s blessings 
Dave,
Thank you for your story. This is exactly what I’m referring to. I’m going to publish a future blog post where I share some listening stories. I will however post your comment.
Warmly,
Ross
Me again!
A timely blog post again… last night whilst chilling/reading/praying I had something flash across my mind… something about a non-Christian friend (who we’d seen that afternoon). The gist was basically “tell her she should come to me…I have brought her across your path but now you need to speak”
Now, this is a pretty good friend and someone we’d felt a while back might be a ‘person of peace’ even though of late we’d doubted it. Now my sceptical side is kicking in:
- I’m frustrated about lack of ‘words evangelism’ in our group and so am bound to want to jump in with both left feet myself
- this is bound to be me wanting to feel like a super-spiritual evangelist
- this is just me wanting these ‘super specific directions’ from God
- as I’ve always thought she might be a person of peace, I’m bound to think about her in this light
- my wife and another woman in our group are good friends with this lady. If I jump in now I might damage their friendship and longer term seed sowing
- etc. etc.
But… I don’t want to be disobedient….
There you are. A very timely case study of exactly the kind of issues I’ve been mentioning in these blog comments! Your thoughts? It’s certain a Biblical kind of command – but it could apply to almost everyone all the time!
Hi Richard,
These are good questions and concerns. First, I would note that when God speaks to us it doesn’t mean that the conversation is ended. You can and should still talk to God about this. You can go back to him with questions. For example, Jesus how should I open a conversation with Pippa? How will I know when the right time to speak would be? Jesus, could you make it clear to me what you are already doing in Pippa’s life? You can also make requests; “Jesus, open up a spiritual conversation with Pippa and let me realize what is happening.”
It sounds like your church is already involved with this person. Are you the one who needs to talk to her? When Jesus said to you, “tell her she should come to me…I have brought her across your path but now you need to speak.” Was the “your/you” plural or singular? Has this woman been brought to you personally to reach or is that a task for all of you who are in Jesus and know her? Why don’t you pray about this as a church and listen together? Ask Jesus to speak to you together and discern what is coming from Jesus and what is not. And, as a church all of you who know her should be praying earnestly. I’d ask Jesus to continue to set up the situation so when you speak it is just the right time. Pray for her heart that it would get more and more prepared for Jesus. And, note that Jesus seems to have indicated that “now” is the time to speak. That may not be right this minute, but it probably is soon. Finally, I’d like to recommend one of my older blog posts Greek and Hebrew Evangelism. Evangelism isn’t just getting the message of Jesus across to people. It should be a very warm, loving, interaction of the heart. It is usually a process, not an event; a process which you are well into at this point. So, ask Jesus to guide you (singular and plural) into this process and obey. I believe God will bring you all joy as you reap the harvest.
One last thought. Treat her like a person of peace. She comes with her oikos, her sphere of influence. Your goal is to bring Jesus to her entire oikos, not just her as an individual. Keep me posted. This is indeed a great case study.
Warmly in Jesus,
Ross
That’s an interesting post, Ross. You have my attention partly because Father has been opening up his heart on the topic of listening for quite some time. I’ll tell you one little story first, and then I’ll leave you with some links on the topic of ‘hearing’. Of course, hearing is only the first step, obedience is really what Father wants. But without hearing we’d have no chance of obedience, would we?
A few years ago we had been planning to help with a youth camp being run by people from Bedford. I was sharing some of this with my friend Paul who has serious and chronic leg and back problems and is always in considerable pain and constantly on strong, prescribed pain treatment.
As I was talking with him he offered to help put up the tents – this was the day before the camp. I really thought that would be a bad idea and was about to say so, but I sensed strongly that I should accept his offer.
We drove out together to the campsite and Paul worked hard with remarkably little difficulty. The guy who runs these camps said to him, ‘Any chance you could stay over the weekend and help with the kids?’
Paul stayed and several extraordinary things happened. He was able to run around all weekend with the kids, not even needing his crutches; the pain was much reduced. He became (and remains) a close friend of the camp leader and has helped every year since that first time. This has led to further friendships and involvements. Several of the youngsters decided to follow Jesus, all of them enjoyed having Paul there, and many of them have stayed in touch with him and returned year by year.
None of this would have happened if the Spirit hadn’t whispered to me, ‘Take Paul with you’. Sometimes the smallest word from the Lord can result in so much! He knows what’s best, we don’t.
And now for those links. No particular order here, but they’re all about aspects of listening and hearing.
- http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/07/response-are-you-listening.html
- http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/11/speak-to-bones.html
- http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/02/little-paxton-hearing-and-doing.html
- http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/09/thought-dream-yet-not-dream.html
- http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/12/hearing-from-spirit-in-coventry.html
And there are more links here – http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2011/12/here-are-some-blog-posts-and-articles.html – scroll down to the section on ‘Hearing, revelation’.
Thank you Chris for sharing this story on listening and the helpful links.
Warmly in Jesus,
Ross
Here’s a story I posted on my blog a couple years ago:
I’ve been taking my son on prayer walks around our neighborhood for a few months, and a funny thing has happened. To my eyes, the neighborhood hasn’t changed much, but my prayer walking is changing.
On our most recent walk, I passed a guy working on his lawn. I said hello, threw out a quip about being productive, and kept on walking. As soon as he was out of my periphery, I got the idea that I should ask him if I could pray for him.
“Next person,” I told myself as I continued on, speaking out loud my prayers as I pushed Nathan in the stroller.
A few streets later, Nathan pointed to a little girl standing in her driveway. Her mother was taking out the trash.
“That’s a little girl, huh?” I commented, followed by a friendly “hello” to the mother. We were past the house before I remembered that I was going to ask if I could pray for her. I wondered if I was being forgetful or willfully negligent in passing up these opportunities.
Heading up our street to go back home, we saw one more person, a woman raking weeds in her front yard. I said hello and commented on her yard and her diligence. Before the conversation ended, I crossed to her side of the street and mentioned our mission for this walk.
“Our neighborhood needs it,” she said.
Then I made my pitch: “I don’t mean to push anything on you, but is there anything we could pray about for you?”
Without hesitation, our neighbor explained what was happening lately in her life, and how we might pray for her. We learned that she follows Jesus and she shared a good deal about her family. Before walking on, I prayed a quick prayer aloud for her requests, then wished her a good day.
Over all these months of praying over our streets, it’s never once struck me to stop and pray with our neighbors. I’ve prayed for husbands, wives, parents, children, and I’ve prayed that God would reveal himself to our neighbors. I just didn’t think that he wanted to reveal himself right there on the street during our prayer walk. I’ll be walking a lot more carefully on our next walk.
Around 12 years ago we had just decided to exit the institutionalized form of church and had been “confronted” by the chairman of the board and the executive pastor about being more compliant to the status quo. We were not going to do that. We realized we must start living our new convictions of 100% church. 100% of giving goes out the door – no pooling 86% for ourselves. 100% two way communication – no lecture – preach the Word does not mean lecture the Word. 100% reproducing leadership – no perpetual dependency; and several others. We were open to meeting in our home or in the park across the street.
My 10 year old son and I grabbed a basketball and went across the street to shoot some hoops. As we approached the court we saw a black man in a wheel chair in the court with a basketball in his lap. As we drew closer I observed this man had cerebral palsy and could barely move his hands. He greeted us with a giant smile and a drooling invitation to play ball with him.
I’m a little frustrated internally since I am here to play real ball with my son. As we interacted a few statements I noticed on his key chain around his neck was written WWJD. I asked him if he knew what that meant. In his difficult to understand speeh he said What Would Jesus Do. I asked him, Do you know Jesus? He beamed and answered “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” I was stunned. I am now over my frustration. I realize I am experiencing a messenger so unusual, he must be sent by God.
I learn his name is Malcolm. I ask him where he goes to church. He winces and says he goes to a place in San Jose but they don’t like him. When he asks questions they seem annoyed. To my self, I know exactly what he’s talking about. I am now struggling whether to tell him about the fellowship that meets in my home across the street. I have thoughts of reaching our upscale neighborhood but think that would not work well if he were there. This is obviously a thought from my flesh. I hear God say, “Invite him to your home you fool. There may be blessings you have no idea about.” The Spirit wins the battle and I invite him to this new fellowship where questions and participation from anyone are welcome because that is what the Bible instructs God’s people to do. He says he’ll come. I tell him I’ll need to make a ramp to get him inside.
Over the next four years Malcolm joins in with our fellowship and we connect like no other relationship I have ever experienced where he teaches me and I teach him. If I were to recount all the things we did and learned together it would take a book. The biggest thing I learned was what it means to “wash one another’s feet”. It’s a lesson that cannot be taught AND learned in a sanctuary, a seminary, or Sunday school room. It can only be learned in that live situation where Jesus presents us with an unexpected action that requires great humility and long suffering, and we respond in obedience and joy. Yes, there were thousands of blessings for me and many others, including my young boys watching their father teach them by example about washing feet.