HEARING GOD TAKES PRACTICE

Sometimes I envy the way God speaks to other people.  I hear someone talking about what God told them or words he gave them for someone else and I think I must be missing something.  Why doesn’t God speak to me like that?  He might.  But I am not great at paying attention.  God is always speaking in all sorts of ways.  I just need to learn to tune into his voice in ways that work for me.

Introverts are sometimes mistaken for being shy.  This is not true.  They just process everything internally.  If you are an internal processing person like me, you already have plenty of conversation going on in your head.  Your challenge for hearing God is to stop the other voices and thoughts long enough to pay attention to your heart and hear God from there.

Extroverts process externally and gain energy from external stimuli.  They don’t tend to live in their head, but they love engaging with others.  Their challenge is not to be distracted by all the other voices in the world that they are in conversation with.  If you are an extrovert, your challenge is to get alone and quiet long enough to hear God.

Sometimes hearing isn’t even the right word for it.  Some people are seers.  God speaks to them through pictures.  Some are feelers.  God speaks to them through impressions or feelings in their bodies.  Some people do hear in terms of words.  Some of us just know in ideas and concepts that come all at once in an intuitive way.  Whatever your way, God wants to communicate with you.  He wants to know you and for you to know him.

We can learn from other people.  We can practice different ways of communicating with God.  When it comes down to it, you need to practice hearing God and see what works for you.  Sunday, I will introduce you to a couple of my friends and you can learn from how they hear; not so you can envy them, but so you can learn to hear for yourself.