How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

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How do we make sense of it? Where was God when we cried out for loved ones dying in overcrowded ICUs? And where is he now for the people of Ukraine? Is our faith relevant when things get tough? Does God have anything to say?

But Pete Greig is out with a new book to help us do just that. It’s called “How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People.” 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. The Lectio Course focuses primarily on learning to hear God’s voice through lectio divina, an ancient way of reading the Bible. Pete explores this practice in greater detail in his book, How to Hear God, which is a rich supplementary resource if you want to go deeper.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. Pete Greig: Oh, thanks so much. And I must just say, if they want to get the app, Christin, anyone can get it. Lectio365, that will really help you to put the book into practice. How do we move from studying scripture objectively and hearing its message generally to receiving God’s word personally in our own lives? The most powerful tool I have ever discovered, one that has revolutionised my own personal relationship with the Bible and has become the model for the devotional I help to write, record and release each day, is the ancient tradition of lectio divina – the slow, prayerful reading of scripture which harnesses the power of imagination and meditation (see 24-7prayer.com/resource/lectio-365). 3. Prophecy 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.

In Partnership with St Martin-in-the-Fields. This series of nine lectures is inspired by the words of Martin Luther during the Reformation. Distinguished speakers investigate those things in which we believe deeply – and for which we would be prepared to make a costly stand. This has been a super helpful complementary resource as my church has been talking about knowing God’s voice. It really is “a simple guide for normal people.” Very easy to understand and really helped me make sense of the different categories in which God speaks to us. In his latest book, he offers insight and tools to help turn your ordinary, everyday prayers into a real, conversational relationship with the God who is speaking, more than you know. The L ectio Course is a free small group resource from 24-7 Prayer which will equip you and your community to learn how to hear God by praying the Bible.

But you are absolutely right. It’s also blooming hard. It’s really difficult. All of us have been hurt. Probably, maybe times you’ve cried out to God and you needed him to speak and give you an answer. And he doesn’t seem to have answered. Or maybe a preacher abused God’s Word to try and manipulate a political election or force you to do something wrong. Or maybe, well, I had a woman come up to me after church one day. She looked me in the eyes and said, “God has commanded me to marry you.” 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.