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If God were to speak to you today, what barrier would he have to overcome to get through to you? If you feel like you can’t hear God speak to you anymore, it’s probably because some barrier is there that needs to be removed.
The first and probably most common barrier is that we are just too busy to hear God. How have we allowed our lives to become so hectic, so over-scheduled, that we really don’t have time to listen to God and others as well? There’s just not a lot of listening going on, is there? Years ago, I realized I could be addicted to activity, and so, I simply began praying that God would deliver me from being obsessed with busyness.
In order to hear God, you have to block out other distracting voices and sounds. That means some quiet time, some uninterrupted time, which you devote to God and hearing him talk to you. For me this usually happens in the early morning before the day’s activities get in the way. Mostly God speaks through his written Word, but the way you approach reading the Bible will determine whether you really hear God or not. It helps to begin with a prayer that God will speak to you through his Word, and then you read with the intention of hearing what God is saying to you. If your mind wanders—as mine often does—and you realize you haven’t really been listening as you read, just make yourself start again, and discipline yourself to focus on the words and meditate on what you’re reading.
I have a structured plan for reading the Bible, and when I approach that time with the attitude that I want to hear what God is saying to me today, it never fails that something pops off the page and stops me cold. For example, I was reading Philippians recently, and verse 16 in chapter three spoke directly to me. It says, Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
I stopped there and began to write in my journal what God was saying to me. I’ve read that chapter many times, but that verse was new to me this time, and God spoke to me about some things I need to do to live up to what I already know. I heard God speak to me.
I urge you to set aside time to hear God through his Word and put in writing what you hear. There is nothing more important than letting God speak to you, and he will, if you’re not too busy to listen. If you need some help structuring your Bible reading, my Bible study, A Guide on Getting to Know God, offers some suggestions on how you could have a more meaningful time with God each day, so you can truly hear what he wants to say to you.
When we feel we just can’t connect with God, we can be sure of one thing: It isn’t God’s fault. He hasn’t moved. He waits with anticipation to have fellowship with us. So, when barriers come between us and God, it’s because we’ve allowed them to be there.
Another barrier that gets in our way is that we are often just too self-absorbed. Life is all about us. Our thoughts center on us; we are the center of our world, and so God just can’t penetrate that barrier.
We’ve been led to believe that all we need to live a fulfilling life is to have good self-esteem, but what I’ve come to learn is that self is not my solution; self is my problem! True, I need to see my worth in Christ and appreciate who I am in him, but striving for more good self-esteem or self-confidence just makes me self-focused, and that inevitably takes me down the wrong path.
If you want to listen to God—really hear what he wants to say to you—you have to take yourself off the throne of your heart and let God be God again. Honestly, that’s pretty much a daily thing I have to remember—to actually go through my daily activities with the conscious awareness that it’s not all about me. It’s all about God. It’s so easy to become self-absorbed, so we have to stand guard against it all the time.
Jesus gave us principles that seem contradictory to our self-focused minds, like, if you want to save your life, you have to lose it, and if you want to be first, you have to willing to be last, and if you humble yourself, he will exalt you. But, you see, the weird thing is that when we do it Jesus’ way—the backwards way, if you please—we discover that it works. Our burdens are lighter, our joy is greater, our peace is secure when we get ourselves out of the way so that we can hear the voice of God.
If God wanted to speak to you today, would he have to break through your barrier of being so self-focused that you can’t hear him? I challenge you to a one-day experiment: Determine to get through one day without talking about yourself; make a conscious effort not to think about yourself, your problems, your concerns, whatever. Just ask God to make you aware of how self-absorbed you are, and to deliver you. I think you’ll be amazed at what you discover, and you’ll also find that when God breaks through that barrier, you are getting into that abundant life that Jesus came to give you.
If you feel like, “God, I can’t hear you,” maybe it’s because you haven’t learned how to listen to God. In Psalm 81: 13-14 we read:
If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!
In Psalm 85:8 the Psalmist says, I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints—but let them not return to folly.
So, listening to God is first a choice we make: “I will listen to what God the Lord will say.” He doesn’t usually speak to us until we have ears to hear. But how does God speak to us?
Hebrews 1:1-2: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
2 Timothy 3:16 – 17: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Mostly God speaks to us through the written Word. I mentioned that already, and that means we have to make time in our lives to read the Word for the sole purpose of hearing God speak to us personally. Sometimes I find myself reading the Bible just because I’m supposed to. That doesn’t do much good. But if you read it for the sole purpose of hearing God speak to you, God will speak to you through his Word.
God also speaks through our thoughts, if our thoughts are controlled by his Spirit. The good news is that when we are born from above and have been given new life in Christ, the Bible says we have the Spirit of God alive in our very bodies. With his Spirit living in us, Paul writes that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). That means that if you have been born from above, you can think thoughts that are governed by God’s Spirit. He can guide you into thinking that is biblically true, and this right thinking is another way God speaks to me.
For years I have prayed James 1:5, which says, If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. I lack wisdom; I need wisdom; on my own I can make really foolish decisions. So, after praying this consistently for years, I remember one day making a decision about a matter that suddenly arose, and afterwards I thought, “That was smart; that was a good decision.” It dawned on me—well, yeah—you’ve been praying for wisdom and God gave you wisdom when you needed it.
How did I make a good decision? God spoke to me through my thoughts, which were—at least at that moment—controlled by his Spirit.
If you have trouble hearing God speak to you directly, could it be because your mind is so cluttered with the junk of the world, that your thoughts are not Spirit-controlled? We think about what we put into our minds, and so you can’t treat your mind like it’s a garbage can. When you listen to or watch any kind of trash that comes on the television or internet or you read stuff that isn’t uplifting or helpful, it starts to control your thinking and fills your mind with useless and/or sinful garbage. So, when you want to hear God speak to you, he has to get through all the trash you’ve collected in your mind. It becomes a serious barrier between you and God.
If you want to hear God speak to you, I strongly encourage you to get serious about bringing every thought into captivity and making it obedient in Christ, as we read in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
God also speaks to us through other people. We are admonished in Scripture to seek godly counsel, and there are times when we really need to hear someone else’s perspective, perhaps an older person, or a person who has walked with God for many years. Many years ago, I became aware that a woman in my church had a wrong attitude toward some people and treated them unkindly. So, I decided it was my job to set her straight, and I told my good friend that I fully intended to confront her and “whip her into shape,” if you know what I mean.
But thankfully, my friend stopped me. She said, “Mary, don’t do that. Just role model for her how a Christian woman should behave.” She told me how God had used a woman in her life when she was a new Christian to change some of her bad habits, but it came simply by watching her live a godly life. I listened to my good friend, and God used her to speak to me and keep me from doing and saying something that would probably have done much harm. It’s amazing, but now, without any help from me, God has transformed that woman into a much softer and gentler person who is more and more like Jesus.
Jesus said, My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand (John 10:27-28).
Do you ever consciously listen to the voice of Jesus? I hope you will become intentional about hearing God speak to you, because I’m certain he wants to speak to you—words of encouragement, words of peace, words of correction and conviction, but all words that are filled with his great love for you. So, ask God for ears to hear, and ask him to give you the strength and power to remove the barriers that you’ve allowed to come between you and God.