Can We Hear God?
The Most Profound Questions Are Anything But Binary
Consider This:
What if hearing God isn’t a special ability
reserved for a few people, but part of
what it means to be fully human?
Some questions appear to offer only binary answers. “Did I turn off the stove?” “Is 2 + 2 = 5?”
At first glance, “Can we hear God?” looks like one of these. But trying to answer it with a yes or no response quickly becomes … silly. Not because the answer might be wrong, but rather because the question is so profound.
As a closed-ended question, it certainly allows for a binary answer—but only in an unsatisfying way. It’s a question that resists quick-and-easy, trite responses, and instead compels us to ask more questions.
It invites us, if we are willing, to do just that.
That’s the purpose of this article. I will introduce follow-on questions that call us into deeper reflection around God’s identity, our identity and how it is that we live, move and have our being in this reality we find ourselves in.
I’ll be offering reasonable and biblical perspectives, but this will be far from an information dump. In fact, quite the opposite:
This will be an invitation
to explore what hearing God
means for you.
Meaning: It’s more beneficial if we avoid cookie-cutter formulas to hearing God—which is anything but formulaic. While there are overarching principles that apply to all of us, there are also aspects that are unique to each of us. Your experience of interacting with God in the context of your relationship with him is unique to you.
“Hearing God” is uniquely personal to each of us—exactly as God designed it to be.
So WHAT IS Hearing God?
Before we can answer the question “Can we hear God?”, we first have to define what “hearing God” means.
At its most basic level, hearing God is participating in ongoing communication with the Holy Spirit. As such, the experience of hearing God could include any number of things, like:
New insight, creative ideas or solutions
Keener awareness of emotions
Deeper understanding, fuller comprehension
Illumination or enlightenment of new truth
A sense of wisdom or discernment
An urgent conviction or admonition
Affirmation of identity or clarification of purpose
A broader awareness of context
Encouragement, peace or joy
… Just to name a few.
I’ve observed that, as Westerners, we don’t often view these experiences as integral parts of communing with God. We tend to limit “hearing God” or “God speaking” to cognitive processing of rational information and propositional statements.
This is largely the result of our Western worldview:1
Thinking habits and perspectives
that the Western church has
unknowingly embraced
over the last 1,800 years—
to our great loss.
It’s short-sighted to dismiss the experiences above as legitimate aspects of communing with God. After all, most communication involves things other than articulated rational language. And the deeper and more trusting the relationship, the more complex and comprehensive the communication becomes.
For example, Cheryl (my wife) and I communicate wordlessly at incredibly deep levels. We often know what the other person is thinking without vocalizing it. And the meanings inside this communication are unmistakable and easily interpreted—between us. Much of this communication doesn’t actually need language; indeed, words often fail to capture the meaning.
Why would spiritual communication with our Creator God be any different? After all, he designed us, lives in us and knows us at levels deeper than even the most intimate human relationship.
We should consider:
What would change within us
if we viewed hearing God as
a primary spiritual competency—
a part of what makes us human.
Unfortunately, this question has become framed almost entirely around a theological debate. Before we continue, we should acknowledge that discussion.
CAN We Hear God?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I say: Yes!
But please don’t view “Yes!” as a defense for one theological position over another. Unfortunately, this topic has devolved into a polarized theological argument in the Western church, leaving us with two binary options:
A Continuationist Perspective — God’s activity of speaking to his followers has continued from the patterns observed in the Old and New Testaments.
A Cessationist Perspective — God has communicated and revealed himself and his will completely in Christ and the canon of Scripture, so additional revelation is no longer necessary.
I’m asking that we suspend our tendency toward binary thinking for the moment, as it’s unhelpful, simplistic, unproductive and divisive.
What I will present will be applicable and relevant no matter what your theological position may be. My goal is to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification” (Rom. 14.19).2
DO We Hear God?
Not to be Captain Obvious, but unfortunately the answer is “no”:
Not all of us hear God,
and not even some of us
hear God all the time.
There are a number of reasons why, many of which I’ll touch on in the coming series of articles. But I see two primary dynamics in play:
We’re not READY to hear, and
We don’t know HOW to hear.
The first (not being ready to hear) is spiritual. It results from things like:
We don’t believe we can.
We’re focused on other things (e.g. lies, falsehood, self-interest, situational realities, etc.).
We hear on our terms, not God’s (e.g. we’re listening for what God wants us to do, when God’s focus is who he wants us to be).
The second (not knowing how to hear) is practical. It’s derived from things like:
We listen for the wrong things (ex: listening for information when God’s talking to us about trust).
We listen the wrong way (I'll explore this more fully in a future article, but for now I’ll summarize by saying we’re over-using our brain’s left hemisphere processes and ignoring our right).
We listen with skewed expectations (e.g. we ask “why,” when knowing “why” isn’t what’s most relevant).
We substitute hearing practices (e.g. solitude and silence) for hearing posture—“having ears to hear.”
The coming series of articles will walk through these in more detail. But for now, it might be helpful to simply begin reflecting on your experiences of hearing God in these two domains.
SHOULD We Hear God?
Yes. I say this not only as a matter of opinion, but of Scriptural imperative. In short,
We’re made to hear.
For example:
Jesus defines us as his sheep who hear his voice and can distinguish it from the stranger’s voice (John 10.4-5).
In Christ, we are led by the Spirit—assuming we choose to hear and obey (Gal. 5.18).
The Spirit teaches us truth, reminds us of all that Jesus has said (John 14.26), and explains spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words (1 Cor 2.10-14).
Our conscience is one of the primary ways God alerts, convicts and guides us (see Rom. 14)—unless our conscience has become calloused, corrupted or seared (see 1 Tim. 4.1-2).
If the appropriate context for hearing God is an ever-more intimate, abiding, robust and resilient relationship with our God—in which we’re tangibly “in him” as he is in us—then we must reframe the concept of hearing God so that it fits in that context.
If we desire that kind of relationship with God, then we must pursue the kind of interaction with God that aligns with it. We are designed by God as hearing beings, so hearing God well fulfills our designed purpose.
So Why DON’T We Hear God?
There’s good news and bad news here …
The bad news is that
WE are the biggest reason
we can’t hear God.
The Scriptures consistently point to the condition of our hearts as the key factor in hearing God. In this sense, if we’re struggling to hear God then we’re an example of the old business mantra: “You’re perfectly positioned to get the results you’re currently getting.”
The good news is that learning to hear God is a straightforward process—with one important caveat: There’s no app for this. It requires concerted and deliberate attention toward repentance (transformation of the mind and how we think).
It involves some things we’re not comfortable doing. This includes arguably the two most challenging disciplines:
Abandoning our independence, and
Moving away from our consumer mindset.3
Though these are straightforward disciplines, most Western believers don’t practice them well or consistently. We’ve operated from the old patterns for most of our lives. Very likely, we’re not consciously aware of how much they’re impacting our attempts to hear God.
So …
If you’re not willing to
move away from them (i.e. repent),
then your current experience
of hearing God
will remain the same.
Selah.
Where’s This Going?
Over the next several articles we'll explore what prevents us from hearing God, how our thinking gets in the way, why posture matters more than methodology and why God never intended us to discern his voice entirely in isolation.
As of this writing, I’m planning on five future articles on hearing God:
We’re Not Thinking Correctly (But We Can)
We’re Not Ready to Hear (So Let’s Get Ready)
We Don’t Know How to Hear (So Let’s Figure It Out)
We Don’t Know What It’s For (So Let’s Clarify It)
We Don’t Hear God Together (So Let’s Get Started)
As we go through the process, I’ll look for opportunities to address questions and issues that surface. So please make sure to leave comments and/or message me directly. I’m looking forward to walking through this with you!
Peace be with you …
Do you have a question or issue
about hearing God you want to discuss?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.
Part of the error for the Western church is that it has moved away from mystical and emotional thinking, mostly out of fear. This is typically framed by the thought that we can’t trust these thinking processes because they aren’t sourced in rational, biblical truth. But that well-intentioned concern can be a pendulum that swings to the other side with great momentum. Consider: It’s absolutely true that we can idolize mystical and emotional experiences and we rely on them as our only source for hearing God. But we can do the same with rational thinking—which, I fear, is exactly what we have done.
In full disclosure, I do live from a continuationist perspective. And while I disagree with the assumptions and interpretations inside a cessationist perspective, I respect it. My respect is based on what I believe to be a positive intent: to protect the church and prevent believers from falling into error—a sentiment that I share deeply.
By “consumer,” I don’t mean in a capitalistic sense. I mean that we approach God from the perspective that he exists to meet our perceived needs and the desires of our heart. This can become limiting when we think about hearing him, because often what we want doesn’t align well with what God wants to do in us and through us.