How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

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The sections on dreams and the unconscious offer practical guidelines which come over as helpful and balanced. The penultimate chapter considers God speaking to his children, not just in religious contexts (including such means as Communion, Solitude and Sabbath), but in the whole of life – not least, Community, Creation and Culture. For ‘ there is no aspect of God’s creation through which he cannot and does not speak’, Greig informs us. ‘Living Word’ and ‘Listening Exercise’ Pete Greig: Yes. But I don’t think I’ve always recognized the voice of God. Right? This is less about theology than psychology. See, the theology is open and shut. God speaks. Like Genesis 1: He speaks, boom, creation happens. John 1: God comes as Jesus, the Living Word. Pete Greig: Yeah, it is one of the expressions Jesus uses more than any other. And so it was like his catchphrase. And it’s crazy when you think that in Jesus’ time he could be walking through your town, like being Jesus Christ, like speaking things that no one had ever heard, doing miracles. And some people were probably just too busy at work to bother to come out in the streets. Hearing his voice is not so much a skill we must master, as a master we must meet. Jesus is what God sounds like

God wants to walk with us in daily conversation as he did with Adam and Eve, and with the same intimacy he had with Moses. Occasionally he will communicate through dreams, visions and audible voices as he did with Peter. But mostly he will speak in a quiet, gentle voice as he did with Elijah, sounding ordinary as he did with Samuel (Gen 3:8, Ex 33:11, Acts 10:9-19, 1 Kings 19:12, 1 Sam 3).

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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?

John Mark Comer points out in the forward of this book, that Pete and the book have been able to bridge, or gone beyond the boundaries of the “Christian tribalism of our day – charismatic/noncharismatic/Reformed/Weslyan/Angelican/Anabaptist/conservative/progressive/etc, etc.” I’d agree with that comment from Comer, and I agree with Comer that Pete – through this book - is deeply rooting us in “something far more ancient.” This book certainly covers the need for deepened spiritual formation, how to hear God, and it empowers the reader with practices and disciplines that will create a “real, conversational relationship with God.” And do you know what? The real aim of this book isn’t just to teach people how to hear God in religious contexts, like prayer and Bible study, important as those things are. What happens when we start to hear God in all of creation? Like when we switch on the normal radio? When we go for a walk? When we talk to a non-Christian who doesn’t believe God exists, and yet we start to hear God in what they’re saying? That’s when one day the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That’s what it says in Habakkuk (2:14). More about what story in Scripture Pete says is a master class for anyone seeking to learn to hear God’s voice. As Greig says, ‘Nothing could be wilder or more wonderful than the human capacity to hear God’s voice’ (p.1). Ultimately, though, Jesus is what God sounds like, for he is the living Word of God. ‘Hearing his voice is not so much a skill we must master, as a master we must meet’ (p.xv).

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 Bible times, dreams were one of the most consistent and powerful ways in which God communicated. This is particularly worth noting because it’s perhaps one of the least respected and least practised ways of listening to God in the West today. The fact is that almost every major character in the Bible received highly significant dreams or visions from God. Some were symbolic, others were warnings, and many were a means of specific guidance. The primary mark of the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh in these last days, according to Joel and cited by Peter, is not speaking in tongues, shaking or falling to the ground but an increase in dreams and visions. If you are filled with the Spirit, you should therefore expect God to speak to you in this way. 5. Community, creation and culture Pete Greig: The apostle Paul says that “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort” ( 1 Cor. 14:3). The prophetic gift enables us to strengthen, encourage, and comfort other people with God’s Word which is “living and active“ ( Hebrews 4:12).