2. God’s desires our relationship to include conversation, information, emotion, shared experiences, and simply being together. 

(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.) 

Do you find it difficult to hear God?

Think about your prayer life—the kind of things you say to God and what you hear from Him. How much of what you say involves asking for things from God? How much of what you hear seems to be God telling you to do things? How often do you simply share your feelings and talk with God about yourself, your life, and your desires? What does the content of your prayers say about your relationship with God?

How does it make you feel to know that learning to hear God—practicing listening in order to really hear Him—might take some time?

Why do you think God has designed it so that we do not use our ears to hear Him but rather our minds and hearts?

Few Christians would ever doubt that God hears us when we speak to Him. So why would we doubt that God also speaks to us when we are prepared to listen? It’s true that learning to hear and know God’s voice is a process, but, there is no question that God is more than capable of communicating to us.

After all, He wants a relationship with us. And for a relationship to be healthy and growing there must be communication and contact. The issue, then, is for us to learn how to hear. Admittedly this takes time, similar to the way it takes time to learn a new language.

Desire and intention will, over time, lead us to begin to recognize God’s voice. Communication occurs in a variety of ways. Early in their marriages, spouse learn to know each other by speaking. After years of living together, however, spouses share information differently than at first. They discover that a look or a touch communicates much more than words.

But sensitivity to the subtle ways of communicating takes practice. So too, learning to communicate with God is a process. And communicating with God also involves different ways of sharing.

At first, we do most of the speaking, but over time, we learn to hear His voice. We share information and feelings and grow increasingly more confident in our ability to hear. As our communication and relationship mature, we become more aware of God’s presence. We start to recognize the nonverbal ways He communicates—the looks and touches that express His heart.

God’s presence surrounds us, and there are ways that we can learn to notice that presence, connect with it, and make “contact” with it. Connecting to God, knowing that God is present with me, sensing that God is looking at me and even holding me in some way, is also something we can learn.