In one of our recent teachings, I mentioned that it is possible to hear the voice of God while praying. The place of prayer is one of the best places to hear from God. Join us today as we learn how to listen to God in prayer.
Firstly, true prayer is a two-way communication; you speak to God and God speaks back to you. Prayer shouldn't end at us talking a lot to God.
If I'm having a conversation with someone, after speaking and sharing what I needed to share with them, I expect a response from them. Praying to God shouldn't be any different.
Hearing God in the place of prayer is not a strange thing. At least one, out of every five Christians will admit that God has been speaking to them while they're praying.
Habakkuk 2:1 NASBI will stand at my guard post and station myself on the watchtower; And I will keep watch to see what He will say to me, and how I may reply when I am reprimanded.
Just like the prophet Habakkuk, see your place of prayer as your guard post and watchtower. This is about positioning yourself in an enabling atmosphere to hear God. Your place of prayer is that spiritually enabling atmosphere that can guarantee you easy access to God's voice.
God speaks to us in diverse ways. A dream is the most common avenue through which God speak and reveals things to us. But a Christian shouldn't be contented with hearing God only while they are asleep and dreaming.
Second to dreams, comes the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. Through this still small voice, a Believer can hear God while awake.
In our teaching on how to develop a personal prayer life, I mentioned that the Holy Spirit is able to drop words in our minds and in our mouths (during prayer), so as to enable us pray according to the will of God.
That said, a Christian can start practising listening to God in prayer, by anticipating the still small voice of the Holy Spirit while they are praying.
10 Steps To Listen To God In Prayer
If you are one of those who desire to listen to and hear God in prayer, I presume that you have been praying to hear God's voice. If you haven't been doing so, I suggest you start by reading our article on Prayer to hear God's voice.
The following steps are practical steps. You are expected to put them into practice in your prayer closet, and watch for the outcome.
1. Enter His Presence
In order to be able to listen to God in prayer, you have to create an enabling environment for that to happen.
This enabling environment is needed by you, not God. God is spiritual enough, we are not. You are attempting to tune into the voice of God by positioning and aligning yourself to hear Him.
Psalm 100:4 NLTEnter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.
It is advisable to always start with worshipping or playing a worship tune, to get your prayer space saturated with the presence of Holy Spirit.
Worship till you can be able to sense that you, and the atmosphere around you is enshrouded in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
2. Surrender Your Will
Proceed to tell the Lord that you surrender your will, your soul, your emotions and everything concerning you to Him, so that nothing will hinder you from connecting with Him.
Tell the Holy Spirit to take absolute charge over you. This is necessary so that the flesh doesn't act up, to cause interference or hindrance to your spiritual receptivity at that moment.
3. Say A Prayer Of Repentance
If you find it necessary, say a prayer of repentance. You don't want to try manipulating God to speak to you, when you know you recently offended Him and haven't asked for His forgiveness.
Also ensure that you are not bearing grudges in your heart against anyone. Purity of the heart is one of the requirements for hearing God.
Overall, it will be easier to have God speak to us when He is pleased with us.
4. Ask God To Speak To You
Although God already sees what you are doing at that moment; He sees that you are positioning yourself to hear Him, you can still go ahead to ask Him to speak to you. It is needful to clearly state your intention.
5. Ask For Your Mind To Be Purged
Impure thoughts pose a serious threat to your spiritual receptivity. A mind filled with sinful and negative thoughts will have a hard time listening to God in prayer.
Go on and ask the Holy Spirit to purge and cleanse your heart and mind from every form of evil and negativity.
5. Pray In The Spirit
Praying in tongues will further get your surrounding spiritually charged, creating that spiritually conducive and enabling atmosphere for hearing God's voice.
Praying in the Spirit will give you heightened spiritual sensitivity, so that your spirit matches the frequency of the Holy Spirit, for easy flow of communication.
6. Cultivate A Quiet Heart
You will have to learn to quiet your mind in the place of prayer. If your thoughts are jumping all over the place and not concentrated on God, it will be difficult to listen and hear from Him.
Cultivating a quiet heart does not mean having no thoughts at all going through your mind while praying. But your thoughts have to be godly, at least. For example, you can't be asking God to speak to you, while you're thinking about one ungodly Facebook post you saw a few days back.
A rampant mind will often pose a serious challenge to listening and hearing God's voice.
7. You Will Need Faith
You are positioning yourself to hear from God, you are not there to wonder whether or not God can speak to you. And God isn't ready for such games either.
If you believe you can hear from God, it will happen effortlessly. But if you have doubts, it will take much longer; you will have a hard time hearing God.
8. Listen In Anticipation
While praying, make it a habit to pause at intervals. Stop talking and just enjoy the silence all around you.
With your eyes closed, observe the thoughts, still images and motion images that will flood your mind. You will find God speaking to you through any of those three.
But with time, you may not need to pause and listen anymore, as you get conversant with talking to God and listening to Him at the same time.
9. Practice Patience
Accept the fact that your first few attempts to listen to God in prayer may not go as expected. Make it something you enjoy doing daily while also expecting mistakes. Observe your mistakes and get better on each attempt.
Understand that becoming spiritual doesn't happen in one day, and no one attains mastery in spiritual activities like this within a short period of time.
10. Obey And Act
Yes, God will definitely speak to you if you practice these steps correctly. But it is not enough to hear God, you should also make efforts to obey Him if He ever instructs you to do something.
God won't give big instructions to someone who is practising to hear Him, because He knows how fast instructions can get misinterpreted and messed up, if the recipient didn't get it clearly or accurately.
Expect God to reveal certain secrets and truths to you that will leave you in awe, not instructions.
Final Thoughts On Listening To God In Prayer
In this article, by the help of the Holy Spirit, I ensured that the steps were communicated as simple as possible. God isn't complicated, and spirituality shouldn't end up looking weird to a Christian.
Before I round this up, I'll like to point out that, your ability to listen to God in prayer and hear Him speak, can improve in leaps and bounds, if you focus on building your relationship with Him.
It is also important to stress that, hearing the still small voice of the Holy Spirit is a default ability in every genuine Christian (John 10:27). It can be activated and fine-tuned through practice, by anyone who has the Holy Spirit. This is not a special ability. Having this ability doesn't make someone a prophet. Resist the temptation to make yourself a prophet, we've had more than enough false prophets already.
Take pleasure in spending more time with God in prayer, studying the Word and worshipping, without expecting anything in return. Most times, while you are enjoying your time alone with God, you will find Him speak to you just as I've described in this article.
Beloved, I trust that you were able to learn how to listen to God in prayer through this teaching. Always remember to share our articles with your family and friends.
God bless you.
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