Hearing God speak – “for beginners”

“God is with us and speaks to us all of the time.”

This statement can cause a wide range of reactions: agreement from those who have a relationship with God, scoffing and possible ridicule from those who don’t believe in having a relationship with God, and wonder and hopefulness from those who want a relationship with God but haven’t yet found it.

The latter group, those people who want such a relationship but haven’t found it yet, are encouraged by stories of those who have developed a relationship with God. Many of them wonder how you start to develop and nurture such a relationship.

First, you must trust and believe in the fact that God is with us all of the time. Sometimes this is very hard to do. Even if your situation leaves you feeling that you are alone, you are never abandoned. Granted, God may not be coming to you and waving a magic wand to fix you, your life, or your situation; however, God is giving you signs and signals that are all around you. You likely just need to slow down and open your eyes, ears, and mind in a different way to see, hear, and understand them.

So how do you start hearing God?

First you need to start becoming aware of and open to God’s presence.

You can start by quiet meditation and tuning out the noise of the world around you. Once the noise level gets turned down, you can start to reflect on your life, your joys, your sorrows, anything you would like to… While in this state of reflection, you may notice that thoughts come to you that may not seem to be your own. These thoughts may start to give you some insight into your life and may even begin to shed light on issues that have been concerning you. These thoughts are the beginnings of God whispering to you.

At the start, this may take a lot of practice to learn how to do. Many of us in our lives are so used to being active and on the go and surrounded by activity that we have never really learned to relax, be quiet, and reflect on our lives.

The best way I can describe how quiet meditation can help you find God is that it is like living in a house for many years. One night you wake up and the house is very quiet. As you lay there, you begin to hear sounds that you never realized were there before. You never heard those sounds because you were always too busy or there was too much other noise.