“You’ve seen a lot, but looked at nothing.  You’ve heard everything but listened to nothing.  God intended, out of the goodness of his heart, to be lavish in his revelation.  But this is a people battered and cowed, shut up in attics and closets.  Victims licking their wounds, feeling ignored, abandoned” (Isaiah 42:20-22, The Message).

The reason we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.”—Zeno of Citium (Circa 300 B.C.)

Many years ago a very troubled young woman named Rebecca joined a small group Dave’s [Sjogren] wife, Pam, was leading in their inner-city neighborhood.  Although Rebecca was only in her mid-twenties, it was apparent that life had not been kind to her.  Severe drug and alcohol abuse had aged her prematurely.  Extreme self-neglect and overeating had packed an extra 175 pounds onto her 5-foot-5-inch frame.  Worst of all, her face emitted such tremendous hostility and gloom that others instinctively avoided her.

Fortunately, although Pam is somewhat introverted, she’s also a person who listens to God.  And one day as Rebecca was complaining how nobody cared for her or her situation, Pam had a sense that God wanted her to speak up in a pretty audacious way.  Acting on her impression, Pam asked what it would take for Rebecca to believe that God cared for her.  Rebecca just shrugged and looked at the floor.  But quiet, mild-mannered Pam wouldn’t drop the subject.  “What would it take for God to prove to you that he loves you?” she asked.

After nearly a full minute of silence, Rebecca replied that if God would give her money to get a knee surgery she needed, and get her car fixed, and then get her a new job, she might possibly believe he cared.  “OK,” said Pam, “So go ahead and ask him!”  Rebecca hemmed and hawed, but eventually stumbled through a simple prayer asking God for all three of the things she’d just mentioned.  Two weeks passed before Pam saw Rebecca again, and, as you might imagine, Pam was extremely curious.

“How have things been going?” Pam asked.

“Terrible,” she replied in typical Rebecca fashion.  Undaunted by her negative response, Pam continued.

“I’m just curious . . . were you able to get the money for your knee operation?”

“Yeah,” grunted Rebecca after a guilty pause.  “I got a check for $3,000 from a former employer out of a retirement account I’d forgotten all about.”  She went on to say it was exactly the amount needed for her knee operation.

“Wow!” said Pam, “That’s just what you prayed for!  What about your car?”

Again, Rebecca shrugged and nonchalantly said, “One of the guys in my neighborhood came by and fixed it.  He said he was a Christian and he wanted to show me God’s love by doing it for free.”

By now Pam was almost too excited to contain herself.  “Any news on the job front?”

Again, Rebecca looked very uncomfortable and said, “Yeah, out of the blue I just got offered a new construction job, and it pays a lot more than I’ve been making.”

Shy, unassuming Pam was practically dancing for joy at this point, but poor Rebecca still seemed as miserable as ever.

Though each and every one of Rebecca’s prayers had been answered in just two weeks—all in ways she couldn’t explain otherwise—Rebecca still wasn’t recognizing God’s message of love.  Isaiah 30:18 (NIV) says, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.”  But unless you are willing to work at it, it’s surprisingly easy to miss even blatantly miraculous forms of divine communication.

As far as Rebecca was concerned, her life was still “terrible.”  The dark cloud of what she’d been saying to herself on the inside for so many years still hung there—completely eclipsing the love God was so passionately trying to communicate.

But this story does have a happy ending!  After lots of love and sacrifice from Pam and many others, Rebecca’s ears and eyes eventually began to open.  Though she still struggles, now we see the black cloud much less frequently and it’s no longer unusual to see Rebecca with a big smile on her face.

Maybe your life has been as difficult as Rebecca’s and maybe not, but either way there are factors that can get in the way of what God wants to communicate to you . . . and the blessings God wants to give you.  Let’s take a brief look at two of the biggies: the hurry factor and the worry factor.

The Hurry Factor

A deadline at work.  Grocery shopping.  An argument with a friend.  An illness in the family . . .

Life is full.

Beyond basic unbelief, probably the most common reason people miss God is because they’re distracted by too many other things.  Pastor John Ortberg calls this tendency Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder.  In an age of rapid communication, we’re also receiving an ever-growing volume of spiritual messages every day.  Some are positive, but many come from the Thief we talked about in earlier blogs.  As C.S. Lewis suggested in his classic book The Screwtape Letters, one of the Thief’s favorite tactics is to distract our focus away from our relationship with God—and from anything important that God wants us thinking about—and get us thinking about lots of other things instead.  That way we’ll continue rolling down the gradual road to hell . . . or at least toward miserable ineffectiveness in our lives on earth.

There’s an old saying that goes, “I always complained because my work was being interrupted—until I realized the interruptions were my work.”  There is a wonderfully counterintuitive truth here.  Think back to Pam and Rebecca.  Helping someone like Rebecca is something that most people who are in a hurry would almost never undertake—and would probably never want to.  They’d look at Rebecca and all they’d see is a monster interruption to their already hectic schedules.  As a matter of fact, before she met Pam a number of busy counselors, psychologists, and pastors had already written Rebecca off as “not worth their time.”  We can’t say whether they were ignoring God’s voice or not.  All we know is that Pam, the guy who fixed Rebecca’s car, and all the many others who slowed down long enough to show her kindness were acting with the kind of compassion Jesus showed toward the people he described as “confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

Have you ever heard the story of the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak in Mark 5:24-34?  Surrounded by a huge crowd, Jesus was hurrying to heal the dying daughter of a prominent leader.  As Jesus quickly made his way through the crowds, a woman who’d suffered from 12 years of debilitating and untreatable bleeding reached out and touched him—and she was immediately healed.  Even though Jesus’ errand was truly a matter of life and death, he stopped to search out and talk with this woman.

Have you ever wondered why?  If we had to hazard a guess, one reason is that—like Rebecca—this woman had come to believe she was low on God’s priority list.  She was sure Jesus had more important things to do than “waste his time” on her.  Even so, she reached out and her little act of faith released the power of love.  Her body was healed instantly, but for her spirit to be made whole, she needed to hear Jesus acknowledge her personally.  She needed to see that to him she wasn’t just an anonymous face in the crowd.  And Jesus knew that.  Jesus knew that to heal her spirit, he needed to communicate that she was worth his notice and far more important than his busy schedule or the expectations of the crowd.

Appeasing expectations that clamor for you to live at light-speed as you check off boxes on an impossible to-do list will all too easily distract you from noticing what’s most important to God.  Like the woman in Mark 5:24, you need to slow down and connect with Jesus—and let him connect with you.

We hope you aren’t feeling guilty or anxious about your hurried life-style—that’s neither our goal nor God’s.  On the contrary, our desire is just the opposite.  We believe God wants you to feel peaceful and patient enough that you will scramble around less and accomplish more of what’s really important in your life.  If you think it’s impossible, you’d be right.  If not for divine intervention we’d all be lost beyond hope.  Yet, as Jesus said in Matthew 19:26, “humanly speaking, it is impossible.  But with God everything is possible.”

With God it’s possible to prioritize relationship time.  It’s possible to get all your work done in 40 hours.  It’s possible to exercise, feed the kids, run errands . . . and still have time to invite someone like Rebecca for a cup of coffee or tea.  It really is possible, but you have to trust God and trust that he can make it happen.  Through God’s power—and not your own—you can have more time and are getting more done—both the things that you “have to do” and the things that you “want to do.”

If hurrying is a big part of your life—and one of the biggest reasons you don’t hear God—try saying words like these occasionally to God throughout the day:

God, right now my life is too busy.  Help me find creative ways to slow down and live at a pace where I can hear and see you better.  Help me read the Bible and live so much like Jesus that I’ll have eyes to see and ears to hear what you want to say to me.

If you pray this way, and pay attention, we believe you’ll experience some significantly amazing results.  On the other hand, if you try to maintain the same ungodly pace as some of the people around you, don’t be surprised if you miss incredibly rich answers to prayer pouring through your life—and, like Rebecca, see various aspects of your life as “terrible.”  After all, the words terrible and hurry just go together.

The Worry Factor

“The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced.” (Matthew 13:22).

Worry is another big reason we don’t hear God’s voice—we let our concerns drown him out.  Worriers spend much of their time being driven here and there by fear that God is not really generous, or that he might not really show up when they need him most.  Worriers try to take control of their own lives because they’re afraid if they let go, everything will fall apart.

Worrying is a lack of trust.

It’s a lack of trust that God is big enough or loving enough to care for your problems.  It’s a lack of trust that God’s way is the best way.  It’s a fear that if you do it God’s way instead of the world’s way, then you’ll lose out on something.  It’s a lack of trust that God knows you well enough to know what’s best for your life.  It’s this fear that if you leave your life up to God you’ll be disappointed in the outcome.

But God told the prophet Jeremiah, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.  Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).  God created you for a purpose.  God alone knows what you were created to do and what will best suit your personality and your desires.  There’s no reason to fear that God will give you a life you don’t want, because when you’re following God’s plan for your life, you’re living the life God created you to live.  And that’s when you’ll be the most satisfied—the most fulfilled.

Dave [Sjogren] tells his story—a story of when he almost gave in to the worries of this life and the lure of wealth.

Twenty-seven years ago, when I was still young and single, I landed a remarkably high-paying job teaching high school far away from my family and friends.  It was a great job, and I was making more than ever.  There was only one problem: I started to dry up spiritually.  It was the first time I’d been away from my tight-knit community of Christian friends and, although I’d been a committed Christian for years, I found myself less and less inclined to pray or get up on Sunday morning to visit another church where I didn’t feel like I fit in.

On the flip side, I was more and more inclined to slide into the temptations many young men are prone to.  I knew better, and I was always regretful afterward, but it wasn’t long before even that began to fade.

I’d forgotten the richness and joy of having a relationship with God.  It had been clouded over with worries about money, things, and success.  I’d swapped my first love for a lesser love—one that never left me satisfied.

Lucky for me, one of my best friends came for a visit.  He sat down, looked around, and listened patiently as I told him how great my life was.  When I stopped for air, he smiled at me and said, “Dave, you’re trying pretty hard to sell me on how happy you are, but you look miserable to me.  When the school year is over, why don’t you come back home?”

I was shocked—couldn’t he see how great I had it!  I tried to argue, but then the truth hit me.  I wasn’t happy.  I wasn’t satisfied.  I hadn’t been for months.  I missed my friends . . .and my God.  I missed being filled with a greater joy and a greater purpose.

After the school year, I locked up my office and left for good.  Sure, it was hard to give up the money and the lifestyle that went with it, but it wasn’t long before I’d completely forgotten about it.  I was satisfied again—filled to overflowing with love—from my friends and from God.

Even with no job, no place to stay, and a big car payment hanging over my head, it was like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  And God gave me another job—one I enjoyed even more than the last one.  And I found a place to live.  I paid my bills.  God took care of me—I’m not sure why I thought he wouldn’t.

The truth is if I hadn’t learned that lesson, I probably never would’ve overcome the worldly temptations of worry.  I never would’ve gone into ministry.  I never would’ve met the love of my life, and you would certainly not be reading this book.  It was a near thing; I could have let the power of a few thousand bucks a month steal the rich future God had in mind for me.  But because I learned to listen to God instead of my worries, I now have a life I never could have imagined in my teaching days.  God is good!

When you’re worried, it’s often hard to believe that God wants to pour goodness and blessing through your life.  Though there have been plenty of things to worry about, Dave has never regretted the decisions he made to trust God and to listen to him.  In fact, what he’s experienced has deepened Dave’s faith and his trust because God has always followed through and taken care of the worries in Dave’s life.

The Holy Spirit

In our experience, it’s in the midst of slowing down and releasing your worries that you can most clearly hear God.  Hurrying and worrying keeps you focused on yourself: the things you have to do, the problems you have to solve.  But when you step out of your normal self-focused pattern—and begin to focus on what God wants you to do with your time and your thoughts—that’s when you hear the Holy Spirit speaking in your life.  In John 14:26, Jesus said his Father would send the Holy Spirit to all who follow Jesus to teach them all things and remind them of everything Jesus said in the Scriptures.

More often than not, when you slow down and listen to the Holy Spirit speak, the Spirit will remind you of something from the Bible—something Jesus said or did, something from Old Testament wisdom, or something insightful from the Epistles.  The Holy Spirit will bring these things to mind at pertinent moments so that you can follow Jesus’ example and grow to be more like him.

When Dave first began trying to listen to the Spirit, he half-expected God to tell him what clothes to wear and whether to turn right or left as he walked down the street.  But that never worked.

“I was frustrated until I realized that God had already given me lots of specific guidance about the important things he wanted me to do.  It wasn’t ‘turn right’ or ‘turn left’ kind of stuff at all.  It was ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Matthew 22:39) and ‘Be still, and know that I am God!’ (Psalm 46:10).  As I went out and tried to do what these Scriptures commanded, I began to sense the Spirit prompting me and giving me more explicit instructions.

“I’m not always, absolutely, 100 percent sure these ideas are coming from God; but as long as they line up with the Bible and the love of Jesus, I can be pretty confident.  As I’ve stepped out in this way, I’ve experienced God’s movement in thousands of ways—ways that could only otherwise be seen as ‘mind-blowing coincidences.’  The more I’ve risked and given my agenda over to God, the more I’ve grown in confidence that I really am recognizing the Spirit speaking in my heart.”

It’s just like with good friends: The more you engage in conversation and listen to one another, the closer you get.  You learn everything there is to know about one another.  You confide in one another during hard times.  You get closer and closer as you share life together.  It’s the same with God.  The more you listen to God, the closer you’ll get to him, and the more you’ll love him.  And the more you love God, the more God’s love will start to flow through you.

Getting Your Feet Wet  (feel free to comment here or the Reflection Pool questions)

Sit down in a quiet place with very few distractions.  Now stay there for 20 minutes.  Listen.

What do you hear?  Do you hear the clock ticking as you stress over the things you “should” be doing right now?  Do you hear the nagging worries of today crowding out any peace of mind?

What is it that keeps you from being quiet in your heart and mind?  From being still and knowing that God is, well, God—in control, and powerful enough to carry your burdens?

Pray now and ask God to still your heart, to make you aware of the things that steal your time, to help you give up control over your worries, and to trust him with your time and your problems.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

The Reflection Pool

Pick a word that would describe how you feel most of the time (stressed, behind, discouraged, concerned, afraid, calm, joyful, healthy).  Why does that word describe you? What word would you like to describe you?

How do you think listening to God can help you move from one word to the other?

How might listening to God change your relationships?