And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Step one to hearing God is to stop talking!
Being silent and patiently listening for God to speak is a hard step for me. There are always people in need that I want to pray for because I am worried or concerned. Most people carry a mental list of things that they think God should do, either in their life or in the lives of others.
God gave me a verse:
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Mathew 6:8)
I have to trust Him as the God of the universe to know the needs of the moment and the desires of my heart. Although God certainly answers prayers, my life and, more importantly, my relationship with Him, was never changed by my many words or requests. In fact, praying through my desires and my concerns only seems to result in falling into a stale prayer rut, in which my prayers go unanswered by God and my daily life routine continues separate from a personal relationship with Him.It finally occurred to me that I had no real spiritual direction in my life and no idea what to even pray for. Thus was born my desire to start seriously listening to God. Instead of praying my way through my A-to-Z list of issues of the day, I would, with all earnestness and in the first moment of my time with God, acknowledge that He knows the prayer requests and the things I was most anxious about probably even better than I did and I would simply moved on to listening to Him. Sometimes we have to step away from our lists of hopes/dreams/concerns even for a moment in order to see clearly. Maybe in the clarity that follows we can see that we are going in a direction we never meant to follow.
However, you will never hear God If you don't truly believe. The bible says that those who come to God "Must believe that He is, and is a rewarder of those who seek Him". If real, life changing belief in the supernatural, living God is a problem for you, like it was for me, then you must start by acknowledging that. We are dealing intimately with a being who is beyond our comprehension in every way. ""My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts"(Isaiah 55:9). And yet He wants us to come before Him and seek Him and He actually desires to interact with us and give to us.
Actively listening to God, no matter how much time it takes, is among the best living use of your time. I guarantee that when we reach Heaven and stand before God, the time we spent actively listening and seeking Him will not be the moments we regret. God will and does speak to His children. I think one of the hindrances of hearing God is that we are afraid of the silence. We are not entirely sure no matter how long we listen that He is actually real and that He will actually speak to us. This is a form of unbelief and it needs to be dealt with. If you do believe and you actively listen and wait on God, then you WILL hear Him and it WILL change your life. It will have a greater affect you than a thousand sermons. It will transform you from the inside out and it will alter the direction of your life in ways you never imagined. It will also directly affect everyone you ever come into contact with.
The REALITY of God is not a nice addition to Christianity, it is its definition, all else is secondary and subordinate. According to the bible, knowledge of God is the DEFINITION of eternal life. If we rely on going to church and good deeds and never deal with the reality of the living God we are taking a very real risk with our immortal soul.
Listening to God is a form of meditation and that makes many Christians uncomfortable. I see no way around it. We must open our mind and spirit up to God and actively listen to Him. If this is our intention then I believe we are doing what we ought to be doing. In fact, I would say if we cannot trust the Holy Spirit inside us as our guide then we have no business claiming to be Christians. We need to listen to God. We need to hear Him intimately and personally in our lives. We need to hear God more than we need to do or say anything else.
A good thing to do while you are actively listening to God is to worship Him. One of my favorite ways of worshipping God is to think about Rev. 4:2-11 which are verses about God on His throne, and I picture myself in my mind as not worshipping Him alone in my room, but as joining in with the myriads already worshipping Him. This puts me in a very good frame of mind to hear Him if He is speaking to me or just to spend time with Him for the sake of worshipping and loving Him.
Truthfully, I am really bad at listening. Anybody reading this who knows me is probably laughing out loud over the thought of me in any sort of a conversation NOT talking. It is something I have tried to work on in recent years with varying results. The effort of not talking in a conversation for me is such an alien concept that my attempts feel akin to an out of body experience! I can confidently tell you however, that my attempts to listen to God have been met with patient, loving, intimate, and life changing interaction that I would trade for NOTHING else in my Christian life. It gives me a PERSONAL, REAL testimony of a LIVING GOD and that knowledge transforms you from the inside out and affects every person you will ever have contact with. When you do hear from God and get to know Him better you will develop a better understanding of Him and His ways and what things you should be praying about.
But, He has given us the freedom to ignore Him! Those who truly find Him find life. Other than superficial or behavioral changes, how has your life changed since becoming a Christian? Do you feel like you are actually living at all? Authentic, intimate interaction with God is the only catalyst of change in the Christian life and the true beginning of your journey. How well do you know God? Can you boast of your experiential knowledge of God? How intimate are the two of you? Christ says "apart from Me you can do nothing". The extent that we honestly believe this is the extent we will seek out an authentic experience with God, because if we believe, we have no other choice. True Christianity is nothing if not an opportunity for a new start, a new life, but if we are closed off, nothing will ever change, we will continue to fall into the same patterns and make the same mistakes and continue to mark time while missing out on EXTROADINARY opportunities we could not have imagined.
There is tremendous freedom in seeking answers from God instead of pretending we have all of the answers if He'd only do what we asked. We have much to learn if we listen.