How to Hear God
One
Lord Teach us to Pray
People often tell me, “Prayer is hard because God seems silent. He never speaks to me. I don’t get any feedback.” Most of us were never taught how to listen to God in prayer. So, today we begin a new series on learning to hear God’s voice in prayer, recorded in the Holy Land at stunning holy sites like the place of the Annunciation, Mount Tabor, and the Sea of Galilee.
First of all, prayer is friendship with God. And what does friendship take? Time…talking, listening, just being together. Prayer is like having coffee with a friend. When a friend asks, ‘How are you?’ you tell them. It’s the same with Jesus, except He invites you to be completely honest.
The best way to begin prayer is to tell Him honestly, frankly, what you are feeling and what you are thinking about. Jesus, today I feel afraid, I feel resentful, I feel overwhelmed. And here is why. Jesus, I am tired. Jesus, I am anxious about this or that. And here is why. Jesus, I am so happy about this thing.
Then tell him what is on your mind and heart. He listens to everything. This is the first step to prayer, talking to God from the heart.
Two
Listening to God
If we talk, talk, talk but never listen, it’s not much of a conversation, and not much of a friendship with God. So how do we listen? Jesus is the Word of God, and He speaks to us through three channels: Scripture (the Old and New Testaments), Tradition (the lives and writings of the Saints), and the Magisterium (the Church’s teaching authority in the Catechism, encyclicals, apostolic letters, and similar documents). Together, these three form the single Word of God.
Jesus is eternally present. His Word is alive and speaking today, not just in the past. Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium remain the primary ways God speaks to us now. So if we want to hear God, if we want real feedback, we need to read or hear something from His Word: Scripture, Tradition, or the Church’s teaching.
That means if you go to Mass or hear or read the Bible or something from the Saints or the Church, God has spoken to you today. The real question is: Did you know how to listen?
Three
Three Simple Steps
In vocal prayer, we speak to God. In meditation, we listen to God. Here are three simple steps to listen to God in Meditation.
Step one, read or listen to the Word of God. The Word of God comes to us through Scripture, Tradition (the lives and writings of the Saints), and the Magisterium (the teaching of the Church). As soon as something strikes you, pay attention. That is how God is speaking to you.
Step two reflect on, think about what struck you. Try to understand it. Love God for this truth. Apply it to our life by asking, “Am I living this or not?” See the gap between what Jesus is saying and how you are living. What is preventing you from living this? Pride, vanity, envy, sloth, anger, greed, gluttony, lust, etc. And practically, what am I going to do about it today? This leads us to form a resolution, a game plan for the day.
Step three, a resolution. Choose one concrete good action flowing from what Jesus said and practice it all day until you make it a new habit. We all remember a parent saying, “Didn’t you hear me?” We did hear them, we just didn’t do what they told us. Listening to God means doing what He told us in meditation.
Four
How to make the Rosary a Meditation - Listening to God. Let’s practice
I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?" It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Jesus said, do not be anxious, do not worry. Your Father in Heaven will provide. Just live in today, don’t worry about the future. Think about this: where is the gap between how you usually live and what Jesus is saying?
Five
The Resolution
One of the hardest parts of prayer is following through with a concrete resolution each day. Jesus said, “Do not be anxious. Do not worry.” So ask, “What specific good action will I practice today to form a new habit?”
If worry comes from procrastination, then today, I will not procrastinate. If anxiety comes from trying to control everything, then today, I will accept what I cannot control, trusting that God will take care of the rest. If anxiety comes from seeing danger everywhere, then today, I will remind myself, “With God, I am safe.”
Write your resolution on a small piece of paper and keep it with you all day. Put it into practice immediately. And each time you feel anxious or worried, practice your good action, your resolution. At the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did I remember and practice my resolution?”
It is not enough to pray for a vice, a bad habit to go away. If we do the work of the resolution, we grow in virtue. If we don’t do the work, nothing changes, and we slip backward into old bad habits and vices.
If you can’t think of a concrete action to practice, then carry one line from your meditation with you all day. That one line will shape how you think and how you act. For example, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I lack nothing.’ If I return to that line again and again, it changes my thinking and my behavior for the good.”