How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People

by Pete Greig

One of the main ways God communicates in the Bible—and in which he continues to speak today—is through the subconscious realm of intuition. In this chapter I offer guidelines for those seeking to hear God in dreams and underline the importance of honoring the conscience, which is an essential yet fallible mouthpiece for the Holy Spirit. I also explore the Ignatian prayer of Examen, which can be such a powerful tool for connecting with our own inner worlds.

The Emmaus road story is inescapably an account of God speaking through the actualities of community, creation, and culture. When Jesus was born, God’s people already had his word in the Bible (the Hebrew books at least), but it clearly wasn’t enough. They also had his word through prophets and prophecies, but this wasn’t enough either.

Hearing God is essential to the very purpose for which you and I were made. Without it everything falls apart. But when we learn to love God’s Word—to listen and obey—everything aligns. As Jesus says, “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4 NLT).

This is a simple book for normal people about how to plug in and hear the voice of God more clearly amid the clatter and clamor of daily life. It is, in other words, a simple guide to one of the most astounding yet confusing things you will ever learn to do. Astounding because, well, what could be more amazing? With four words—"Let there be light”—(just two in Hebrew) God created more than one hundred billion galaxies (Gen. 1:3). “The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born” (Ps. 33:6 NLT). What on earth might happen if he were to speak a few words to me? But it’s confusing too because God does not for the most part speak audibly, the way we speak, and this means that we can easily misunderstand, misinterpret, or miss out altogether on what he is saying. The problem is generally not that God isn’t communicating, and neither is it normally that we lack the capacity to hear. Rather, like me on that train, it’s that we easily get disconnected, distracted, and distanced from the intimate and immediate connection we were created to enjoy. It’s a disconnection that comes, as the Anglican Service of Communion puts it, “through negligence, through weakness, and through our own deliberate fault.”

It’s a jaded view of the world that questions the veracity of an event just because it happens to be intrinsically meaningful and beautifully told. Second, Luke consistently demonstrates a rigorous commitment to narrative accuracy both in this gospel and in his book of Acts. Where his fellow gospel writer John plays with chronology, poetry, and trope (to great effect), Luke remains a determined chronicler of facts. Why would he fabricate such a significant encounter?

Finally, the depiction of Jesus himself in this story bears a striking resemblance to other accounts of his postresurrection appearances. Just as Mary had mistaken him for a gardener earlier that morning, and as seven of his closest friends would fail to recognize him a few days later on the shores of Galilee, so too, here on the road to Emmaus, the walkers fail to recognize the Lord. His appearance seems to have changed. It’s also the way he speaks. Again and again, the resurrected Jesus approaches his friends with playful questions. He greets Mary with, “Woman, why are you crying?” He greets the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee with, “Haven’t you caught any fish?” He asks Peter over breakfast, “Do you love me?” And here, on the road to Emmaus, he greets the travelers with another playful question: “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” (Luke 24:17).

Any revelation that claims to be from God, therefore, but does not sound like Jesus, and fails to push us deeper into relationship with Jesus, is fundamentally not Christian, no matter how supernatural it seems, how profound it sounds, and how many Bible verses come wrapped around its delivery.

I didn’t feel spiritual or special enough to hear God in the ways people do in the Bible, or in places like Iran.

One individual may indeed be flooded with feelings of peace when they propose to their girlfriend, while another may be utterly terrified. This probably says more about the way that person is wired than it does about the will of God for their lives.

But if your desire is for something more, if you are thirsty for a fresh encounter with Jesus and longing to become more familiar with his voice, or simply wanting to want him more, I would encourage you to pause and pray whenever something stirs your soul as you read. Resist the temptation to rush. Try to make this a process of personal interaction with God. Embark upon a season of seeking his face. Begin to do your own deals with him, as Asrin did. Earnestly process your questions with other people, as I did with Nicole before Hong Kong and as that couple did too on the Emmaus road. As you do these things, I believe that the Lord will respond to your requests in generous proportion to your desire. “You will seek me and find me,” he says, “when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). God does not say here, “You will inevitably find me the moment you seek me.” Rather, he promises to be found “when you seek me with all your heart.” There is something about the posture of my praying and the wholeheartedness of my seeking—the determination, desperation, and desire—that moves the heart and attracts the attention of God. Eventually.

Is there a time in my life when “Jesus himself drew near”? How did he speak? What did he say? Do the particular circumstances of that encounter reveal anything about my own predisposition when it comes to hearing God?

Christ’s commitment to biblical exposition on the road to Emmaus reveals three important truths that we will explore over the next two chapters.

First, it shows that the resurrected Jesus continues to look to the Bible for authority. A brand-new world may have been inaugurated by his death and resurrection, but the Bible is still the means by which Jesus knows what he knows.1 Perhaps this seems strange to us today. Notions of absolute truth and ultimate authority are fiercely attacked, and the Bible itself is no longer accorded unconditional respect in Western societies. Even within some wings of the church, the authority of the Bible is being undermined. No wonder so many people are losing their confidence in Scripture. And this is why we’re going to take a little time over the next few pages simply to remind ourselves of the unparalleled authority of the Bible as the inspired Word of God, the epistemological foundation for life, and the primary means by which we may hear him speak today.

The Bible was effectively illegal in mainland China when I lived in Hong Kong, so I took the exciting opportunity to smuggle as many as possible across the border in a couple of suitcases, buried under dirty laundry. Having made it through customs, I deposited the precious contraband (minus underwear) in a series of lockers in a hotel in Guangzhou and mailed the locker keys to an address in northern China. Secrecy was paramount, I was told, because the recipient of these keys might well risk his life, and certainly his freedom, traveling from the other side of China to collect the illegal load. Why on earth was he willing to take such risks for a book considered boring and irrelevant by many in the West? Because the fast-growing church in China was, and is, ravenously hungry for the nourishment of God’s Word. And as a result of that hunger, things are changing quite dramatically. In fact, the biggest Bible-printing factory in the world today—the size of twelve soccer fields, with the capacity to print twenty million Bibles a year—is in China. These are shipped out to a network of sixty thousand churches through eighty distribution centers. And this vast enterprise still struggles to keep up with demand.2

But however wonderful an experience may be (and no experience could ever be more wonderful than personally encountering the risen Lord), the Bible remains the primary arbiter of truth for Christians—whether we feel it or not—and the main way in which we hear God speak.

that modern science could only have arisen from a biblical understanding of the world as a created entity, subject to universal laws (and not from the predominant Eastern view of the world as a cosmic illusion). The medievalist Brian Tierney, of Cornell University, traces our idea of universal human rights back to the notion of humanity made in God’s image as described in the book of Genesis and as expounded by Christian canon lawyers in the twelfth century.

And second, we must learn to read it with our hearts, in order to experience God’s voice through its pages.

More than 1,500 years ago, in the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Shmuel ben Nachmani said, “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”6 He was right. If we hurry into the holy without preparing our hearts, we will see things not as they are but as we are. We will come to the Scriptures frenetically and functionally, projecting our own subconscious preconditions on the text, carrying with us whatever emotional and psychological baggage we happen to have accumulated that day.

“When you meditate,” said Archbishop François Fénelon, “imagine that Jesus Christ in person is about to talk to you about the most important thing in the world. Give him your complete attention.”8

We understand the power of our imaginations—and use them to the full, without hesitation—whenever it comes to reading fiction or watching a film. From rom-coms to action thrillers, we know perfectly well how to immerse ourselves in a plot, identify with its protagonists, and lose ourselves in the story. But a strange thing happens whenever we approach the greatest library of stories ever told. The moment we open the Bible, we seem to switch off our imaginations completely. Perhaps this is because we are overfamiliar with the material, which has merely made us lazy. (Although this should surely be good reason for doing the exact opposite and applying fresh imagination to the old tales.)

Imagination is one of the most powerful faculties God has given us, particularly when it comes to hearing his voice with our hearts as well as our heads. As Mark Twain put it, “You can’t depend upon your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”14 And the fact that our minds are such a battleground merely underlines the tactical importance they hold. Richard Foster, who has spent much of his life researching such things, concludes, “The devotional masters of nearly all persuasions counsel us that we can descend with the mind into the heart most easily through the imagination.”15 Conversely, conservative Bible teacher A. W. Tozer warned starkly of the dangers of ignoring our imaginations when it comes to the Bible, saying, “The weakness of the Pharisee in days of old was his lack of imagination, or what amounted to the same thing, his refusal to let it enter the field of religion.

He saw the text with its carefully guarded theological definition and he saw nothing beyond.”16 Perhaps we might say that he saw the Scriptures as a picture frame containing God’s Word but not as a window frame opening his imagination to something more.

Reading the Bible certainly gives us plenty of things to talk about with God, but it is the way we read the Bible that sets the tone. I suspect you can see this just from the personal examples I’ve already given. As we explore and enter into the text, it is the most natural thing in the world to turn our thoughts to God in prayer. In fact, it’s such a natural overflow that—like me repenting over the dishwasher this morning and then rejoicing in that old leather chair—you will often find yourself praying almost without noticing it.

It couldn’t be clearer: by way of prophecy, God speaks through us into the lives of others. That’s what the guy with the infectious smile was doing when he shared the picture of the sword carrying the word envy, it’s what the preacher did when he pulled me out of the crowd and read my mail, it’s what the South African did when she texted me the warning about buying that house, and it’s what Bill did when he sent me the message about the poor and palaces. It’s even what I managed to do (completely unwittingly) that day with David in the pub.

Mature disciples learn not just to celebrate the seasons of abundant revelation but also to wait patiently and watch diligently during the in-between seasons when “the word of the LORD [is] rare” (1 Sam. 3:1).

As we seek to grow in our ability to discern God’s voice, he understands our dullness and doesn’t seem to mind that we often get it wrong. When we miss the moment, he doesn’t say, “Tough, you’ve had your chance, I’m off to speak to someone sharper.” He keeps knocking at the door, speaking our name, until at last we comprehend and respond.

It’s often appropriate, therefore, to adopt a “wait and see” approach when you receive a word that doesn’t have an obvious or immediate outworking. You might decide to keep such words on the back burner, neither doubting their veracity nor trying to force them to happen.

Angels tend not to turn up in medical research labs to announce the cure for cancer. But God does quietly call, equip, and inspire medical researchers to make extraordinary discoveries. Evil people get away with murder, and for the most part the Lord does not intervene dramatically to stop them. But, gradually, justice prevails. Instead of turning up in your living room every Thursday at nine, God waits for you to make the effort to read a book like this.

From the origins of time, God has been the Great Explanation of nature’s many mysteries, the ultimate power that changes seasons, hurling thunderbolts and rumbling from the heavens in rolling thunder. Elijah knew very well, and so do we, that Yahweh is absolutely able to speak in dramatic ways; through miracles, calamities, and natural phenomena; through shaking rooms (Acts 4:31), blinding lights (Acts 9:3), and astounding prophetic revelations (Rev. 1:10). But perhaps the problem with such displays of power, and the reason God patently refrains from speaking in such ways most of the time, is that they belie the fundamental gentleness and intimacy of his heart. Dramatic revelations impress, for sure, but they can also intimidate, dominate, and alienate those on the receiving end. And so the “Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime”3 chooses to whisper in our ear way more often than he shouts from the skies.

The couple with Jesus on the road to Emmaus were, we are told, “kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). Isn’t that an intriguing phrase? It’s not just that Jesus was being coy and gentle, “telling it slant” so that they didn’t recognize him—it’s that they couldn’t recognize him. Something was keeping them from seeing the very thing right before their eyes. Why would this be? What on earth is going on? It seems to me that there are three possible explanations, each one relevant to us as we seek to learn to discern God’s whisper. They are distracted physiologically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Perhaps the couple on the Emmaus road experienced a form of inattentional blindness when the stranger drew alongside them as they walked.

Many Jews at the time of Jesus were hoping and praying for another messiah like Judas Maccabeus, and another victory like Emmaus, to liberate them once again, this time from the Romans. You can see this in the way that they welcomed Jesus just a few days earlier with the political chant “Hosanna” as he rode into Jerusalem like the Messiah predicted by Zechariah: “lowly and riding on a donkey” (9:9). And this latent longing for a military messiah in the mold of Judas Maccabeus did not go away after Jesus’ death. Listen carefully to the language used by his own disciples in Acts 1:6: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (italics mine). Similarly, here on the road to Emmaus, bound for the very place of this famous victory, the couple frame their disappointment in Maccabean terms: “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21, italics mine).

But the phrase used by Luke here suggests that there was also something spiritual going on. When we read that the travelers “were kept from recognizing” Jesus (italics mine), the original Greek word translated as “kept” is krateó. This is a very forceful word, literally meaning that their eyes were overruled, taken into custody, or seized. There is absolutely no sense that the couple were merely being a bit unobservant or a bit dumb. Instead, God himself seems to have curtailed their ability to recognize the features of Jesus’ face. Why on earth would he do this? Doesn’t God want the whole world to know the good news—especially now that Jesus has risen from the grave?

Hearing God, then, is not just a technique that you perfect but a grace that you receive.

Lord, I acknowledge that I need your help to hear your voice. I can’t do this on my own. Unless you open my eyes supernaturally, I will not see. Unless you open my ears by the power of your Spirit, I cannot hear. As I read this book, would you make my heart burn just as you did for that couple on the Emmaus road? Override my inattentional blindness, and open my eyes to perceive your presence in my life. Give me ears, and still my soul, to hear your whisper more and more.

Shock and awe is not what traumatized or confused people require. Jesus knew that the couple needed to come with him on a theological and intellectual journey at least as long as the physical one from Jerusalem to Emmaus and that there were no shortcuts in this process of rethinking reality.

In whatever way the Lord has been whispering to your soul, don’t be surprised if he takes his time and tells it slant, removing the veils of misunderstanding and unbelief you never knew you had, slowly dismantling your intellectual, psychological, and emotional resistance to the Word that whispers love.

In his classic work The Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster advises us to make the most of all the “little solitudes” that punctuate our days.

By honoring the “little solitudes” of each day with our undivided attention, refusing to reach for our phones the moment we find ourselves alone, we can easily turn these in-between times into oases of stillness before God.

Silent retreats require planning (especially if you’re going to attempt one at home). Generally, it’s best to get away to a place where you can be undisturbed. Personally, I find it helpful to bookend my retreats with some direction at the start in the form of a conversation to set expectations, with a friend or spiritual guide, and a debrief at the end.

Most of our dreams are caused by our unconscious minds ordering and making sense of complex data. Maybe this is what Pilate’s wife was experiencing in her disturbing dream about Jesus: deep misgivings she’d been ignoring or repressing during the day that surfaced powerfully in her dreams at night. I have often experienced similar things on a lesser scale. For instance, I will sometimes wake in the night troubled by something I’ve said or done the previous day, or “noticing” for the first time how someone spoke or reacted in a recent encounter. Occasionally I will become aware in my half-waking state of my own deeper motivation in a particular situation. This is because my innermost mind is processing the day, making sense of its events and giving me perspective. And, of course, the Holy Spirit can speak into such processes, challenging me to put something right the next day.

Occasionally, we may continue to experience a crippling sense of shame regarding past sins, even when we’ve been fully forgiven. It’s important to resist such false feelings of guilt and to stand instead on God’s promise that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). And as you keep putting your trust in the facts of God’s Word instead of the feelings of condemnation, your conscience will eventually realign itself with truth.

The examen has been practiced in different ways for many years, but essentially always involves four elements: prayerful reflection on the details of one’s recent life, discernment of God’s presence, acknowledgment of personal sin, and a resolution to change and grow.

Along the way, Jesus is so utterly unremarkable in his appearance, so resolutely not weird in the language he uses, the customs he observes, and the food he eats that for several hours no one on Planet Earth realizes that this is, in fact, the resurrected Son of God.

Naaman got the word he needed, not the one he wanted. Sometimes you have to choose. What if the thing you want God to say is not the thing you need God to say? Will you still hear and obey? Naaman found this hard. He was offended culturally because he wasn’t treated as he felt he deserved. He was offended intellectually because generals are strategists, and Elisha’s orders were such patent nonsense. He was offended personally because he’d traveled for many days and the prophet had been unwilling even to walk to the door.

All these people had to leave their “solitary conceit” in order to hear God speak through someone else.

Like many people today, that old man considered the words of a brother secondary to a supernatural revelation. Meanwhile, God, who had clearly been unimpressed by his seventy-week fast, viewed his newfound willingness to take counsel from a brother as a mark of humility and surrender. Sometimes, no matter how much we might pray and even fast for a supernatural word from God, or a dramatic discovery in Scripture, the Lord refuses to oblige. Instead, he waits for us to humble ourselves like Naaman, C. S. Lewis, and that old desert father, to seek his voice “merely” through another person.

I love the pragmatism with which Francis engaged in this important process of discernment. First, he didn’t try to hear God on his own, but neither did he broadcast his dilemma indiscriminately to anyone who might possibly have an opinion. He was meaningfully accountable. Second, he didn’t demand a fireworks show from the Lord—no angelic visitations, supernatural dreams, or prophetic confirmations were required.

His years studying the Scriptures and learning to hear the voice of God have brought him to this extraordinary place in which he can trace the whisper of God in a pagan text amid a culture littered with idolatrous shrines.

Some of us fail to pay attention to the wider culture because we live in a parallel religious universe, having been taught that the outside world is inherently dangerous. (Did you see that film The Village? Probably not.) We only attend Christian concerts, we only read Christian books, and so on. It’s as though Jesus came to earth solely to save us for the sake of an all-consuming hobby. In the rhyme sometimes attributed to nineteenth-century cardinal John Henry Newman, “I sought to hear the voice of God And climbed the topmost steeple, But God declared: Go down again—I dwell among the people.”