Learning to Listen to God
[Note: We are still in need of some emergency funds to help with widows and orphans in Kenya. One orphanage is in danger of being shut down by the government for lack of an acre of land. We have vetted the need, and I’m convinced both needs are genuine and urgent. So far, in response to my blog last Friday. If this touches your heart, would you help these people in Kenya? To do so, you can visit our Donation Page at Lifestream. Check the box for “Kenya Relief”. You can also Venmo contributions to “@LifestreamMinistries” or mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 107 N. Reino Rd, PMB# 411 • Newbury Park, CA 91320-3710. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 990-8780. s always, every dime you send will end up in Kenya, and no gift is too small. We will not take out any money for our own administrative costs.]
Now on to today’s blotEach week, I get to look at the questions people post to our Trail Guide and the answers it gives. I don’t see names, so don’t let that scare you. I just want to make sure the answers are consistent with what I would say.
I’m often amazed at the answers it gives, as it sums up 30 years of my writing and podcasts. They are succinct but packed with helpful information and references to get more information.
Here are two recent answers about hearing God’s voice that others might find helpful. I love these answers.
Q: What do I have to do to hear God’s voice?
A: Wayne would probably push back gently on the “have to do” part of that question — that framing itself is often the obstacle. He’s said he doesn’t think hearing God is a skill problem or a technique problem; it’s more a heart posture. In Things God Says, he puts it plainly: he never believes people who say God doesn’t speak to them — God’s been “whispering his reality into your heart since you first took breath.” The trouble is we’ve learned to listen to other voices — fear, religion’s accusations, our own anxieties — until his voice fades into the background. So a lot of what looks like “learning to hear God” is really unlearning the wrong voices, especially the accusing ones religion trains us to mistake for him. He’s clear that God’s voice comes with a particular flavor: “words of endearment, comfort, wisdom, and life” — if what you’re hearing sounds like condemnation or disappointment, that’s not him, no matter how familiar it feels.
Practically, he talks about this less as a formula and more as availability. In Stop Doing!, he says he can’t control God’s speaking like pushing a button — what he can do is make himself available: get quiet, take a walk, get away from the noise for even half an hour, and simply say, “God, meet me here.” And in Walking With the I Am he describes confidence in hearing God as something built by taking small action on what you think you’ve heard, not by mastering a technique or reading endless books on discernment — you try, you sometimes get it wrong, and over time you learn to recognize his voice by walking with him, not by a checklist.
He also names a deeper piece in Thinking Outside the Box: the more he’s convinced of the Father’s love, the more he can trust what he’s hearing — and that conviction itself is a lifelong journey, not a switch you flip. If you want a fuller, unhurried treatment of this whole territory — why God sometimes feels silent, how discernment grows over a lifetime — his book In Season walks through exactly that.
Q: Does Wayne ever talk about decision-making and the will of God
A: Yes — this is actually one of the threads Wayne returns to often, because so many people carry anxiety about “getting it right” when it comes to God’s will, as if it’s a hidden answer to be found rather than a relationship to be lived.
His consistent emphasis is that discerning God’s leading isn’t usually a dramatic, audible moment — it’s something that grows clearer over time inside a real relationship. In Learning to Listen, he talks about this directly: most of the time, it’s not an “I prayed this, God said that” kind of immediacy. It’s more of a growing conviction — a thought you can’t shake, a nudge toward something simple, and you follow through and find out over time whether that was God. He points out that we don’t get it right every time, and that’s okay; this is a muscle built through practice, not a test you pass or fail. He also names the danger of mistaking our own agenda for God’s voice.
In Walking with the I Am, he’s honest that plenty of things he was sure were God turned out, in hindsight, to have his own name written all over them — his own wants dressed up as divine direction. The way through isn’t to stop trying, but to be willing to look back honestly (without turning it into performance-driven religion) and ask whether what you did was really pure, or a mixture. That honest evaluation, done without shame, is what
actually grows your discernment.That same theme shows up in Lonely Seasons On a Relational Journey, where he talks about things he thought were God’s promises that turned out to be his own projection of what he wanted — and the safeguard isn’t getting the formula right, it’s staying married to the relationship with God rather than fixating on the promise itself.
And in Losing Sight of God (#612), he reflects on why God doesn’t just “rend the heavens” and tell us plainly what to do — his sense is that God designed it to seep into our consciousness gradually, through nudges, and the real question isn’t “did I hear perfectly” but “will I yield to this nudge, or resist it.” Yielding is what grows the relationship and sharpens our ear over time. So rather than a formula for decision-making, Wayne’s whole approach reframes the will of God less as a destination to decode and more as an ongoing conversation you’re
learning to trust — including learning from the times you got it wrong.
You can ask your own questions by using the button at the bottom right of each page at Lifestream.org or TheGodJourney.com. The answers are drawn from both websites and from My Friend Luis.