Beware the Risks of Clearing Your Mind Several years ago, my spiritual director recommended I consider centering prayer as a spiritual discipline. About the same time, a dear friend was exploring this technique as well. The goal of centering prayer is to connect us with God. It’s more about hearing from him then him hearing […]
We Must Remove Distractions to Hear What the Holy Spirit Says I recently listened to a talk on the topic of noise. It was the opening message to a sermon series. The teaching provided many thought-provoking ideas to consider. It also supplied me with a springboard to examine my own contemplation about noise—specifically the noise […]
Punishment May Await Us If We Fail to Listen to God Isaiah wraps up his lengthy prophecy talking about judgment. He prophesies that God has destined the people for death. That they will be slaughtered. There will be consequences. Why would a loving God want to kill his people? Through the mouth of Isaiah, God […]
Regardless of How God Speaks to Us, We Should Listen to What He Says The words of the Old Testament prophet Amos appear in the book of the Bible that bears his name. The words the God speaks come to Amos in a vision. But the Bible doesn’t tell us the circumstances surrounding the vision […]
Jesus Expects Us to Fast, but Do We? Jesus fasted (Luke 4:1-2). Should we follow his example? Though his disciples didn’t fast (Matthew 9:14), he said when he returned to heaven, the time for fasting would resume (Luke 5:34-35). In his well-known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about fasting. He says, “when you fast […]
Discover How to Hear God’s Voice and Discern Spiritual Direction I’ve shared with you the arc of my faith journey, the spiritual transformations I’ve experienced so far in my life. I built upon that by relating my experiences in reading the Bible and praying for my children and future generations. Next, I decided to share […]
Once Reserved for Prophets, Now All People Can Have Visions from God A friend asked me about hearing from God and of visions from God. I often think about hearing from the Holy Spirit, but I infrequently consider visions, even though visions are one way that God communicates with us. Visions in the Bible Mentions […]
In Today’s Noisy World We Need to Reclaim the Ability to Deeply Listen We live in a noisy world, with too many things vying for our attention. Though we can’t help some of it, much of the noise that permeates our existence is the distractions we create. We can’t stand silence, not even for a […]
In the post How to Hear from God I shared the five steps I followed when I first learned how to hear from God. This affirmed some people, encouraged a few more, and frustrated others. I won’t assert that hearing from God is normative or required. Doing so would only cause division in the church […]
For most of my life I was taught that God speaks to us through the Bible, and we speak to him through prayer. Together, these two one-way communication channels can result in a dialogue of sorts. While this is correct, it’s only part of the story. I more recently learned that God can also speak […]