Learning to Listen to God

One of the things Jesus did, over and over again, was withdraw to a quiet place to pray.

Luke tells us, “Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” (Luke 5:16)

This wasn’t about Jesus needing a bit of introvert time. It was because prayer was the core of His relationship with the Father. Everything flowed from that space — His sense of calling, His decisions, His courage.

If we want to follow Jesus, we need to learn to pray like He prayed — and that means learning to listen as well as speak.

Jesus said:

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

But for most of us, listening to God feels mysterious, even intimidating. We live in a world so full of noise — noise around us, noise inside us — that the idea of actually hearing God can feel either unrealistic or a bit strange.

Lily Tomlin once put it perfectly:

“Why is it that when we talk to God, we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us, we’re said to be schizophrenic?”

But scripture is clear — God wants to speak to us.

“Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

The issue isn’t whether God is speaking. The issue is whether we’ve learned how to listen.

FOCUS — Learning to Pay Attention

The first step in listening to God is learning to pay attention — and that’s much harder than it sounds.

Jesus said:

“When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.” (Matthew 6:6)

For me, this is why I’ve got a prayer spot — my lazy boy chair with my Bible on one side and my coffee on the other. When I sit down there, something in my body knows this is the time to focus.

But even with the physical space set aside, the hardest distraction isn’t the noise around me — it’s the noise inside me.

Facing the Elephant

Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, describes how your conscious thoughts — the part of you that thinks and plans — are like a rider sitting on top of an elephant. But the elephant is everything else — your emotions, fears, instincts, and desires — and the elephant is actually the one steering most of the time.

Every time I sit down to pray, my elephant shows up. My mind starts jumping to the emails I forgot to send, the difficult conversation I’m dreading, or the to-do list I haven’t written yet.

This isn’t me being bad at prayer — this is just what it means to be human.

The truth is, Western Christians are terrible at taming the elephant. We’ve been taught to focus on getting our thoughts right, but prayer isn’t about thinking harder. It’s about facing the elephant and being honest about what’s really happening inside.

Even Jesus had an elephant. In Gethsemane, He didn’t pretend everything was fine. He said:

“My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)

He brought His actual emotions into the presence of the Father — and then He surrendered them:

“Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39)

That’s where listening starts — come as you are, not as you should be. You lay the mess before God and trust that He can handle it.

“Humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)

INVITE — Opening the Conversation

Once you’ve faced the elephant and made room, the next step is to invite God to speak.

That starts with a heart posture — being willing to hear whatever He wants to say, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Then you simply ask:

• What do you want me to know today?
• How should I respond to this situation?
• What’s on your heart for me right now?

Jesus said:

“Keep on asking, and you will receive.” (Matthew 7:7)

Noticing — The Forgotten Skill

Here’s where most of us miss it.

We ask — but we don’t slow down enough to notice the answer.

There’s no trick to hearing God’s voice. It has nothing to do with how spiritual you are or how long you’ve been a Christian. It’s about noticing.

Sometimes God brings a scripture to mind. Sometimes you see a picture in your imagination. Sometimes it’s just a quiet sense.

When Leanne and I were praying about coming to Citywide, I saw a picture of a boat heading toward a cliff. Later, someone else saw a rope coming down the cliff, with a sense that God was saying, “Step off the boat and climb.” That was part of how God confirmed the call.

Another time, when I was praying for someone I care deeply about, I saw them standing behind a brick wall. That became the shape of my prayers — asking God to bring the wall down.

TEST — Checking What You Hear

Not everything I sense comes from God. That’s why testing matters.

The first part is simple — get it out of your head.

If I don’t write it down, I forget. My journal is where I clear the elephant, process what’s swirling inside me, and then write down what I sense God saying.

The second test is congruence — does this line up with scripture? Does it fit with the wisdom of trusted friends?

“The word of God is alive and active… It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

When Leanne and I were discerning about moving back to Australia, we asked our prayer partners to listen with us. One of them said, “God already told me you were going — I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

The Patterns of Grace

My Dad always talked about patterns of grace — the fingerprints you see when you look back and realise God’s hand was all over something.

Even in the hardest seasons, you can see it if you pay attention.

The Real Secret

The real secret to learning to listen to God isn’t being super spiritual. It’s just showing up.

As Ronald Rolheiser says:

“There is no bad way to pray… You’ve got to show up for prayer and show up regularly.”

Focus. Invite. Test.

That’s it.

Because here’s the thing — Jesus knows stuff.

And if you’ve got problems, He’s a good person to talk to.