God, I Can’t Hear You!

If God were to speak to you today, what barrier would he have to overcome to get through to you? If you feel like you can’t hear God speak to you anymore, it’s probably because some barrier is there that needs to be removed.

The first and probably most common barrier is that we are just too busy to hear God. How have we allowed our lives to become so hectic, so over-scheduled, that we really don’t have time to listen to God and others as well? There’s just not a lot of listening going on, is there? Years ago, I realized I could be addicted to activity, and so, I simply began praying that God would deliver me from being obsessed with busyness.

In order to hear God, you have to block out other distracting voices and sounds. That means some quiet time, some uninterrupted time, which you devote to God and hearing him talk to you. For me this usually happens in the early morning before the day’s activities get in the way. Mostly God speaks through his written Word, but the way you approach reading the Bible will determine whether you really hear God or not. It helps to begin with a prayer that God will speak to you through his Word, and then you read with the intention of hearing what God is saying to you. If your mind wanders—as mine often does—and you realize you haven’t really been listening as you read, just make yourself start again, and discipline yourself to focus on the words and meditate on what you’re reading.

I have a structured plan for reading the Bible, and when I approach that time with the attitude that I want to hear what God is saying to me today, it never fails that something pops off the page and stops me cold. For example, I was reading Philippians recently, and verse 16 in chapter three spoke directly to me. It says, Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

I stopped there and began to write in my journal what God was saying to me. I’ve read that chapter many times, but that verse was new to me this time, and God spoke to me about some things I need to do to live up to what I already know. I heard God speak to me.

I urge you to set aside time to hear God through his Word and put in writing what you hear. There is nothing more important than letting God speak to you, and he will, if you’re not too busy to listen. If you need some help structuring your Bible reading, my Bible study, A Guide on Getting to Know God, offers some suggestions on how you could have a more meaningful time with God each day, so you can truly hear what he wants to say to you.

When we feel we just can’t connect with God, we can be sure of one thing: It isn’t God’s fault. He hasn’t moved. He waits with anticipation to have fellowship with us. So, when barriers come between us and God, it’s because we’ve allowed them to be there.

Another barrier that gets in our way is that we are often just too self-absorbed. Life is all about us. Our thoughts center on us; we are the center of our world, and so God just can’t penetrate that barrier.

We’ve been led to believe that all we need to live a fulfilling life is to have good self-esteem, but what I’ve come to learn is that self is not my solution; self is my problem! True, I need to see my worth in Christ and appreciate who I am in him, but striving for more good self-esteem or self-confidence just makes me self-focused, and that inevitably takes me down the wrong path.

If you want to listen to God—really hear what he wants to say to you—you have to take yourself off the throne of your heart and let God be God again. Honestly, that’s pretty much a daily thing I have to remember—to actually go through my daily activities with the conscious awareness that it’s not all about me. It’s all about God. It’s so easy to become self-absorbed, so we have to stand guard against it all the time.

Jesus gave us principles that seem contradictory to ...