How to Actively Listen to God’s Voice During Your Day

How helpful would it be to sense God’s direction in the midst of an important conversation?
How much would you like Jesus’ wisdom in advance of your meetings today?
What would be the impact if you walked more closely with the Spirit in all your activities?

As we consider the characteristics of a network built around being disciple-makers who are on mission and live naturally supernaturally, we have identified some core competencies in which anyone who loves Jesus can be trained.

We have developed 9 personal practices, with each one tied to a specific core value (and accompanying metric) that shapes our culture. These practices enable anyone to live out the Dandelion Project vision in their everyday activities. The aim is for each person who is part of a home church to step further into their identity in Jesus, and their calling to extend God’s Kingdom.

In this video, Alex and Hannah Absalom unpack Personal Practice 1: “I actively stop to listen to God’s voice throughout my day.”

The reason this is our first practice is that the ability to hear God’s voice is central to being a disciple of Jesus. The NT Greek word for disciple – mathetes – can best be translated ‘learner’, and hopefully the One from whom we are learning the most is Jesus. To be a disciple, or apprentice, of Jesus means that we hear what He is saying and then put it into practice.

The skill of recognizing God’s voice, not just in the huge moments of life but also His still small whisper in the passing moments, must be continuously strengthened and matured if we wish to be deeply transformed into the likeness of Christ.

Many people think that Jesus doesn’t really speak to them much, if ever, in a personal way. However, this is not true! When we say that, often what we are doing is trying to justify our own lack of desire to pursue God for more of Him. “If God wants to say something, then He knows where I live”, seems to be the common thought.

One of the ways to overcome this myth is to actively choose to stop and listen to His voice throughout the day. The amazing thing is that He really is interested in the small stuff of your life, and in guiding you in subtle ways to better advance His Kingdom and reflect His glory. This discipline can see you take enormous strides in the everyday process of walking with Jesus.

Of course, there are times when God seems to take a step backwards, in order to invite us to actively take another step closer to Him – to lean in further – and again, this skill of stop to listen is incredibly helpful in those times as well.

Check out this video by Alex and Hannah, and then ponder the exercises that follow.