Last night we continued exploring practices of listening to God in prayer. We see in scripture that God speaks, and the normative experience of those who follow God is they will hear the Lord. There are many ways of listening to God in prayer, and last night we examined two.
We acknowledged that we often treat prayer as a practice we initiate. Whether we have a need or it is a set aside time of prayer, we begin the conversation with God. But what if sometimes God initiates prayer? What if in the middle of our day God is speaking, waiting for us to listen?
We also looked at the questions that arise in our lives: the simple questions, the foundational questions of our souls, and every question in between. We explored ways of bringing all these questions to the Lord and listening for a response.
When we learn to listen, our intimacy with God deepens. Dallas Willard writes, “In the progress of God’s redemptive work, communication advances into communion, and communion into union. When the progression is complete we can truly say, ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20).”