“Learning to hear God’s voice is the single most important thing you will ever learn to do.”
Pete Greig
We’re commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 to love our God with all our heart, soul, and strength. But how can we do that unless we know who God is, His wants and desires? And how can we understand who God is unless we listen to Him? We learn to listen to God’s voice so that we can love God well.
The second reason we want to hear God’s voice is that it makes us feel ‘fully known’ by God, deepening our friendship with God which diminishes our loneliness. When we’re known by God, He validates and accepts us for who we are rather than what we do. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
Thirdly, hearing God’s voice solidifies our healthy attachment to God, so we desire to sin less. I experience greater security, wholeness, and confidence when I hear God speak. His presence comforts me as I sit still listening to His voice. We become emotionally connected to God when He is attuned, perceptive, and responsive to our needs. When we’re attached to God, we will have less attachment to other gods, idols, and addictions.
Our intimacy with God grows as we experience God by hearing Him speak to us. Creating space for stillness to hear God’s voice deepens our intimacy with Him because it’s through two-way communication relationships are strengthened. Trust is the foundation of intimacy in relationships, and it’s developed when heart-to-heart connections take place.
The fifth reason we want to listen to God’s voice is, so we learn our identity, who God created us to be. When God speaks, He tells us who we are and that frees us to become our true selves. And when we know who we are, there’s confidence and authority to be that person who glorifies God.
Lastly, one word from God changes everything. When God spoke to me over twenty years ago to “mentor the masses,” it put me on a whole new trajectory. After hearing that call, I began to focus more on writing and speaking, in preparation for fulfilling His destiny in my life.
These are six reasons why hearing God’s voice is so important to our lives: to love God well, to feel known by God, to solidify our attachment to God, to deepen our intimacy with God, to clarify our identity, and to fulfill our God-given destinies.
“Hearing God is essential to the very purpose for which you and I were made.”
Pete Greig
Relevant Reflection:
Why do you want to listen to God’s voice?
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