When you are too busy, too tired, or too lazy to spend time
alone with God, these excuses will become habits. They will
inevitably and eventually steal your intimacy with God.
When you ignore and avoid God or keep Him waiting rather
than making and keeping an appointment with Him, more often
than not, you will:
make impulsive decisions,
waste valuable time, and
cause clarity to be elusive.
When you allow the tyranny of the urgent to steal away,
interrupt, or sabotage your designated appointment with God
(even when you’re writing a book about hearing God talk), you
will invariably spin around and around in circles.
My point? I should have known better.
Before you can address when God talks, you must consider
the common hindrances that keep you from hearing God talk.
Common Hindrances to Hearing God Talk
It should be no surprise that the first hindrance to hearing
God is doubt or unbelief. How can you hear God if you don’t
believe that He talks, that He exists, or that He loves you?
Doubt will deafen your ears and blind the eyes of your soul
from hearing God talk. Unbelief will muffle and distort the
sound of God’s voice until you reject rather than experience
His inner presence.
Dallas Willard, a modern-day philosopher, writes in Hearing
God: