talk to you through your regular, daily, planned Bible reading;
the messages given by your pastoral leaders and spiritual
directors; and through the impressions given you by His Holy
Spirit. (In chapter 3, I discussed in detail how God talks to you
through the Bible, His Holy Spirit, and through the messages
of others.)
Theophan the Recluse, a nineteenth-century Russian mystic,
wrote,
When you pray, do not end your prayer without having aroused in
your heart some feelings toward God, whether it be reverence or
devotion, or thanksgiving, or glorification, or humility and
contrition, or hope and trust. Also when after prayer you begin to
read, do not finish reading without having felt in your heart the
truth of what you have read. These two feelings—the one inspired
by prayer, the other by reading [or listening]— mutually warm one
another; and if you pay attention to yourself they will keep you
under their influence during the whole day. Take pains to practice
these two methods exactly and you will see for yourself what will
happen. 14Listening
Almost like turning the page to welcome a new chapter in a
book, when I turn the tab and enter the designated Listening
section in My Partner Prayer Notebook, I stop talking. I place
the date on top of a fresh page, and then wait quietly for God
to speak to me. Then I write down any key insights I receive, as
well as words of affirmation or Scripture verses that come to
mind at that moment.
The majority of this book has been dedicated to showing
you to whom God talks, as well as how, why, when, and what