Can You Hear Me Now?

Isaiah 59:1–2 The Message

1 Look! Listen! God’s arm is not amputated—he can still save. God’s ears are not stopped up—he can still hear. 2 There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you. Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you and God. Your sins got between you so that he doesn’t hear.

There are things that work to disconnect us from God. Identifying these hindrances and learning how to remove them and avoid them is a practice that we want to develop as we learn to hear God.

Illustration: Verizon commercial…spotty cell reception…inability to communicate and how that is frustrating.

What if you could learn to recognize and avoid the main things that disconnect you from God and keep you from hearing His voice?

Common Causes of Disconnect

The strength of relationship is based on proximity and communication. It is harder to remain connected with someone who lives far away than it is with someone who is close. The less you speak with someone, the less in touch you are with them. This distance and lack of regular connection cause the relationship to drift.

In the same way, this principle applies to our relationship with God (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.46). While there are many things that can cause us to disconnect from God, we are going to examine five of the most common.

Distraction

Distractions are anything that prevent us from giving full attention to something or someone.

1 Corinthians 7:35 The Message

I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions.

The danger of distraction is that it keeps us from developing a way of life that has time for God.

Unbelief

Unbelief is another thing that will cause you to disconnect from God and limit your ability to hear from Him.

Hebrews 3:12 AMP

[Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.

We must be careful to not allow unbelief to lead us away from God. If we do, we will not be able to hear His voice and experience His blessing.

Unbelief breeds distrust in God and will cause us to waver in our relationship. It weakens our faith (cf. Romans 4.20).

A Hard Heart (Seared Conscience)

Over time and through disobedience we can develop a hard heart, also called a seared conscience, which will hinder our ability to hear God.

1 Timothy 4:1–2 NKJV

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,

When you sear something you burn it and make it withered and dry and hard. When we listen to other voices than God’s we are in danger of searing our consciences and preventing ourselves from hearing and walking in the truth. A seared conscience loses its sensitivity to God and becomes open to sin (see Ephesians 4.19).

Tuning God Out

It is also possible that we simply tune God out.

Zechariah 7:11–14 NKJV

11 But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. 12 Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts. 14 “But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

Israel stopped their ears, just like a child, and hardened their hearts against God.

Illustration: “La-la-la, I can’t hear you.”

They refused the hear both the word of God and the Spirit of God. As a result they were cut off from the blessing of God.

Hearing Without Doing

Finally, we can actually disconnect ourselves from God and hinder ourselves from hearing His voice if we only hear but do not act on what He says.

Luke 8:18 NKJV

Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

Illustration: giving advice to someone who never takes it but later tells you they got advice and listened to someone else; after awhile, you won’t want to give advice to that person any more.

Because God wants a personal relationship with us, He speaks to us. The more we apply the truth that He speaks, the more He will continue to speak. But if we do not act upon what God says, then eventually He will not speak as much. Not because He doesn't want to, but because He knows we will not act on it.

The Choice Is Ours

We know that God speaks to us and wants us to know Him. He loves us enough to give us the choice to respond and speak back.

When we develop the practice of recognizing and avoiding these hindrances we will be in a position to hear God whenever He speaks to us. But the choice is ours.

This isn’t really something that we pray and pray about seeking God to fix in our lives. This is because these things are not external to us. They are internal…they deal with our mind, heart, and actions.

And because the things which disconnect us from God are based on us, they can be difficult to face. We have to look at ourselves and deal with them.

Instead of waiting on God, God is waiting on us to deal with these things.

The good news is that we can avoid these pitfalls and practice new habits to remain connected to God. The Bible gives us effective and powerful tools that we can use to remain connected to God.

The Art and Practice of Staying Connected

By following the wisdom of the Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit we can develop the ability to recognize and avoid anything that would disconnect us from God and keep us from hearing His voice.

The following are three simple practices that will keep you connected.

These may sound familiar if you have been following our hearing God series.

Repent

Whenever we encounter one of these blockages, God is faithful to speak to us immediately through the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 2.13). This will often come with a warning or even conviction (cf. Acts 16.6-7, John 16.8).

When He reveals these things, the right response is repentance.

1 John 1:9 NKJV

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Repentance gives us a clean heart, renews us, and gives us a right spirit ready to hear from God again (cf. Psalm 51.10). Take time to regularly ask the Lord if there is anything in the way between you and then remove the hindrance and repair the relationship through the practice of repentance.

Read

One of the most important practices that we can have is to read the word of God to hear what God would say to us.

When we read the Scriptures, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind as we are washed in the water of the Word (Ephesians 4.23, 5.25-26).

When we read the Scriptures we build our faith (Romans 10.17).

When we read the Scriptures we are also inspired to act through the example of those whose stories are recorded as an example to us (1 Corinthians 10.11).

There is power in God’s word to keep you from doubt and unbelief. Through the word of God we find wisdom for daily living and direction for our lives. The word of God also works as a defense against contamination from lies and falsehood. It keeps us sensitive to God’s voice and aware of His ways. Practice the reading of the Word!

Respond

Finally, we need to respond to God’s voice if we want more.

James 1:22–25 NKJV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

Blessing follows obedience. When God speaks to us He gives us a part of His heart and His mind. If we respond to that we remain in Him and in His Word and when we pray we have what we ask for (cf. John 15.7).

When we respond with obedient faith to God’s voice we will be blessed in whatever we do and the joy of the Lord will remain in us…and the joy of the Lord will be our strength (cf. John 15.11, Nehemiah 8.10).

Conclusion

When you love someone and there is something in the way, you want to do whatever you can to remove whatever the barrier is. Unfortunately, there are things that get in between God and us and seriously hinder our ability to hear His voice.

But if we will repent when the Holy Spirit reveals something that is in the way, we will see that our connection to God will be immediately restored.

If we will read the Word of God we will renew our mind, build our faith, and fuel our vision for what God can and will do in our lives.

Finally, the more that we respond to what God is saying to us the more we will see God’s blessing and the more He will speak to us.

Not only that, developing these practices in our lives will ultimately proactively protect us from future blockage and disconnection. As they become our habits we will naturally just recognize and avoid these things.

When we are living free and clear of the things that separate us from God, we will be closer to Him, hear His voice more clearly, and experience His presence more regularly.

So let’s do it! Prayer: Holy Spirit please speak to us, help us develop the habit of removing barriers and obstacles to your voice so that we can hear you more clearly than ever before. Amen!