Pastor Bill Hybels discusses 4 practices we should consider when sensing any promptings from God throughout certain periods of our lives in Chapter 4 of The Power of a Whisper:
1. Ardently and repeatedly ask God to improve our hearing; to increase our capacity to perceive His voice.
2. Reduce the ambient (surrounding; on all sides) noise in our lives. We need to be intentional about getting quiet before God. Bill advises: ” . . . be sure to carve out moments in your day when you can practice listening to the voice of God.”
3. We must saturate our minds with Scripture. Pastor Hybels notes that many of the promptings we receive at critical points in our lives come as the Holy Spirit brings to mind Bible verses we’ve committed to memory.
4. We need to examine our lives to determine if there is any wrongdoing that is compromising our communication with God, whether that involves our prayers to God or His whispers to us.
However, what do we do when, despite these “best practices”, God’s silence seems interminable? Pastor Hybels states that Mother Teresa experienced such an extended period of God’s silence. For some years Mother Teresa could not hear God’s whisper, despite her fervent pleas to God. Yet, she didn’t grow resentful or hard-hearted. Her solution- she chose to continue obeying the last whisper she’d heard from God. Through her faithfulness, God whispered again!
