Quotes & Sayings About Listening To God

Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen. — Gary Hopkins

Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed not in any credo but in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening. — Nancy Mairs

God is the story nature tells to those who are listening. — Steve Maraboli

Praying is talking to God. Meditating is listening. — Christopher Moore

For those who want to pray for me to "find God," please don't waste your prayers. If you really think God is listening to you, then please use those precious moments to ask God to care for the sick and dying, and leave me out of it. I'm happy without my faith and with living my life in the here and now. Besides, thousands before you have prayed for me to find God and it hasn't worked yet. Why would God value your request over theirs? — David G. McAfee

Fuck you, angel. Fuck you and all God's little prison bitches. He slips you some cigarettes and a con job smile and you run off to do his dirty work for him. Go and scare some sinners. No one's listening to you here. — Richard Kadrey

In moments of unmet desire, heartbreak, or grief, Satan sends a poisonous arrow of doubt straight at your heart. This was his plan with Eve. He persuaded her to think God was "holding out on her" and that she would be better off not listening to Him. — Marian Jordan Ellis

Patrick's handsome face descended toward mine. He stopped when he was just a whisper away. "You have a beautiful mouth."
God, he was magnificent. Such harsh, sensual beauty. The luck of genetics and vampirism and gym time? Who knew?
He watched me watching him and I knew he was probably in my head, listening in on my thoughts, my confusion. He grinned, just a little, and I knew that rotten, ugly, fat troll was reading my mind.
He laughed, unrepentant, and his breath plumed my lips. How the hell did he do that? How could he pretend to breathe? Or better yet, why did he pretend to breathe? — Michele Bardsley

I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn't go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god's knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don't share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death. — Marcus Speh

The gospel is not outward rituals and sacrifices, it is a living sacrifice. It is to have the laws of God written in our heart. It is to have a soft, listening, responding heart to God. — Leslie Ludy

One day when Thomas Aquinas was preaching to the local populace on the love of God, he saw an old woman listening attentively to his every word. And inspired by her eagerness to learn more about her God whom she loved so dearly, he said to the people: It is better to be this unlearned woman, loving God with all her heart, than the most learned theologian lacking love. — Thomas Aquinas

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God. . . . Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. . . — Peter Scazzero

The accountant lingers at his children's doorway a moment more, listening to the easy rhythm of their breathing, and something cold moves through him, like the passage of a ghost - but he know that's not it. It's more like the portent of a future. A future that must never come to pass ...
... and for the first time, he gives rise to a thought that is silently echoed in millions of homes that night.
My God ... what have we done? — Neal Shusterman

Let us never be afraid to be still before God; we shall then carry that stillness into our work; and when we go to church on Sunday, or to the prayer-meeting on week-days, it will be with the one desire that nothing may stand betwixt us and God, and that we may never be so occupied with hearing and listening as to forget the presence of God. — Andrew Murray

I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star. When the universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for the wood and the fish for the pool. When the first galaxies fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling toward consciousness. The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush. If there is a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen. If God's voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll prick up my ears. If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit back on a dark hillside and wait and watch. A hint here and a trait there. Listening and watching. Waiting, always waiting, for the tingle in the spine. — Chet Raymo

So today those who scorn to go to school to Christ and to train themselves in listening to the Word, really mock God himself and judge both the law and the prophets - and even the gospel itself - as without value. — John Calvin

God will give you a way out of tempting situations but if you keep intentionally putting yourself in those compromising places, then soon the Holy Spirits voice will be drowned out by your emotions and feelings. Soon, you will no longer be able to hear God's voice because you're so busy listening to the clutter around you. — Heather Lindsey

Don't you sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your work?" asked Clementina.
"I don't try to consciously remember Him every moment. For He is in everything, whether I am thinking of it or not. When I go fishing, I go to catch God's fish. When I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures. When I read the Bible or Shakespeare, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after its own kind. When the wind blows on my face, it is God's wind. — George MacDonald

The trick is: how do you talk about natural selection without implying the rigidity of law? We use it as almost an active participant, almost like a god. In fact, you could substitute the word 'god' for 'natural selection' in a lot of evolutionary writings and you'd think you were listening to a theologian. — Greg Graffin

Given - and this is the fundamental thing - that God's mercy has no limits, if He is approached with a sincere and repentant heart, the question for those who do not believe in God is to abide by their own conscience. There is sin, also for those who have no faith, in going against one's conscience. Listening to it and abiding by it means making up one's mind about what is good and evil. — Pope Francis

There are big advantages of living for God, therefore try to spend every minute you have walking with Him, listening to Him and learning of His wisdom — Sunday Adelaja

One person looks around and sees a universe created by a god who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no great difference between one another, for neither set of beliefs make us kinder or wiser. — Mark Haddon

We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11. — Neil Armstrong

Lucien had never prayed before, never imagined that there might be a deity listening who would be interested in what he had to say, so his supplication skills were a tad rusty.
But now Lucien prayed.
Please don't take her from me just as I've found her. If you do, I'll come for your ass.
Any gods listening would do well to heed him. Lucien never made a promise that he couldn't keep. — Aimee Roseland

I'm listening to Gogol Bordello, which is totally random, but I love him. Just finished the new Joan Didion book, Blue Nights, which I loved. I haven't been to the movies in God knows how long. I haven't been doing anything but living in a bubble, making jewelry! — Pamela Love

doing God's will, eating the meat of the Word, is not listening to a Bible teacher, but going and doing what it says, especially as it relates to working in the harvest fields. — Bill Johnson

Listening to gospel messages does not mean you are serving God — Sunday Adelaja

Often in the morning I will sit in a favorite chair in my study with a cup of coffee, with classical music playing, not trying to form a prayer with words but waiting, listening, until perhaps I sense the Spirit bringing to the surface a word from God. Then I offer just a simple 'Thank you.' — Leighton Ford

We learn to dwell with God by learning the practices of hospitality, listening, forgiveness, and reconciliation - the daily tasks of life with other people. Stability in Christ is always stability in community — Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn't the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these moments of profound human presence, we are awakened to the divine presence and see that the kingdom of God is coming and yet is already here. — Richard Rohr

You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the univerise in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. — C.S. Lewis

Of all human activities, man's listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning and will. — Pope Paul VI

My Gram said that I would get the role in whichever show God thought was right but it wouldn't hurt to express a preference. I told her that I would like to do 'The Brady Bunch' because I'd have five other kids on the set to play with. God was listening. — Susan Olsen

Times change. God doesn't, but times do. We learn and grow, and the world around us shifts, and the Christian faith is alive only when it is listening, morphing, innovating, letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus and embracing whatever will help us be more and more the people God wants us to be. — Rob Bell

Although the rhythm of the waves beats a kind of time, it is not clock or calendar time. It has no urgency. It happens to be timeless time. I know that I am listening to a rhythm which has been just the same for millions of years, and it takes me out of a world of relentlessly ticking clocks. Clocks for some reason or other always seem to be marching, and, as with armies, marching is never to anything but doom. But in the motion of waves there is no marching rhythm. It harmonizes with our very breathing. It does not count our days. Its pulse is not in the stingy spirit of measuring, of marking out how much still remains. It is the breathing of eternity, like the God Brahma of Indian mythology inhaling and exhaling, manifesting and dissolving the worlds, forever. As a mere conception this might sound appallingly monotonous, until you come to listen to the breaking and washing of waves. — Alan W. Watts

There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed their eyes as Sister Philomena whispered the words and I thought this must be the nearest humans get to whatever God is, when they hold hands and listen. — Rachel Joyce

The warrior knows that intuition is God's language and he continued listening to the wind and talking to the stars — Paulo Coelho

It was a time for reflection. Jebel had regained some of his vitality and was mildly excited to be closing in on Tubaygat. But he was troubled too and often fell to studying Tel Hesani, trying to imagine himself driving a knife into the Um Kheshabah's chest or slitting his throat.
It had been easy in the beginning. Tel Hesani was a slave, fit only for execution. Now Jebel considered him a friend. Could he brutally end the older man's life and send him to the hold of Rakhebt Wadak's boat?
Jebel knew that he must, or the quest would have been for nothing, but he wasn't sure that he could. He prayed to the gods to steady his hand when the time came, but he didn't think they were listening. In a strange sort of way, he almost wished they weren't. — Darren Shan

A man must not stop listening any more than praying when he rises from his knees. No one questions the need of times of formal address to God, but few admit in any practical way the need of quiet waiting upon God, gazing into His face, feeling for His hand, listening for His voice. — Charles Brent

There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening. — Henry Van Dyke

Barbara had stopped by the PTA office to talk to some of the mothers there, and she may have said a thing or two about Rhea in angen And she /na! not have been careful about who was around listening. Had it been one of Rheas fellow teachers? Or, God forbid, Rhea herself? — Kimberly McCreight

The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says 'Amen' and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him our ideas. — Frank Laubach

I want to listen to accomplished women scarred by sexism that still walk in elegance and kindness; hear powerful men that have a heart to serve. I want to talk to the brokenhearted that still believe in love; I want to listen to people that laugh even when they hurt. You live God's grace without even knowing it and to me, you're the best of all of us. — Lee Goff

Do you not pray, Miss Smallwood?'
She avoided his gaze. 'No.'
'God is speaking to you every day,' he said softly. 'You might return the favor.'
She raised her chin. 'I don't hear Him.'
'Do you listen?'
She looked at him, clearly offended, then turned away again. 'I used to pray, until I found God was not listening, at least not to my prayers.'
[He] heard the inner voice of caution but barreled ahead. 'He was listening. But He doesn't always answer the way we would like Him to. — Julie Klassen

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It's easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she'll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she'd be too nervous that people wouldn't eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn't about perfection, and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it's scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip. — Shauna Niequist

The phone. "God, this sucks, man. The only good thing about this entire school since you moved is fifth period." "What's fifth period?" Holder asks. "Nothing. They forgot to assign me a class, so I hide out in this maintenance closet every day for an hour." Holder laughs. I realize as I'm listening to it that it's the first time I've heard him laugh since Les died two months ago. — Colleen Hoover

Good God! Think of listening to Wagner for a whole fortnight with a woman who takes about as much interest in music as a tone-deaf newt - that would be fun! — Marcel Proust

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry. — Scott Spencer

They were all listening to him with the curiosity and, if the truth were known, the utter indifference of practical people who had lost their fear of his God of wrath and chastisement. Why be frightened and deferential and seek pardon when the idea of the devil now merely made them laugh and they no longer believed in an avenging Lord who sent the wind and the hail and the thunder? It was just a waste of time; it was much more sensible to keep your respect for the forces of law and order: they were stronger. — Emile Zola

People are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. This is what I call the "apostolate of the ear," and it is important. Very important. I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them. — Pope Francis

I believe that if you're healthy, you're capable of doing everything. There's no one else who can give you health but God, and by being healthy I believe that God is listening to me. — Pedro Martinez

Other religions sound good on the surface, but turn out to be impersonal systems based on grading what you 'do' to determine your worth. Christianity is the only religion that promises not a system but a personal God you have a relationship with. At its core, Christianity is a relationship with a God who is listening, responding, and interacting with those who love Him. That's how you prove it, Jen. You test Christianity's claims by testing out the relationship on which it's built. — Dee Henderson

I grew up Catholic, so I have these defenses about listening to anything with too much religiosity; some of the lyrics didn't sit well in my mouth. One of my beefs is the patriarchal setup. Having the 'he, he, he, God, God, God, king, king, king' stuff was hard for me. — Patty Griffin

Solitude is listening to the voice who calls you the beloved. It is being alone with the one who says, 'You are my beloved, I want to be with you. Don't go running around, don't start to prove to everybody that you're beloved. You are already beloved'. That is what God says to us. Solitude is the place where we go in order to hear the truth about ourselves. It asks us to let go of the other ways of proving which are a lot more satisfying. The voice that calls us the beloved is not the voice that satisfies the senses. That's what the whole mystical life is about; it is beyond feelings and beyond thoughts. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. — Francois Fenelon

May God bequeath everyone the gift of listening to the voice of their conscience! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you're listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time. — Kelsey Grammer

Some who attempt prayer never have the sense of anyone listening on the other end. They blame themselves for doing it wrong ... Prayer requires the faith to believe that God listens. — Philip Yancey

God speaks in a soft voice I can hear better when I resolve to listen and stop putting words in His mouth. — Elaine Orabona Foster

I swear you don't know how to have any fun at all," I teased.
"This is not exactly my idea of it," he said wryly.
I gestured toward the ballroom. "But you're royal. It's your kind of party. You should be relaxed, letting everyone suck up to you."
He laughed and my chest tightened. God, I loved that sound.
"Kendra, not everything about being royal is enjoyable."
"So what would you consider fun?" I asked, curious.
Tristan was obviously well-liked and respected. But I'd never seen him when he wasn't in either instructor, gardinel, or prince mode. I got the feeling he wasn't very social and spent a lot of time alone.
His eyes turned thoughtful. "Relaxing in a quiet room with a nice glass of scotch, listening to Bach."
I rolled my eyes. "Are you serious, grandpa?"
He hid a smile. — Emma Raveling

The mountains are great stone bells; they clang together like nuns. Who shushed the stars? There are a thousand million galaxies easily seen in the Palomar reflector; collisions between and among them do, of course, occur. But these collisions are very long and silent slides. Billions of stars sift amont each other untouched, too distant even to be moved, heedless as always, hushed. The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. But God knows I have tried. — Annie Dillard

And evermore the waters worship God;
And bards and prophets tune their mystic lyres
While listening to the music of the waves! — Sarah Josepha Hale

... when you lonely is the best time to pray, to speak to the Lord, and most important, to listen to the Lord ... — Andrew Galasetti

According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes, I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something, I'm listening to God. — Pete Seeger

Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God's listening ears. — R.A. Torrey

Unless you first do the hard work of answering those questions about a text, your meditations won't be grounded in what God is actually saying in the passage. Something in the passage may "hit" you - but it may hit you as expressing almost the opposite of what the biblical author, inspired by the Spirit, was saying. When that happens, you are listening to your own heart or to the spirit of your own culture, not to God's voice in the Scripture. A great number of books advise "divine reading" of the Bible today, and define the activity uncarefully as reading "not for information but to hear a personal word of God to you." This presents a false contrast. It is certainly true that meditation personalizes the Word, but before we can meditate on what the text personally means to us and our time, we must first need to know as much as possible what the author meant to say to his readers when he wrote it. — Timothy Keller

We know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure. — Charles Bukowski

Sometimes you can look back on times in your life and know that God was guiding you even when you didn't know you were supposed to be listening. — Melanie Shankle

Journaling is the single most effective tool you may ever find for deeper intimacy with Father God and Jesus. It is a heart-to-heart method of communication with God. For you see, it is God's desire to intimately commune with you and to have you intimately commune with Him. Journaling facilitates this heart-to-heart communion - it is simply listening to each other's heart and writing it down.
Journaling helps you hear God's voice. God is speaking to you most of the time. Often you do not differentiate His voice from your own thoughts and therefore do not realize you are actually hearing God's voice. If you can learn to clearly discern His voice speaking within you, you have found the font of intimacy - the heart of God speaking to you. — Linda Boone

Was it really that fucking great to be gay? Ever since he got too fucked up to drive home and he'd crashed at Day and God's place after their cookout this summer. Green was in Miami testifying in a Federal case, so he didn't have his usual designated driver. Shit. He'd heard his lieutenants going at it in the middle of the night. It was so loud and violent, but wildly erotic. He didn't know if they forgot he was downstairs or if they just didn't give a fuck. He remembered being hard as goddamn stone lying there, and feeling like a pervert for listening. But since then, he hadn't been able to get the sounds out of his head. The sounds of furious passion and uninhibited ecstasy. The way God roared his lover's name when he ca - " "Time — A.E. Via

Also, Nathan, if you're listening, and I assume you are, I'm the best and only friend you've got. Give her permission to share what she has, or I swear to God I'll have you turning tricks out of a prefab shed on the side of the highway. I'm trying to save humanity here. — James S.A. Corey

Just like every other kid in my grade school, I was listening to my little radio plug in my ear when Mickey Mantle hit 18 post-season homers and won series after series for the Yankees. I listened and I learned from that. I think he was the original 'Mr. October,' but thank god it didn't stick. — Reggie Jackson

Our slower pace of life, our thoughtfulness, our spiritual and intellectual depth, and our listening abilities are prophetic qualities for the evangelical community, calling us to a renewed understanding of God and a fresh reading on the abundant life Jesus came to give us. Yet because of the extroverted bias in many of our churches, introverts are leading double lives. We are masquerading as extroverts in order to find acceptance, yet we feel displaced and confused. We are weary of fighting our introversion, and we long to live faithfully as the people we were created to be. — Adam S. McHugh

The prayer of listening makes things simple but it also makes us vulnerable, and that is frightening. Listening makes us open to Christ, the Word of God, spoken in all things: in the material world, the Scriptures, the Church, and sacraments and, sometimes most threateningly, in our fellow human beings. To listen at prayer is to take the chance of hearing the voice of Christ in the poor, the weak, those whom we love and those whom we do not love. — Benedict Groeschel

...when we listen to the Spirit, we hear a deeper sound, a different beat. ...Living a spiritually mature life requires listening to God's voice within and among us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Please, help me. Young werewolves in love. I turned to walk into the house, moving carefully.
I had never much believed in God. Well, that's not quite true. I believed that there was a God, or something close enough to it to warrant the name if there were demons, there had to be angels, right? If there was a Devil, somewhere, there had to be a God. But He & I had never really seen things in quite the same terms.
All the same. I flashed a look up at the ceiling. I didn't say or think any words, but if God was listening, I hoped he got the message nonetheless. I didn't want of these children getting themselves killed. — Jim Butcher

Prayer is not first and foremost talking to God, it's first and foremost listening to God. — Leslie Ludy

She realized he wasn't listening to music and gave him a curious look of amusement as she picked up the cover to an audio book. 'What To Expect When You're Expecting.'
God forgive me, I love this man.
"Thought I should be informed, you know?" Alessandro explained sheepishly.
Bree tried to tear her gaze away from his gleaming chest.
"Plus all the lactating and dilating and placenta talk does wonders to crush any man's libido. — E. Jamie

Because in that moment, watching and listening, he was profoundly moved that God had seen fit to gift him, an ordinary man, an Indiana boy through and through, with these people in his life. — Kristen Ashley

People of very different opinions
friends who can discuss politics, religion, and sex with perfect civility
are often reduced to red-faced rage when the topic of conversation is the serial comma or an expression like more unique. People who merely roll their eyes at hate crimes feel compelled to write jeremiads on declining standards when a newspaper uses the wrong form of its. Challenge my most cherished beliefs about the place of humankind in God's creation, and while I may not agree with you, I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. But dangle a participle in my presence, and I'll consider you a subliterate cretin no longer worth listening to, a menace to decent society who should be removed from the gene pool before you do any more damage. — Jack Lynch

Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tender words -the easiest death that one could wish to die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing - the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without tears; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a god. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You can't live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people's opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power...The key to feeling confident is always listening to your inner self - the real you. And in the kingdom of God, the real you is more precious than rubies. — Jeffrey Holland

Like a baby learning language, we learn how to communicate with God by listening to His words first. — Timothy Keller

At any moment of the day, some desire is in the process of coming true. Old seeds we planted (and perhaps forgot about) are bringing results, mixed in with the beginnings of larger results to come. The point is to make your children aware that the universe (or spirit or God) is always listening; none of us is alone. We are constantly being heeded. — Deepak Chopra

I looked. George Shearing. And as always he leaned his blind head on his pale hand, all ears opened like the ears of an elephant, listening to the American sounds and mastering them for his own English summer's-night use. Then they urged him to get up and play. He did. He played innumerable choruses with amazing chords that mounted higher and higher till the sweat splashed all over the piano and everybody listened in awe and fright. They led him off the stand after an hour. He went back to his dark corner, old God Shearing, and the boys said, 'There ain't nothin left after that. — Jack Kerouac

It's like someone who prays every night saying God's a good listener. Just because you're talking to us doesn't mean we're listening. With me and God, you never really know. — Paul Neilan

It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness, of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment ... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world. — Sinclair Lewis

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly. — Cormac McCarthy

Don't you just love it when you're disciplining your kids and God whispers, This is good. I hope you're listening so you can apply this same truth to your life. — Lysa TerKeurst

Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit - that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us - that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.
When we dare to fully trust in the power of God's Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

As we tune our ears to the kind of preaching that makes the primary point of the sermon the primary point of a particular passage of Scripture, we grow accustomed to listening to God. — Thabiti M. Anyabwile

For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god. — John O'Donohue

Listening to God is far more important than giving Him your ideas. — Frank Laubach

We are all wounded. But wounds are necessary for his healing light to enter into our beings. Without wounds and failure and frustrations and defeats, there will be no opening for his brilliance to tickle in and invade our lives. Failures in life are courses with very high tuition fees, so I don't cut classes and miss my lessons: on humility, on patience, on hope, on asking others for help, on listening to God, on trying again and again and again. — Bo Sanchez

in this you have failed
you have invalidated your dysfunctional efforts
of innocence
of perverted virginity
with a mangy face before the eye of God
not even summations of crawling
not even rust cutters or combustion
as if to test your blue vaginal mirrors
inside a Protestant Crimea
listening to your fallacious absorption neurosis

you've forfeited your flames
you've cast into the moat
salacious bonfire bathing
you've given up the power of deepened torturing rums
of magnetic chromosomal nerves
for a weakly neutered clairaudience of failure — Will Alexander

Hearing God's voice is indispensable to moving through or around closed doors. — Gary Rohrmayer

On many occasions I have been asked if I think persecution will come to the Western church. My answer might surprise you. I believe that if you find yourself enslaved inside a controlling church structure of legalism and bondage, then you are already being persecuted! So many Christians seem impossibly distracted from hearing God's voice. Instead of listening to that still, small voice that brings true peace and joy, they blindly follow the voices of mainstream religion. The worst kind of persecution for a Christian is when you are separated from the joy and presence of the Holy Spirit. — Brother Yun

After five or six weeks of listening to his sermons on healing and renewing, Edgers felt healed and renewed - especially after the caravan of supplies arrived from Idumea - and stopped attending. When the crisis was gone, so was the need to feel the Creator. — Trish Mercer

Be wary of any man who is quick to put down another man's faith. His love for Truth is not deep enough for him to want to explore additional truths outside his borders. The language of light can only be decoded by the heart. Thus, a man with a closed heart is already blind to understand the words of his own faith. — Suzy Kassem

If we are to be just like Jesus, we must have regular time of talking to God and listening to his Word. — Max Lucado