As promised, today I’m going to talk about the problem of hearing God right when we are praying. And by praying, I mean not just saying things to the ceiling, but literal, actual two way conversation between God Almighty and you. Of course, I don’t overlook the problem these days, especially in the West, of the fact that if you tell people you are talking to God and/or listening to God, they might rush you off to a place where they put people who are – shall we say “hearing things”.
That almost happened to me. One day, I was visiting a person in hospital. Actually, this person had been sectioned because they were “hearing things”. I’m not sure where what they heard came from. I had brought a friend with me to visit the patient. My friend was a Doctor – of medicine, not psychiatry. We were chatting to the psychiatrist, discussing the prognosis of the patient and the mutual care we both felt for the person concerned. My friend, the medical doctor who was a Christian, happened to mention that he had “heard from God.” I was instantly very nervous for my friend. The psychiatrist commenced writing notes as my friend, the medical Doctor, spoke, I thought he was going to have my friend sectioned as well. Aha! Therein lies the problem. Some people 
are hearing “things,” rather than hearing from God.
Let me tell you a story. This is one of the stories in a book I wrote called, “Hello! Is that you God?” That book is all about hearing from God. And this is how this particular true story goes:
Some years ago I took a crowd of young people to a friend’s church. The group were mainly English young people. Most of them were Londoners, born and bred. The church we were visiting was a Ghanaian church community. In the past when I had spoken there, they had run their meetings in their own language, providing me with an interpreter. Although the church was based in London, and the majority of the members spoke English – to a greater or lesser degree, they felt it was easier to run meetings in their first language. On this particular occasion, as I was visiting with a group of English speaking youngsters, they kindly decided to run the whole service in English.
It was a long meeting with lots of singing, dancing and preaching. It was, as I say, all in English to accommodate the group I had brought along for the experience. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Towards the end of the meeting, I turned to the group I had brought and said, “Isn’t it kind of them to run the whole thing in English because we are here.” Without exception, they all looked at me with a bemused expression. Then one of2said, “But no-one has said a word of English the whole way through!”
It was now my turn to look bemused. I didn’t know what they were on about. I queried them.
“What do you mean? They are singing in English at this moment!’
“No, they’re not! We can’t understand a single word.” They said to me.
As the song went on, I pointed out the words to them. Admittedly, the words carried a heavy West African accent, but gradually the light of understanding dawned on the faces of my young friends.
“Wow!” You’re right!” they said. “They are singing in English!’
My conclusion was that I had been there so many times, and listened to the people sing and speak so often that I was now easily able to understand the accent and I truly hardly noticed it was there at all. For my young friends, however, this was their first time to listening to Africans speak English over such a concentrated period of time. The whole experience was something entirely new, and so their understanding was clouded.
It’s interesting that the same kind of phenomena occurs in the Bible. For example, when Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan, and God spoke from heaven to him, it’s obvious that Jesus heard and understood the words that His Heavwnly Father had said. However, the crowd of onlookers, just heard a noise. It was a little bit like my young friends at the Ghanaian church meeting.
Then again, in the account of Paul on the Damascus Road, he sees a light, falls to the floor, and then hears Jesus saying, “Why are you persecuting me?” Paul clearly hears the words. Paul is wilfully converted, and his life is turned around. However, those men that were with him didn’t hear the words at all. In fact, they testified that “It thundered.”
So; it does seem to me that sometimes, perhaps many, many times, God is speaking to us but we don’t hear him, what we hear is “like thunder,” or what we think is our own mind – or worse – we think it is the results of too much drink or cheese from the night before.
So where do we go from here?
Well! Like a young child learning to talk, understanding comes gradually, and takes practice. The same applies to an older child learning a new language, and all its various sounds. This takes practice. Watch a young child experimenting with language. They are practicing. They don’t always get it right – and they don’t always get it wrong. On top of that, the practicing doesn’t seem like hard work at all. It’s good fun. It is often good for a laugh when they get the words wrong, or when they speak to an adult and we get it wrong listening to them. Take notice that to hear from God will take practice too. I don’t think talking to God is hard work. It is quite often just plain exciting fun. There will be some serious talks, which may not be so much fun. However, that’s another subject for another day.
It would be great to hear your stories and opinions.
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