Session 4: Hearing God

Welcome and an Opening Testimony

Good afternoon. I have some exciting news to share about this session. We are going to do a little bit of learning, and then we are going to take a break in the session, and hopefully it will be refreshing to you. As we get started, we are going to begin with a couple of testimonies. This session is on hearing God’s voice, and that is something I absolutely love, love, love. Nolan, can I get you to come up and share a testimony about hearing God’s voice? Is everybody comfortable? Get your cookie and your coffee. Wonderful.

Nolan’s Testimony: A God in a Drawer

I love this topic. I grew up in a Christian family, and to say they were conservative is an understatement. My nature is sometimes a little bit aloof. I don’t always catch on right away, but inevitably things come around.

For the longest time, I believed in God. My parents always prayed, and I knew who God was, but I compartmentalized where I put Him. It’s kind of a guy thing. Think of a big dresser with drawers. God was one of those drawers. On a Sunday I would open the drawer, reach inside, and have myself a little handful of God, and then close it. As I grew up, work had its own drawer, and food had a pretty big drawer, to tell the truth, and so did family. That is how my brain used to work. I would have time for God on a Sunday.

When I went to church, I was a worshiper. I love singing, and I would get a sense and a feeling of peace and joy and contentment. I thought, this has to be God speaking to me. And then church would be over, and we would go home, eat soup and buns, and it was back in the drawer. God, I’ll see you next Sunday. That was just how I was.

It didn’t happen right away, but at some point in my thirties I started to gain a hunger and a desire to understand more about God. I went to Christian school most of my life, so we had to memorize Bible verses. One I had to memorize comes from Matthew 7:7-8. If you have heard this verse before, you can put your hand up. It doesn’t matter. It says, “Ask and the gift is yours. Seek and you’ll discover. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. For every persistent one will get what he asks for. Every persistent seeker will discover what he longs for. And everyone who knocks persistently will one day find an open door.”

I must have read that verse over a hundred times. It just kind of came and went. Knock and the door shall be opened. Sounds good. What does that mean?

I also heard quite often that when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit lives within you. I thought, yeah, sounds good. It must be one of those references that isn’t literal, he just theoretically lives within me. I remember having a conversation with somebody who said, “No, he really lives within you.” Some kind of light bulb went on. God lives in me. He is part of me. I had always thought of it like this: see my hand? That’s me, and this is God, and we coexisted side by side. Quite often, when I thought I prayed, I was casting prayers up into the sky and hoping God would lend an ear, because He is so busy that maybe He catches that prayer and does whatever He wants with it. But something hit deep inside my heart and said that we are not just two separate things. We are knit together.

So in my journey of discovery I started to seek out this verse. Lord, what does it mean, knock and the door shall be opened? I decided I was going to start seeking, because I’m supposed to be persistent. So how do you seek? Pray. I started praying a bit more reverently, thinking that if I prayed a certain way, God would come and meet me, that I had unlocked the secret. It’s like a cheat code in a video game, left trigger, right trigger, to open up the game. It doesn’t work that way. I didn’t hear a whole lot. God was kind of quiet, and I think He was probably smiling, thinking, this guy is kind of neat, he has this way of trying to communicate with me. But I kept on seeking and I kept on knocking.

Then I had a dream, because God, whether you know it or not, speaks to us in dreams. I dreamed of a series of doors starting to open. When I woke up, it was so much at the front of my head that I asked, Lord, what does this dream mean? It was the first time I had ever asked God what a dream meant. He gave me a vision of Himself standing on the other side of the door, saying, come on, I have a lot to share with you. I had to take that step of faith and walk through the door, but I also understood that there was some persistent seeking involved.

Learning to Hear in Pictures

I went to a men’s conference, and that is really where I began to understand it. The speaker used 2 Corinthians 3:17, where it says that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. If the Spirit of the Lord lives within me and gives me freedom, then He is also willing to engage with me and talk to me. So I started to pray and pray. I am not a perfect prayer person, and I don’t think we are supposed to be. He just says, “Come to me earnestly and seek me, and there you shall find me.”

As I came to Him earnestly, I started to get pictures in my mind. It was very unique how God would use these. It would be a picture of somebody, a friend or a family member, and it wouldn’t even have anything to do with what I was going through. I thought it was a weird thing to get a picture of this person, and asked, God, does that mean I should start praying for him? Of course God was probably going, come on, man. So I did. I started praying, and I felt a sense of peace, and a sense that God was saying, well done. So I asked, Lord, who else do you want me to pray for?

Do you remember The Price Is Right? Our Father has a sense of humor. I still remember Bob Barker, and the big wheel with all the little tabs, and each tab had a picture of a person. It goes blink, blink, blink, blink, really fast. I remember sitting at my kitchen table at five in the morning, killing myself laughing. God has a sense of humor. It was like He was saying, you want someone to pray for? There are hundreds, thousands of things you can pray for.

So this began a journey of self-discovery for me, starting to understand that God is so unique to each one of us. He wants us to express it in different ways. I started to see God speaking to me in dreams. As I started to engage in Scripture, He started to speak to me through Scripture. As I prayed into other things, I started to hear Him more clearly, more in a visual picture than in words. These pictures were very brilliant and bright and significant. You can’t miss them. That is how I started to notice that this was how God wanted to talk to me.

I wish I could tell you that I have it all figured out, but I’m still a work in progress. I love the orphan-to-son idea because I’m still on that journey. But when you learn to cultivate this way of hearing God speak to you, He starts speaking in a more deliberate way, and it comes easier. You need to give Him the time to respond to what you’re asking. He is not an ATM machine where you just keep withdrawing, withdrawing, withdrawing. There are things I have been praying about for years, and it has just been silence. That’s okay. Sometimes the things we pray for, the things we think we need, aren’t the things that line up with what God wants to bless us with. So that’s what I’ve got. Thank you.

A Portion, Not the Whole Study

Thank you, Nolan. That was so good. I want to say something first. None of the subjects we are talking about today is the full, complete, exhaustive version. Every single thing we have talked about today is a portion. The next time you hear something about one of these topics, the Father is going to highlight something else to you that adds to the portion you already have. This session is about hearing God’s voice. It is not an exhaustive study of how to do it, what it looks like, or what it means.

I have some handouts. On the front there is some information that isn’t super important, and on the back there are a great many Scripture verses. You may have referenced a lot of these already, but I want to encourage you to listen to one at a time. Come and pick up a handout after. Don’t feel like you have to capture all the information on it, because I think the Father just wants to talk to you in all of this.

Father Wants to Talk to You

We have talked about relationship, and Father God wants to communicate with every single one of His kids. It would be odd if a father didn’t want to talk to his children. I am not asking you to put human emotions or understandings onto God. What I am saying is that if we are made in His image, and we do things out of the best parts of ourselves, God is eighteen million times better. If my child is hurting, I want to reach down, wrap them in my arms, and tell them how much I love them and how they are going to be able to do this and how proud I am of all the ways they are trying. That is me understanding love with this much understanding of His love for me. I can’t even take it all in. I can understand in part, but I can’t understand it all.

If you are sitting here wondering whether God would love you, ask yourself what you would do if you were faced with a small one who was hurting. You would want to love and care and protect. You would want to speak words of blessing and affirmation. The Father wants to do that for you.

Communication is one of the most important aspects of relationship. How much of a relationship is it if it only goes one way? We talked about social media a little earlier. People get on social media and share their lives, constantly putting out little clips, and in some ways you feel like you know that person. Then you run into them on the street and realize they know nothing about you. It is not a relationship, because there is no back and forth. I think we so often walk around going, Father, help me with this. Father, am I supposed to do this? Father, bless that person. Father, could you heal that person? I have a need, I have a want, I have a desire, could you give me more of you. And we are not really listening for what He is saying back to us. Maybe we don’t know that He is going to say something back. Maybe we don’t believe He will. Maybe we have tried and don’t think we have heard anything. But the Father wants to speak to you.

Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and mighty things that you do not know.” He wants to tell you about things you don’t know about yet. This verse gives us an invitation to reach out to Him and an assurance that He will answer and teach us things. John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Revelation 3:20 says, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person.” Isaiah 30:21 says, “Your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.'”

If this is something you have never experienced, or don’t think you have, we are going to talk more about hearing Him in a moment. We have been given the Word of God, the Bible. It is living and alive. It is not just a piece of paper with words on it. When we open it, we can trust that He will use His Word to speak to us. He wants to be in relationship with us. He wants to love us, to bless us, to protect us, to defend us, to teach us, and to lead us. All the way through the Bible we see aspects of His character, and we read promises from Him. The Bible is not the only way He talks to us.

Meaningful Ways for You

He knows you. Nolan talked about sitting at the table, seeing the Bob Barker wheel, and laughing. God showed up for Nolan in a way that was meaningful to Nolan, because He knows Nolan and loves Nolan, and He wants to talk to Nolan in ways that delight Nolan’s heart. You can trust that the Father wants to talk to you in ways that are meaningful for you. If you don’t hear the way someone else does, that’s okay. This isn’t about comparison. It isn’t about someone standing up and saying God talks to her like this, so that is what I should be aiming for. The Father wants to talk to you in ways that are meaningful to you, and you can trust that He will do what He said.

This is where childlike faith comes in. Kids are so easy to teach to hear God’s voice, because you tell them it is a fact and a truth, and they say, “Oh, okay.” They don’t say, “That was probably just me. That was just a thought I had. Maybe that was the devil.” They just accept it. Then you ask, “What did you see?” and they say, “God showed me a dinosaur running around.” Cool. What does that mean? Let’s ask the Father, or let’s have somebody with maturity help and ask, Father, what does that mean? And maybe the answer is, I just love the way you play and stomp around. We get so hung up on needing to hear a certain way, an audible voice, a “thus saith the Lord” kind of word. It doesn’t have to be that. If a dinosaur was meaningful to you, then that is what He is going to do. You can count on Him connecting with you in ways that are meaningful to you, and you don’t have to hear like anyone else.

I am the oldest of five kids, and my father is a really good man, and he has a different relationship with each of us. He shows up differently for each of us. Same character, same man, but it could depend on whether we showed up needing something or showed up angry. He relates to us in a way that meets us where we are. He is most definitely not a perfect man, and he is most definitely not the Father’s perfect reflection. The Father is going to meet you with what you need.

Recognizing His Voice

Hearing God’s voice is probably one of the most fun things I have had the opportunity to learn, practice, and get better at. I still have doubts. I still have moments where I think, that was just me. But the more I do it, the more confident I get that it’s Him.

Imagine your best friend, your partner, your mother, or your child. If they are in a store and you aren’t expecting them to be there and you hear their voice, usually you can pick them out. A couple of months ago I was at Home Depot at the cash register, paying for my paint, and I thought, that is so bizarre. The person that voice belonged to lives in another city, and I was not expecting them there in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day. I started looking around, and sure enough, it was a friend. I had heard that voice often enough that I recognized it even though I couldn’t see them. It is like that with our Father. We can spend time in His presence, listening to Him, until we recognize His voice.

If you haven’t heard His voice in the past, or don’t think you have, you might need to quiet yourself. Get into a place where your thoughts are stilled, focus on the Father, and look and listen for what He is saying to you. I promise that if you do this more and more, just as I recognized my friend’s voice out of nowhere, you will be able to recognize and understand God’s voice. He wants that for you, because the things He has to tell you are amazing. They will bring you love and peace and joy, and they will build you up, even when it is a correction.

So many people tell me, “I don’t know if I want to hear, because I think it’s going to hurt.” I can’t tell you how many times the Father has corrected me, and it has been done with so much love that I welcome it. It sounds like, sweetheart, this is hurting you and the ones you love, and it hurts me that it hurts you. I say, God, that is a pretty horrible thing, and if it were my earthly father telling me, it would not sound like this conversation. And He says, but I love you, and I want the best for you. I want you to have my love in you so much. This area is causing you hurt and pain, and I want to highlight it in a way that builds you up and brings you closer to me. That is the Father’s heart for you.

Many Ways God Speaks

As we know God more and hear His voice more, we grow more attuned to it. It is possible to live a life of connection with Him one hundred percent of the time. That is a lofty goal, isn’t it? But that is what I am aiming at. If I never make it there this side of heaven, and today I’m here and a week from now I’m here, that is a win. In John 5:19-20, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man, and then you will truly be astonished.” Jesus followed the example of the Father, and we are called to be like Him, in that constant connection and communication. We can live like that because the veil that separated God and us has been torn, and we have been given immediate access to the Father. He wants an intimate relationship with each and every one of you.

In the past, God has used many different ways to communicate with His people. He sent angels to talk to people. He wrote on a wall, which is a pretty cool one, even though what was happening wasn’t great. He came in dreams, when you are asleep. He came in visions, when you are awake, and there are many interpretations of what that looks like, whether a picture in your mind, something you see, or a bit of a trance. He used a talking donkey to get hold of someone. He used a giant fish to communicate a message to Jonah. He came in a burning bush that didn’t burn up. He has spoken with an audible voice, and He led the Israelites with a cloud by day and a pillar by night. I say all that because I believe the Father will do whatever He needs to do to get your attention. He can show up in creative ways.

A lot of the time these days, we hear Him speak through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, and through a still small voice inside, which could be your thoughts or an impression. He speaks through our circumstances. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had closed doors and wondered what was going on, and then thought, oh, Father, that is definitely you. He speaks through dreams and visions. A lot of people see God in creation, and He speaks to them through colors, numbers, and the senses. A lot of people smell something. He speaks through other people, and sometimes through an audible voice.

Quieting Yourself to Listen

Habakkuk 2:1-2 says, “I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post, and there I will wait to see what the Lord says and how he will answer my complaint. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Write my answers plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.'”

When you hear God speak to you, there are some things you can do to help get you going if you’re struggling. Right now there are radio waves, cellular waves, and Wi-Fi running through this place. How do we know? I could take a radio, turn it on, find the frequency, and hear some noise. We pick up our phones and see that there is Wi-Fi, or we know that if we turn on cellular we can talk to people. The Father is always speaking to us. And the question is, are we listening? Are we listening for what He is saying?

At first you might need to get yourself to a quiet space and pull yourself apart. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 37:7 says, “Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act.” In 2 Kings chapter 3, Elisha called for a musician to play, and while he played, the power of God came. So if you are struggling with sitting quietly by yourself, it’s okay. Put on some music. I would suggest something quiet rather than exciting, because the whole point is to still your thoughts, your mind, and your body so you can tune in to what the Father is saying.

Someone shared with me to imagine my thoughts as swirling leaves. Close your eyes, sit down, and imagine all your thoughts and worries as fall leaves swirling around. Then sit there and let them fall to the ground. They are all there, and I can come back to them. Once we do that, we can tune in. We can fix our eyes on Jesus. Hebrews 13:5 says He never leaves you or forsakes you. He is with you always. So it doesn’t matter whether you are here, at home later, driving in your car, on the bus, at work, or in a doctor’s office. Wherever we are, we can stop and focus on Him, because He is here.

In fact, right now I want everybody to close your eyes and ask Him, “Father, can you show me where you are right now, here in this place?” You might have a sense that He is sitting beside you, or that you are in His lap, or that He is standing behind you. If you think you saw something and then immediately dismissed it, that is where a lot of us get hung up. Jesus said to be like little children. So often we hear or sense or perceive something and then say, no, that’s just me, that’s not Him, it must be my imagination. Who made your imagination? Who created you with the ability to be creative? The One who created the entire world. There is nothing wrong with your imagination. You were created to be a creative being in every aspect of what that means.

In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit was given to believers, and dreams and visions were released, and God’s heart for people was released. Psalm 16:8 says, “I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.” As His children, we have the right to come boldly to Him and say, Father, show yourself to me, and to trust that what we get is from Him. In order to see, we must look. In order to hear, we must listen.

When You Don’t Hear an Answer

Too often we throw things out there and don’t expect an answer or take the time to wait for one. Asking someone a question and getting no reply has happened to all of us. I have walked away from that thinking maybe they didn’t hear me, or they were ignoring me, or, worse, they didn’t want to talk to me. Sometimes we throw things out at God, and we are really serious, but when we don’t hear something, rather than lingering, pausing, waiting, or getting curious, we say, “He doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t work. I don’t hear anything.” Nolan shared about wanting to hear from God and not hearing.

One thing I want to encourage you with: when you ask the Father a question and don’t get an answer, ask Him a different question. If you still don’t get an answer, ask Him what He wants to talk to you about. He said, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and it will be given to you. Knock and the door will be opened.” He didn’t say, ask and then assume I’m not going to answer. But I think that is what we sometimes do. Maybe God is busy, maybe He doesn’t like that question, maybe I didn’t do it right, maybe my heart wasn’t in the right place before I asked. I have definitely found that when I don’t get an answer to my question, it doesn’t mean He isn’t talking to me, and it doesn’t mean I can’t hear. Often what He wants to say to me is different from what I’m thinking, and His ways are so much higher than mine.

For me, hearing from God often sounds like my own thoughts, my voice inside my head. For example, if I stand here right now and say, “Father, what do you want to say to me?” what I expect Him to say, which happens the majority of the time, is “Patti, I love you.” But what He actually said to me is, “Good job, sweetheart.” Here is where I think we get caught up, and here are three questions to ask when you hit a situation like that.

First, is that a normal me thought? Never do I walk around saying, “Patti, I love you.” Never. And unless I’m working myself up to do something, I don’t say, “Good job, you are doing a good job.” So right off the bat I can tell you it is not likely to be a me thought.

Second, is it the enemy? I can tell you right off the bat that the enemy is not going to say, “Good job.” When you are talking about the Father and His heart and His love, the enemy is not going to say, “Patti, that is a good job,” or “I love you.”

Third, does what I’m hearing align with Scripture? My Father speaking to me in love: is that in the Bible? Yes.

If what you are thinking, sensing, or seeing is not likely a you thought, and let’s be honest about it, don’t use false humility and say it’s probably just me, and if it is not the enemy and it aligns with Scripture, then we are practicing, we are learning, and we are trusting that this is the Father’s voice. Let’s step out in that. Let’s believe that He is speaking to us. The flip side is that we just doubt, and that doesn’t help us. It doesn’t set us up for more connection. When I doubt what my husband is saying to me, that doesn’t bring us closer. It separates us. So let’s lay that doubt down.

Have you ever had a random thought going about your day, and all of a sudden somebody pops into your head, and you wonder why in the world you’re thinking about that person? It is very likely that you are hearing from Father God. You might, under your own strength, say a quick prayer to bless that person, or you might think, that’s just weird. But it is likely that the Father is inviting you to join Him in praying for that person. That is an invitation. He is communicating with you. How likely is it that you would just happen to be thinking about that person? Do you think the enemy is bringing that person to mind? And is it in the Bible that we are called to stand for others, to pray and bless and believe for them? Yes. So we are going to trust, and you don’t have to wait for a prayer time, or for church, or for the altar call. The Father wants to talk to you all the time.

Practice and Write It Down

The more you practice, the easier it becomes. I had special needs kids, and we practiced skills for them to use when they were dysregulated. We never practiced those skills when they were dysregulated. We only practiced when they were calm and felt safe, because the hope was that as we practiced, the skill would become natural and they would be able to use it when they needed it. That is the point about practicing hearing from God. If you already hear from God, we can all go deeper and get better. This isn’t about condemnation or about not doing enough. The Father longs for relationship and connection with you.

Here are three things you can practice at any time, which I have already mentioned. Quiet yourself. Focus on Him. Look and listen for what He is saying. If you want to take this to another level, I would challenge you to write it down. That is the next part of those verses in Habakkuk: write it down and make it plain. The verse says, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.” If you look at Habakkuk 2:2 in different translations, there are a lot of variations, but the point is that you can take the message and run with it. You receive a message from God and make it plain so you can run with it.

We want to hear God’s voice so that we know His love, hear His heart, and follow where He leads and guides, because He will never lead you astray. Writing or recording what you believe God is saying to you gives you an opportunity to just receive. We hear about discernment and testing a word, and that is important, but if you are trying to discern in the moment of receiving, you step into doubt, and that doubt affects your divine communication. If you ask the Father a question, or ask Him to speak to you, and then start writing down what you hear, sense, and see, you have a record to look back on. This is how the Father spoke to me six months ago. This is how He is speaking to me now. I can see where I was definitely in my own thinking here. And look at what He is telling me now. It isn’t about judgment. We are practicing, and it is okay to make a mistake. That is how we learn and grow.

I have had so many people push back when I say you should write it down. They say, “I’m not a journaler.” We are not talking about word-dumping your emotions and feelings. You are writing down what you believe the Father is saying to you. That is totally different from “today I had a really bad day and I was really angry at everybody.” If you are a journaler, awesome, I love that for you. But this is about writing down what you believe the Father is giving you so that you can go back later.

Testing What You Hear

Writing it down also gives you the chance, if you’re unsure of what you received, to take it to somebody who hears from God and say, “I’m unsure,” and they can test it with you. It is an amazing thing when we can help each other. As you practice, you will grow, and you will become more comfortable hearing God’s voice.

When you have what you believe is a word from God, you can compare it to the Bible. This is how you test it. Does this align with Scripture? Can I find this in the Bible? Does this align with the character and nature of Father God? Test the fruit of it. God is not going to give you a word that tells you to go steal something from somebody, because stealing goes against who He is, and the fruit of doing that would not be good. And share it for confirmation. You can also run it through the three questions I asked earlier. Is this likely something I would think or say? Is this likely the enemy? Does it line up with Scripture?

Journaling and Resting in His Presence

Right now we are going to do two different things. Can you turn on the music? If you have pen and paper, or an iPad, or whatever you are using, I want everybody to get comfy. If you are really skeptical about this, that’s okay. Find a place in this room where you are comfortable, on a chair, off by yourself, leaning against a wall, or lying down. I don’t even care. We need our journals and pens. If you don’t have a pen, there are a couple at the book table. We are going to ask the Father some questions, and I’m going to ask you to imagine that you are a child sitting in His lap. Take a big breath. We have heard that He wants to talk to us. We are going to set aside the doubt, and set aside the idea that it’s just our own thoughts, and trust that whatever way He shows up, whether it sounds like our own thoughts, or is a picture or a color, it is Him. I’m going to read out some questions, and you can ask the Father any of these, or ask Him another question. Whatever you sense first that He is saying, don’t discount it.

Father, we thank you for your presence in this place. We thank you that you do speak to us. We ask that you would open the eyes of our heart, and that you would open our ears to hear and receive from you.

Father, do you love me? Even if you talk to God all the time, go ahead and ask Him this again, because it never gets old, hearing that the God of the universe loves you. Father, where are you right now? In this moment, in this place, where are you? Show yourself to me. Father, how do you see me when you look at me? What do I look like from your point of view? Father, what do you love about me? What do I do that makes you smile?

If doubting thoughts come, put them aside. If you are wondering whether that was you, just let it go. Father, what do you want to say to me right now? Or, Father, what do you want me to know about you today? You might hear a thought. You might see a picture. You might remember a memory. Don’t be surprised if God is humorous with you. There are no wrong questions. You are not going to get in trouble for asking the Father something. He is big enough to handle your sadness, your anger, and your disappointment.

In a moment we are going to move from this journaling time, this time of hearing the Father speak to us and writing it down, and spend some time in His presence. If you want, you can lie across a couple of chairs, or lie down on the floor, or come up on the rug. We are going to keep the music going. We are just going to say, Father, whatever you want to say, whatever you want to show me, whatever you want to speak to me, I’m willing. And if all you want me to do is rest, I’m here. As you finish up in your journal, feel free to set it aside. Relax. Slouch back in your chair, or lie down, like a baby being cradled in the Father’s arms. Look in His eyes and feel His love. Feel His tenderness and His compassion for you. Be aware of His delight in you. Feel His peace, His comfort, and His love for you, exactly as you are. You are His greatest treasure. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. His love for you is unending. His love for you is all-consuming. You don’t have to try harder. You can just be.

A time of quiet listening, journaling, and resting in His presence followed.

Thank you, Father, that you speak to us. Thank you that you communicate with us. Thank you that we can hear your voice and know your heart. Thank you for your presence in this place and in our lives. Father, would you increase our awareness of you? Would you help us tune in to you, to your voice, and to your heart, to know you more?

Time to Share

We have about fifteen minutes before we break for dinner, and we would love to hear whether the Father said something to you that you would be willing to share. Just something short. We are not looking for a big five-minute story, but if the Father said something to you, we would love to rejoice with you.

Several people came forward and shared what they had sensed from the Father during the quiet time, including pictures, impressions, and words of love. Patti received each one warmly and reminded the room that sometimes we need to work up the courage, and that there is space for everyone.

On the pictures people received, Patti said: “He shows up for us in so many different ways. Just because you saw something right now and you don’t necessarily understand all of it, you can go back and say, ‘Father, what does that mean? What do you want me to notice about this? What do you want me to hear in this?'” She also encouraged people about how He shows up for each individual, and how meaningful it is when He does: “We’ve got pictures. We’ve got vivid, detailed pictures. We’ve got words. We’ve got another image. There are so many different ways that He shows up to connect with us.”

Patti closed the sharing time by saying it is okay to wait in the quiet, that it is okay to be awkward, and that there was no pressure on anyone to share.