Learning To Listen In Prayer
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When many people pray, it is often just one sided. Often, we do most of the talking when we pray. It is important to remember that prayer is communication with God and in this communication, God needs to be able to talk to us and for us to listen as well. So we don’t have to spend our entire prayer time with our own words but, actually, we can spend time in prayer listening for God.
In our own human nature, it is easy to get wrapped up in the length of time we spend in prayer and not enough emphasis on just speaking with God from our hearts. We may set goals for ourselves to pray for a certain amount of time each day and try to fill it with words and requests but not really believing in what we are praying for.
If we pause in our prayers to allow God to speak to us, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that He may do so. By spending some time just listening, He may provide a revelation in a scripture verse we have been thinking over or He may bring a solution to a difficult situation we have been dealing with.
Will he always speak? Yes, He will. But the question is not if God will speak to us but rather will WE listen? God speaks to us all the time but we can get consumed with our own requests and for our requests to be answered, that we forget to take a moment and listen to what God has to say.
Listening for God may not be easy or what we are used to. It can be frustrating at first not speaking in prayer and sitting in silence waiting for God. We may even find ourselves falling asleep. This shouldn’t be a cause for alarm. It will take time and patience. Slowly our hearts will begin to change and we will find it easier to listen. The key is not to have any kind of assumptions on how God will speak but just to be open to receiving when He does. Then we will see what is happening is that we are learning hear Him better.