How to Hear God Through Deep Listening in the Chaos
I trust my intuition, period. Full stop.
I have found that other people want me to trust their intuition, but it’s hard to trust anyone else’s intuition. No, no. Specifically, it is hard to trust your intuition, his intuition, their intuition, her intuition, when they are moving so fast.
And it’s not to say that you can’t move fast and hear from God, but it is to say that the Bible verse says:
Be still and know that I am God.
And when you are moving so quickly, you can’t hear your intuition. You can only hear your fear.
Well, perhaps not only, but I know that has been true for me, and I’m not saying that what is true for me is true for however many billions of people exist on this planet, but what I am saying—what I do know for certain!—is that God calls us to stillness.
Be still and know that I am God.
It’s in my calm voice, my slow walk, that I am able to not only hear but listen and listen deeply.
Tonight, I meditated. I don’t even know what the question was that invited me into meditation, but I know that the answer was: listen deeply. No, no, actually, no, to be more precise, it was deep listening.
It was when I closed eyes and I paused, and I allowed myself to be caught—the full weight of my body caught in my chair—to feel the fleece of the blanket to my right. I heard the bubbles popping in my seltzer water. A soft, faint flicker of my candle.
At my 9 o’clock, I heard birds flying, chirping, singing, speaking, communicating to one another.
At my 10 o’clock, I heard the drip of rain on my air conditioner.
At my 11 o’clock, I heard the running water in a neighboring apartment.
And between all of those noises, I heard stillness—like a void, but not void. A void, but not devoid of anything, but still full somehow.
Deep listening requires us, invites us, to hear things that we could not otherwise hear when the music is playing. When the podcast is on. When the TV is streaming.
Deep listening is an invitation to what is and what is not.
Deep listening is a reminder that I can hear in the Spirit what others cannot hear, that I can hear—no, more precisely than that—I can hear in the physical because I hear in the spiritual.
Yahweh. Yahweh, I AM, or He that is. Yahweh.
I serve the God of I AM that I AM, and I know that I AM, TOO.
I am surely not God, but I honor that God lives in me.
See things as though they were not as though they are.
There’s some other verse that wants to come right there on the tip of my tongue, and perhaps that’s deep listening, too—knowing that something is there, ready and waiting and can’t yet be touched. Can’t yet be reached. But it is longing—it is reaching for me and I for it. Deep listening allows me to know there’s more awaiting me in the space. In the void. In the freedom.
A Prayer to Be Still, To Know, and Hear God
Thank you, God, that when others are moving so quickly and they are unable to hear you, thank you that I offer and invite them to a slower space so that we can all hear you. So that we can all hear ourselves.
Help us, God, go with the pace of peace.
Help us, God, go at your pace so that we can be still and know who you are.
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I AM.
Be still and know that.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
