How to Hear God

A Simple Guide for Normal People

By: Pete Greig

Narrated by: Pete Greig

You were created to enjoy a real, conversational relationship with God.

The Bible says that hearing the voice of our Creator is both central and natural to our existence as humans.

• When life falls apart, we need God's comfort.
• In moments of cultural turmoil, we need his clarity.
• Facing difficult decisions, we need his guidance.
• Desiring a deeper faith, we need God to say something, anything, to turn the monologue we call prayer into a genuine conversation.

But how do we really hear God?

Nothing could possibly matter more than learning to discern his authentic voice, and yet few things in life are more susceptible to delusion, deception, and downright abuse.

Having addressed God's silence in God on Mute, and then How to Pray in his previous bestseller, Pete Greig is back to bring wisdom and guidance to one of the most pressing and perplexing aspects of universal Christian experience—How to Hear God.

Exploring the story of Christ's playful, poignant conversation on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, Pete draws deeply from the insights of a wide range of Christian traditions; weaving together the evangelical emphasis on hearing God in the Bible, and the charismatic commitment to hearing God in the prophetic, with the contemplative understanding of God's "still, small voice" within.

"Pete transcends the Christian tribalism of our day… rooting us in something far more ancient, unchanging, timeless. What the early Christians called the Way. This ancient form of Christianity is the antidote to much of the modern church's pain. The cure for our ills." —John Mark Comer

God wants to talk to us.

Summary: Christian theology and practice assumes that God speaks to us, personally and corporately. But part of what is needed is the development of “ears to hear”. Grieg uses the Emmaus Road story as a grounding point to discuss various ways that Christians hear from God.

I have previously read Greig’s How to Pray, also as a part of the Renovare Book Club. How to Hear God is very similar in feel. Greig is a good story teller. He writes short and straight forward chapters with reflection points, questions to think about, historical examples of people who have heard from God in the ways he is describing and biblical examples that ground his methodological examples.

As I said in my previous review of Greig’s book, I have a mixed view of the 24/7 movement. I think Greig is solid and I don’t have any concerns about him or his books. But I do have concerns with some of those who are a part of that movement in the US and some of the ways that the theology of the 24/7 movement can lead to a type of dominionism that becomes a problem. Greig actively opposes some of those misuses of his ideas and theology here, but willful misuse often is difficult to counter.

Part of what I appreciate about Greig’s method is that he knows there is going to be both, misunderstanding of God’s word to us, and that misuse of the claim to hear from God to control others. He really does actively work against that. So I don’t want to minimize that. But part of my take away here, is that we need health in many areas of life to use our gifts and skills well. A person who is not self reflective about the mixed motives that we have at all times, will not be able to discern well, what God is saying to them. A person who views God primarily as a tyrant waiting for you to mess up, will be unlikely to hear words of comfort or calls to rest. That basic thought goes in many directions, so as much as Greig is calling us to test what we think we hear from God, those who are unlikely to do the introspective work of discernment are quite likely to also misuse claims of hearing from God to abuse or control others. And correspondingly, those who are mature and discerning are going to be fairly likely to be responsible, so that as a short hand, the more controlling a person seems to be about hearing from God, the more likely they are to be immature or wrong.

At the same time, I think that Greig is right that hearing from God is like a muscle that needs to be exercised and used to develop. He has lots of short cut acronyms or mnemonic devices to help think about right use and evaluation of our hearing from God. I am not going to walk through all of them, but I do think he has thought about them well and is trying to raise appropriate red flags to wrong practices while rightly encouraging people to know that they are not going to get it perfectly right all the time. That permission to fail, but greater caution with God’s word for other people, I think rightly places the greater attention on internal rather than external words of God.

I also appreciate that while he doesn’t minimize God’s word through scripture, he doesn’t limit God’s word to only scripture as some streams of Christianity do. Greig is very ecumenical. I know people who have connections to his work and part of what encourages me is precisely that he is working ecumenically and not attempting to dominate others.

As I have said many times, I am in a long reading project about Discernment, and an essential part of discernment is hearing from God. I still think that the work of discernment needs to be rooted in character development and virtue, but it isn’t only that. To rightly discern, we need to develop our ability to hear from God through scripture, others people and various other methods. And this is a good book to work through various ways to hear from God in a readable, orthodox and practical ways.

An Imperative Classic

I put How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People in the same category as Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. You obviously cannot see my copy of Peter's book but almost every page is underlined or highlighted or both. :) Grieg's laid back style and delivery drew me in. God has spoken to me (rhēma) about learning to hear his whisper through this book and Peter.

The overall simplicity of what he is teaching and how I can use it in my own daily walk.

Mr. Greig is a wonderful speaker and I so enjoyed listening to this as well as How to Pray on audio. These are the first two books I’ve listened to all the way thru as I much prefer a book in hand. He kept my attention and spoke in such an understanding yet profound way. Thank you for your insight, simple way of teaching and for the time you spent to do this.

Biblical, personal, historical, practical

Pete has written another moving book that is grounded in scripture, filled with wisdom and principles from throughout time, but remains deeply personal and guides us in ways we can practically apply new ideas and practices to our lives. My only critique here is that he uses the term dispensationalism when referring to cessationism, which are distinct. But this is a very easy mistake to make.

One of my top favorite Christian reads

I really enjoyed this book. It is one of those life changers, in my opinion. Pretty comprehensive and balanced look at how God talks with us (though I am sure there are always more ways God can choose to talk to us)! It was really what I have been needing at this point in my life and I recommend it to everyone.