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The Weightiness of Listening Prayer

Like we said in the last post, learning to increase our awareness of God with us and becoming more confident in hearing the Holy Spirit is a process. But as we grow in these things, we can be so confident in Him speaking to us that we can make weighty decisions based on what He is saying.

Last week I was talking to a worker on the field, who shared that as they were praying, they heard God tell them, “I want you to actually go apply for a visa to a country that has already rejected you.” And they knew that if they got rejected again they wouldn’t be able to get back in for the next 10 years. And they said, “OK God.” 

It’s a big risk! It’s gonna be a problem if they get rejected. But they get the visa! And the immigration officers tell them that they need to write down a local person’s name that is their host in the country. But if they write a local believer’s name on the visa, they might compromise the whole movement.

So they pray, and the whole team prays and listens and they all come up with the same name. And they call that woman, this local believer, and they say, “hey we were told to apply for a visa and they asked us to write down a name. Can we use your name?”

And she says, “Let me go ask the Lord.” She goes and listens and she says, “Yes, you can use my name. God told me to say yes.”

That’s weighty. Because that woman could end up in jail. Because you know what? Paul ends up in jail too. But God spoke – to that team, to that woman, and it’s OK because it’s on Him. And it doesn’t mean that because He responded that it’s going to be safe the whole way through. But if God is speaking to you, it means He is speaking to be with you and He will be with you the whole way through.

Ways to Practice Listening

So we already talked about the different ways that God can speak. When we are praying and receive thoughts, words, Scripture, emotions, images, memories, songs, etc., pay attention because it could be God speaking! Here’s some different practices you can try to increase in your listening prayer.

1. Finding a Place to Meet with God

One thing I’ve noticed, especially with Westerners, is that if we do silent prayer then it’s really easy for us to get distracted. Like your phone could buzz, you’re thinking about other stuff, there’s so much coming in. The world is coming in, your thoughts are coming in, and we’re not even very self aware in general. It’s almost like we don’t even know which ones are our own thoughts and which aren’t.

Here are some ideas about how to focus a little bit. This is what I did with my friend from the Middle East – I said, “what I want you to do first is to ask God for Him to show you a place to meet with Him.” This is a mental place – it could be a physical place God has shown you before, or maybe He hasn’t shown you it before.

It’s going to be a mental place that represents that you are entering into that space in your mind and you’re meeting with Jesus. So take a few minutes to ask God to show you a place to meet with you.

Ask Him for a place to meet with you and just listen. As you go into that spot, we know that God wants to meet with you. And He loves us and wants us to be focused to meet with Him, so that we can be present and encounter Him in our own mind.

I want you to remember that place. Anytime you’re in prayer, go back to that place He’s shown you. Even if I’m meeting with someone and I’m praying for them, I’ll go to that place and meet with Jesus and ask him, “what do you want me to say to them or pray for them?”

One fun thing for me is that when I meet with Jesus, I have a greeting that I do. Not everyone has these things but sometimes it’s helpful to hear someone else’s. After I connect with Jesus and we greet each other, we do an Egyptian-style hug. I learned it when I was on a trip to Egypt. It’s really neat! It’s changed from what I used to do before, which was more like a bro hug. But now it’s a little more intimate.

Sometimes he actually just grabs my shoulders and just looks at me for a bit, which means a lot to me. Then I usually bow and I’m going to receive either of two things. He gives me a ball which is the Holy Spirit, or a sword. Which is the Spirit of God and the Word of God. And I turn towards whoever I’m praying for, and I don’t try to think about what’s going to happen. Just start praying. And that’s my interaction with God.

Other people don’t have all those things, that’s just how God decided to communicate with me to let me know He’s giving something for that other person.

If you were just now listening and asked God for a place, it’s OK if that’s not what God gave you. It could even be that He wants it to just be everywhere for you and you don’t need that. Having that place is a good idea and helpful for some people, but doesn’t mean that is necessarily something for you. He has a relationship with you – so walk in confidence and oneness and boldness that Jesus loves you.

2. Soaking and Waiting

A lot of times when we are praying, we are asking God for something or interceding for someone. So we’re bringing our requests to the Lord, and that’s good – He tells us to do that.

But if you’re new to listening prayer, it can be rare for you to just come to God with no agenda and just wait and see what He wants to say. Soaking is just a term for sitting and taking in God’s presence and waiting for Him to speak. We are soaking in God’s presence like a sponge soaks in water.

First, get rid of any other distractions – put your phone on silent, go to a quiet space for prayer. If God gave you a place for you to meet in your mind, go and meet him in that place.

For some people, it can be helpful to put on some acoustic or mellow worship music, or even these compilations of ambient worship music specifically made for soaking prayer. This instrumental version is one of my favorites.

Get into a comfortable position, and just wait. Try to clear your mind of distractions. Sometimes holding your hands open as a posture of surrender and receiving can be helpful. To begin, you can just try 10 minutes, or go as long as you like. If the Lord brings to mind a verse, a person, a word, an emotion, an image, a vision, or anything that you might think is from Him, try to remember it or just quickly jot it down into a notebook.

After you get that initial thing from the Lord, feel free to ask follow up questions. “God, what do you want me to know about this? Is there someone I should share this with? Is there Scripture that goes along with this?”

Soaking can be a good way for us to get used to entering into God’s presence. The more we do it and the more we’re used to noticing when God speaks, the quicker and more confident we’ll become as we grow.

For soaking, it’s best to go in with no agenda and just wait for God’s presence. But as you learn what it feels like when He is drawing near and speaking, you can ask questions and get answers from Him quicker as well. Questions can be as simple as, “God what do you want me to do in this situation?”

But also ask Him questions like, “God, how do you see me? God, what hurts your heart right now? What are you really proud of right now?”

In relationship, don’t just ask for things that you need! We want to know God more!

3. Folding Paper Activity

I think one of the best things that comes out of growing in listening prayer is hearing what the Lord wants to communicate for someone else when you’re praying for them.

One of the things we do is to have a group of 3-4 and take turns all praying for one person. When we do group prayer and pray for a person, it’s usually to encourage them. And it’s things that God wants to say to them about their situation now, who they are. And when you have 3 or 4 people doing that, it’s fun because you can be affirmed in your ability to listen when there is a similar theme with someone else because we all have the same Holy Spirit!

But if you’re not confident yet in listening to the Spirit and praying that over someone, one of the activities you can do to grow in listening for a person is the Folding Paper Activity. You start by writing a name on the top of a piece of paper and we fold it back so nobody can see it. Because sometimes when you know someone, you start projecting what you want to pray into them. But you fold it over so you can’t see the name, and you pass it out randomly. You don’t know the name on the paper you have but you start listening to God for about 5 minutes and write down whatever you get. Then fold it over so that your words are covered and everyone passes it to the person on their right and listen again.

After you’ve gone enough times that everyone in the group has prayed over one person’s paper (e.g. 6 times if you have a group of 6), unfold the top to see the name and hand the paper back to that person. After everyone has had a chance to read through the words, you can let people share with the group something that stood out to them, that encouraged them, or a theme that they noticed.

And yes, you will have listened for yourself on your own paper without knowing it. Sometimes that’s the most interesting one, because the Lord speaks something to you and you don’t know who it’s for, but it ends up being a word for you! We had one person say – “I feel like I heard this encouragement when I was praying and wrote it down, not knowing it was my piece of paper. I have a hard time believing these words for myself but when hearing it from God for someone else I believed it! So I should believe it for myself as well!”

It would get to a place in our group that when I was handed the piece of paper and couldn’t see the name, I would start listening and God would show me the same thing about that person and I would know who it is. He showed Ellie flying, or he showed Stephanie in a garden, or he would always say about Julian, ‘this is my friend.’

It’s really affirming to get that because I’m hearing God! It’s not that I’m the one giving them some Word but God is. Because I want to be like Philip when he gets close to the Ethiopian eunuch, recognizing God’s voice and having the boldness to say it. So you’re building that when you practice in a group and it’s a safe place to build that.

In general for an activity like this or as you’re learning how to listen for other people, it’s better to keep things more towards encouragement than towards exhorting or rebuking. If you have a strong sense that a word of exhortation is from the Lord, you might make a note of it and bring it up to a person privately, or to your leader and ask them to give their discernment about if and how to share it.

How Do I Know If It’s God Speaking?

On a trip to the Middle East, we were trying to meet new people on campus and talked about listening to God with a Muslim girl. She asked, “How do I know it’s from God?” That’s a great question – many times that can be our biggest fear when it comes to listening prayer. How do we know it’s from God? This is where discernment comes in. 

• Test the spirits: 1 John 4:1 tells us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” John goes on to give us a clear parameter in verses 2 and 3. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” In discerning listening prayer, John highlights that things that affirm the Lordship of Jesus are from the Spirit. Anything that disagrees with that is not from God.

• Consistent with Scripture: I’ll reemphasize that these posts are not trying to change anyone’s theology. But I think any theological background would agree that whatever we receive through listening prayer should be consistent with Scripture. If you hear anything that explicitly contradicts Scripture, that should be disregarded. Additionally, even if something you hear is consistent with Scripture, no word that we get from listening should be elevated on the same level as or above Scripture. Many times, if you hear something in listening prayer, we’d encourage people to find 2 or 3 verses that support that word or at least speak on that topic, and interpret the word they hear together with Scripture.

• Fruit of the Spirit: Another passage that comes to mind when discerning if the Spirit is speaking is Galatians 5. Paul outlines desires of the flesh that are against the Spirit, and fruits of the Spirit that are borne out of walking with the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22). Does this word I’m hearing from the Spirit produce peace or dissension? Is it a gentle word or a harsh word? Is my motivation to share this out of love or out of being judgemental?

• Against Shame, Guilt, and Fear: In the opposite direction, if a word in listening prayer produces shame, guilt, or fear, we can be confident it’s not from the Lord. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control.” Shame, guilt, and fear keep us in a cycle of being afraid of God or against God. God speaks through the Spirit to draw us nearer to him. That is not to say that the Holy Spirit won’t convict of sin (John 16:8), and there may be things that you hear in prayer that lead to genuine conviction of sin and a desire for repentance. But that is different from guilt, shame, and fear.

• Encouraging towards Others: As a general rule, if you’re newer to listening prayer, we’d again say a good guideline is to keep towards things that are encouraging and uplifting. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says, “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” If there’s words that you think might be for someone towards exhortation, write it down, pray about it and check it, run it by other community or leaders, and plan to share it carefully. With encouragement, it’s much easier and safer to go ahead and share it for someone else’s edification!

• Affirmed in Community: Paul in Ephesians 4:4 tells us that we have one Spirit – meaning that when we hear things in listening prayer, hopefully the Spirit is saying those same things to others as well! This is not to say that every time you do listening prayer in a group, everyone will agree. But if there is disagreement, or other people hear what you share and there isn’t peace, it’s worth figuring out what exactly is happening underneath. That’s why we encourage people to practice listening prayer in a safe space with trusted community. When we start to do listening prayer exclusively on our own, and tell other people that “God told me this” and won’t take feedback or disagreement from community, we run the risk of falling into pride.
• Glorifying God and Advancing His Kingdom: Lastly, words from God will bring glory to God and help to advance His Kingdom. So much of the book of Acts contains examples of the disciples hearing from the Lord in prayer and being filled with boldness to share the gospel even in the midst of persecution. The Lord will bring to mind people and places that you are meant to show love to and share the gospel with!

Conclusion

We (Steven and Jenn) want to thank Steve Dekkers so much for contributing his wisdom and insight in these posts on listening prayer! We hope these guidelines and activities will be helpful to you as you continue learning how to hear from the Spirit.

Lastly, we wanted to leave you all with one more exhortation and encouragement.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul leaves some final thoughts with the church in Thessalonica, including to pray without ceasing. In verse 20, he gives a short but direct command: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Some might think, “I don’t need listening prayer since I have the Bible.” But so many of the examples in the Bible show a rich, two-way communication between God and His people. And Paul explicitly tells us to not quench the Spirit by throwing away anything that might come from prophecy or listening. It comes with the caution to test those prophecies and hold fast to what is good. But we are commanded to not quench what the Spirit is trying to tell us. Listening prayer is one of those ways that the Lord might be trying to speak with you, in order to increase the intimacy of your relationship with Him! Will you respond to Him?

And our encouragement is this – when you begin to familiarize yourself with His voice, your abiding and fruitfulness will surely increase! Steve has mentioned a few examples of why it’s so important to learn to hear God’s voice as workers on the field out of necessity. But listening prayer can also become one of your most powerful tools to see the gospel multiply among the unreached.

Some of our friends have helped to catalyze one of the biggest movements in the world with hundreds of thousands of churches planted, and their case study is called the Listening movement. One of their main tools when hitting roadblocks or setting goals is simply, with their partners, to stop, ask the Lord, and listen.

“Prayer is the work. Listening is an important part of prayer. There have been so many changes along the way and so many questions: What’s next? Should we work with this person? What should we train? Is this a dead end? We’ve had so many questions and we’ve learned to sit and wait for God’s answer. Usually he gives the expat team and our national partners the same answers, and we don’t even know it until our next biweekly meeting.”

– Listening Movement Leader

It’s a humbling reminder to us that the work belongs completely to the Lord. He knows our steps, and He is the one who has prepared good works for us to step into. How limited are we if we aren’t listening to what He wants for us, in every moment of every day? And if we would stop and humble ourselves to hear from Him, how much more fruitful and abiding could we become?

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity…Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue…a conversation with God.

– Henri Nouwen

From time to time, we’ll update some about our personal lives and ministry here in Thailand. This past weekend, we had the opportunity to travel through the mountains to meet up with one of our closest Thai partners, Talia (name changed for security purposes).

We’re planning to post about our past season of cancer treatment, how we experienced Jesus in that, and the difficult lessons God was giving throughout all of it. Just 12 months ago, while Jenn was in the middle of cancer treatment, I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to continue in the ministry, return to Thailand, or what in the world God had in store for us. We were burnt out, battered, discouraged, lost at sea with no port to return to.

As we were taking the 3-hour drive through the mountains, it hit me that the last time I was taking this kind of drive was the day of Jenn’s seizures that revealed her brain tumor – March 19, 2021.

625 days.

625 days after the scariest day of our lives, He allowed us another opportunity to continue in what He has called us to.

625 days might not seem like a long time for some people, as it’s about 3 months shy of 2 years. And I’m sure it has been a long 2 years for many others. But it was the longest and most difficult 625 days that we’ve ever experienced, and we’re immensely grateful and humbled to be able to continue serving in the ministry we love, in the country we love, with the people we love.

We had such a great two days catching up with Talia! After 1.5 years apart, we got to share in beautiful mountain views, good coffee, and delicious Thai food. But more importantly, we shared with each other similar lessons that God had been teaching all of us through the past season of sickness and suffering.

Talia has an amazing story: after coming to faith, she was passionate about serving God and immediately participated in a church plant. After she got married to her husband John, they moved and eventually joined a church that ended up being a Christian cult. The pastor told them that they could not teach from the Bible, serve in the church, or generally do anything other than show up on Sundays if they were not ‘anointed,’ and the only people who were anointed were those that he picked who had given enough money to the ‘church’ (meaning: to him directly). After a few years trying to endure and acquiesce with the leader’s demands, Talia and her husband realized that what the pastor was saying didn’t line up with what the Bible was saying, and decided to leave that church. They left discouraged and worn out after struggling in that church for 3-4 years.

As they looked around online for another church, they got connected with one of the church planting leaders from the church network that we partner with, who invited Talia and John to one of our quarterly CPM trainings.

When Jenn and I met them, we didn’t know their backstory at all. They actually seemed quite skeptical, asking a lot of questions about obedience to the Word and who has authority in the church. Eventually, they invited me and Jenn to train them and a few other believers in their province, so we went to visit and train them about a month later.

Their demeanor towards us was totally different than the first time – and Talia especially seemed filled with passion and excitement. Our very first vision casting and training is from the Great Commission – that there are 4 commands (go, make disciples, baptize, teach them to obey), and 2 promises (Jesus has all authority, and he will be with us always). For me, I tend to receive the promise that Jesus will be with me as an encouragement. But with our Thai church planters, the promise they cling to is that Jesus has all authority. For Talia, hearing that Jesus has all authority and gives her the command to make disciples was like releasing a river that had been stopped up by a dam for 4 years. She was ready to GO.

Reports began coming in from their area of healings, demons being cast out, new believers coming to faith, new groups of believers formed. Talia was texting us with ministry reports from different areas all around her province and beyond. The next quarterly training we had, she brought along a team of 6 other people to join along.

At one point, Talia and John and their disciples were baptizing several new believers, and some of the members from the previous cult came to harass them. They said, ‘You’re not anointed! You’re not a pastor! Who says that you have the authority to baptize? This isn’t a real baptism.’

And Talia, who I imagine and believe was filled by the Holy Spirit with boldness, replied: ‘The Bible says that Jesus has all authority and that he has given us authority to make disciples and to baptize them in his name!’ And they continued with the baptism.

All seemed to be going well, but we weren’t able to visit Talia’s province for several months as it was one of the hardest hit by Covid restrictions in Thailand. When we reconnected with her at the end of 2020, we heard about multiple areas and multiple generations of churches being planted! But we also heard why we weren’t able to get in touch with her.

5 months before, she was diagnosed with cancer. She was given months to live by the doctor. She said she couldn’t even look at her two young children without breaking down, overwhelmed by the thought of leaving them without a mother and her husband without a wife. At one point, she told us that she had thought, “It’d be better for everyone if I just died. Then my family will get the life insurance money and I won’t have to deal with the suffering.” She said the only thing that kept her going during this time was that there were new believers coming to faith every week through her disciples.

As she hit her breaking point, she asked John to take care of the kids for a few days and locked herself in her office. And she described the experience of that 3 days as ‘the closest to heaven that I’ve ever been.’ She simply worshipped, read the Word, and prayed with Jesus – and surrendered the outcome of her health, life, family, and ministry to him.

3 weeks later, Talia’s sister, who is a nurse in Bangkok, asked her to come get checked up at one of the best hospitals in the country. And when they did the scans – the cancer was gone.

God had healed her.

As we listened to her story in that coffee shop, we rejoiced with her over the new brothers and sisters that had come to faith, cried together over the suffering she had been through, and planned together towards how to help the new streams of churches continue in health and fruitfulness.

But we didn’t get to follow through with any of those plans. A few months later in April 2021, we were being repatriated on a plane back to the States for surgery, radiation, and chemo. And Talia continued to struggle with debilitating health issues over the next year as the hardest spike of Covid closed down any ability to do ministry in person in Thailand for over a year. But as Talia and Jenn went through over a year of medical treatments, they were both texting and praying for each other and mutually encouraging through the lessons God was teaching them about surrendering in suffering.

None of us can guess at the timing of significant health problems hitting at the same time as Covid lockdown, effectively stunting an emerging work of multiplication. To be honest, the person I was 625 days ago might have worried about that. But experiencing a new freedom, a new humility, a newness of resurrection life from the breaking down of this past season has just given me gratitude that we get to be back in Thailand, serving God and pursuing the Great Commission with our Thai friends. And seeing Talia renewed with passion, faith, vision makes me confident that a powerful work of God is around the corner for Thailand.

When we saw Talia this past weekend, she said this: ‘Jenn – I believe that we were sick together, to encourage each other and understand each other, and now to be healed together. But now is a time for us to เริ่มต้นใหม่ – a time to start anew.’

625 days is just shy of two years for most people. But for Talia, Jenn, and myself, it’s a new start; God giving back to us our lives and the opportunity to do ministry.

Please continue to pray for Talia as she has lingering effects from the medical issues of the past season and will need to get a corrective surgery in about 3 months. Pray also for her disciples and churches in 5 different areas as they continue to move forward in a vision for multiplication!

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

Philippians 1:21-26