Take a moment and think about your relationship with God. How often is there silence in your conversation? How often are you bringing things to him? Does God though have space to speak?

As a youth pastor I once had a youth come to me and say that God isn’t speaking to them. That they want to hear God’s voice. I said, “Often it’s not that God isn’t speaking, but that we aren’t listening.” So after discussing we realized that in their life they woke up listening to music, listened to an iPod on the bus, sat in school texting, played on their phone on the way home, watched TV, and went to bed. The point is their life was so full there was no space to listen.

So for me a path that leads to God is creating spaces to listen for God. A Hebrew sage Solomon ibn Gabirol wrote,

“The beginning of wisdom is silence. The second stage is listening.”

So for me I realized that rarely do I not have music, sound, or noise on. In the car I listen to podcasts, at my office I listen to music, at home the Olympics are currently always on. So I started to create times to listen. Car rides just with me and God. Lunches outside with the breeze. Moments of silence in my life where I simply wait and listen.

And I think you can do the same. We need to be like Samuel where he says, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10). So what can you do to listen? What creates noise in your life that you can turn down? Because I do believe God is listening and we will hear it if we start to listen…