What Gets in the Way of Hearing from God?

I admit that I have my own challenges with this concept of hearing from God because I tend to practice impatience and become hyper focused on the solution. It seems like there’s always a deadline or a critical choice between limited options (i.e., scarcity of resources). Something that I’m learning as I lead my own business and make decisions that affect others in or through the business is that deadlines that I or others impose are not an indicator of when I should make a decision.

If I don’t get a clear answer from the Lord on something, I’m learning that letting the deadline expire is okay. This may sound very strange but, if I really believe that God is the owner of all things (Ps 24:1) and His outcome for me is best (Ro 8:28), then I really have to let go of the idea that He’s not concerned about time being a constraint and, more importantly, neither should I. That’s a difficult concept to grasp much less hold on to. We’re so used to working in the constraints of time that waiting is a paradox that only God Himself can teach us.

Sidebar: My wife and I took ballroom dancing lessons years ago and I learned that waiting (from a biblical perspective) and dancing are very similar. Dancing requires: a certain passage of time for things to get executed properly; being mindful of your partner and moving through time and space in an aligned manner together; and, of course, enjoying the experience as we danced. The net result is a process of learning how to dance. I also learned a lot about my wife and enjoyed her as we went through executing the movements. The beautiful result is that we can both savor the experience years later even after the song ended! Now, I know for certain I’m not a good dancer and yet, waiting on God is very similar: God isn’t constrained by time so He allows time to pass to order things beyond my understanding or influence so that things get executed well; He also asked me to pay attention to signals and cues He gives me (to understand or investigate things I might need to prepare for that I might not be aware of) with the intent to keep my attention on Him vs the problem, deadline or issue; and, because He’s interested primarily in my relationship with Him, He wants to enjoy the process of getting to the solution as I stay connected with Him communicating with Him and enjoying my relationship with Him.

What I’m learning (very slowly) is the process of waiting (an aspect of abiding or staying connected to Him) teaches me how to hear from God which allows me to practice an important truth: that He’s still working even when I’m not; see Jn 5:17. I will share some concluding thoughts on this topic in my next post.