Obstacles To Hearing God’s Voice

If you want to continue hearing God, you need to be willing to act on what He says.

Hearing God involves being willing to line up your whole life with His purposes. When you come to God with an attitude of obedience it’s easier to receive what He has to say.

Jesus has opened up the way to God. The only obstacles that exist are those you allow to stay put or subconsciously put in the way.

What are the obstacles to hearing God speak?

The most obvious obstacle is unrepented sin. When you don't acknowledge your sin, or when you persist in sinful behaviour, you create a barrier.

If you’re living in a way that displeases God and have stopped listening to your conscience, your heart becomes hardened. A hardened heart is a result of ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The more hardened your heart, the more difficult it is to hear God and obey what He says.

How can you hear God when you continue to disobey Him?

Have you paid attention to the things He’s revealed before?

If you’ve only made a token effort and aren’t doing what God has said, it’s unrealistic to expect the Holy Spirit to reveal anything else to you. You can’t expect to receive further revelation from God when you aren’t doing the things He’s already revealed.

Do you really expect God to speak? Lack of expectation can keep you from revelation.

There are many reasons why you might struggle to hear God's voice.

Examine your relationship with God.

Are you tuned to the right frequency?

Have you got a good connection? Sin, wrong attitudes and unforgiveness can block communication. So can greed, selfish ambition, pride and your own agenda.

God can and does break through the sin barrier – Adam and Eve still heard God even though they had sinned – but sin that isn’t dealt with can get in the way and make it difficult to hear.

What’s your motivation?

If you’re seeking to hear God for selfish reasons and looking to profit from what you hear or if you’re looking to achieve your own ambitions – God’s unlikely to cooperate no matter how long you pray or fast.

Have you acted on what God has already told you? He’s looking for obedience and faith.

Have you died to self? Are you ready to lay down your own will and your own agenda and sincerely ask the Lord what He wants in the situation?

Are you resentful? Are angry that God isn’t doing things your way? Do you think you know best and are scandalised that God isn’t co-operating with you. Beware; resentment will make you deaf to God’s voice.

Selective hearing can keep you from hearing God. You might not hear because you think God always speaks in a particular way. When God doesn’t speak in the way that you expect you might not recognize that it’s God speaking to you. You need to be open to God speaking in any way He chooses.

Beware of sifting out what you don’t want to hear because it isn’t comfortable or it doesn’t fit with your plans.

Are you impatient? Are you in a rush to hear and not prepared to wait long enough. I wonder how many times you’ve missed God speaking by giving up just as you were about to break through.

Do you want to hear God enough to wait and listen, believing that He will speak?

Are you hungry to hear God?

"If you make Insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer, searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt, believe me, before you know it Fear of God will be yours; you'll have come upon the knowledge of God."

"Yes, beg for knowledge; plead for insight. Look for it as hard as you would for silver or some hidden treasure. If you do, you will know what it means to fear the Lord and you will succeed in learning about God."

Proverbs 2: 3-5

If you've given yourself a spiritual check up, you will hear God if you position yourself to hear. That is God's promise to you.

Be like Habakkuk - stand at you guard post, keep watch and see what He will speak to you.

Habakkuk 2:1-2