HEARING GOD AS A LIFE

1. 1. 1. What did this week’s practice look like for you?
      2. What about this week’s practice was valuable or difficult for you?

DISCUSSION:

1. When was a time that you were living the “with-God life”?

2. Dallas describes the church as the “continuing incarnation.” What are the implications of this image for living a with-God life?

3. John Ortberg quotes Frank Laubach that a mystic is simply someone who believes that if they talk to God he might answer back. What do you believe happens when you talk to God? Has this changed over the last few weeks?

THE PRACTICE PROMPT:

Each practice week, we will be providing a practice prompt for everyone to do on their own throughout the week. We want to invite and encourage each of us to make space to read, reflect, and use each passage as a journaling/written prayer prompt before our next practice week. You could choose to go through these passages individually or in one sitting a couple times.

1. John 10:7-18: The sheep know His voice

2. Ephesians 2:1-9: God made us alive and together

3. John 15:1-11: Abide in Jesus

4. Matthew 6:9-13: The Lord’s Prayer

HEARING GOD IN THE
CONTEXT OF THE KINGDOM

1. 1. 1. What did this week’s practice look like for you?
      2. What about this week’s practice was valuable or difficult for you?

DISCUSSION:

Read Psalm 127:1-2

1. How’s your sleep? How is your sleep related to seeking life in the kingdom of God?
2. Dallas speaks on seeking the Kingdom of God as looking for what God is doing. Where are places that you can seek the Kingdom of God? Are you curious about where God is moving in your life, your city, your work?
3. Dallas said that “Crucifixion [taking up our own cross] is the great door of liberation; it takes you off your kingdom.” What are things in your life that keep you in your own kingdom? 

THE PRACTICE PROMPT:

Each practice week, we will be providing a practice prompt for everyone to do on their own throughout the week. We want to invite and encourage each of us to make space to read, reflect, and use each passage as a journaling/written prayer prompt before our next practice week. You could choose to go through these passages individually or in one sitting a couple times. 

1. Psalm 127: The Lord gives His beloved sleep
2. Psalm 121: Help comes from the Lord
3. Matthew 6:9-13: The Lord’s Prayer

The Still Small Voice

1. What did this week’s practice look like for you?
2. What about this week’s practice was valuable or difficult for you?

DISCUSSION:

Read 1 Kings 19:9-13

1. Check out the chart on the back. What are your thoughts about how God speaks?

Dallas Willard explained that the three lights (circumstances, impressions of the Spirit, and Scripture) were tools to understand what God is saying, but are limited.

1. Have you heard of these three lights before today?
2. What did you think about the limitations of the three lights Dallas mentioned (inadequate for conversational dynamic)?

Dallas Willard describes the three critical components of hearing from God as tone, spirit, content. 

1. Which of these have you personally experienced to be true/of value?
2. What are your thoughts on these three?

At the end of the discussion Richard Foster reads the following quote from Thomas Kelly, “Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming. We need not get frantic. He is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well.”

1. What sorts of small shifts need to take place in your life rhythms to make space to listen for the still, small voice of God? 
2. How can we pursue this and involve one another as a community in this?

THE PRACTICE PROMPT:

Each practice week, we will be providing a practice prompt for everyone to do on their own throughout the week. We want to invite and encourage each of us to make space to read, reflect, and use each passage as a journaling/written prayer prompt before our next practice week. Specifically starting this week, we want people to begin to take a few moments of silence at the end of their reading and prayer to invite God to speak. In the bonus video for this session (which you are welcome to watch!) Willard talks about how he goes about making space and aiming to hear from God. We have included those below the scriptures for the week. 

1. John 10:27-30: The sheep know His voice
2. Matthew 14:23: Jesus prays alone
3. Matthew 6:9-13: The Lord’s Prayer

Willard’s Approach is:  1) asking God to speak, 2) watching for what happens over the next few days, 3) listening for a particular kind of thought, 4) if the thought is unclear, ask for clarity, 5) if it seems you are hearing nothing – ask if there is anything inside of you preventing you from hearing, 6) if nothing is heard at that point consider that the decision might be yours to make.