You Hear God Better Than You Think: Slowing Down to Tune In

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” — John 10:27 (NIV)

A Moment to Pause and Breathe

Let’s start with something that doesn’t ask anything of you. Not your effort, not your expertise—just your breath.

Not the kind of breath you take when you’re multitasking or managing expectations. I mean a real one. A breath that brings your full self into the room. So take it now—slowly, gently, intentionally. Inhale until your lungs stretch just a bit. Hold it as if you’re pausing time. Now exhale, slowly enough that your body begins to feel a little lighter, a little safer, a little more here.

Wherever you find yourself—tucked in the corner of your favorite coffee shop, sitting in a quiet car before walking into work, or scrolling in your kitchen between responsibilities—this moment matters. Not because you’ve checked something off or reached a new level of spiritual performance, but because your spirit is settling into the present. And that’s where the whisper lives.

There are days when the noise gets so loud that even your prayers sound like static. The inner chatter, the second-guessing, the pressure to do and be and fix—it drowns out the gentle voice you’re hoping to hear. And when the volume of life is that high, the whisper of God can feel distant. But here’s the truth: the whisper hasn’t stopped—it’s just waiting for you to lean in.

This isn’t a moment of spiritual hustle. It’s a sacred returning. Returning to presence. Returning to the inner place where God speaks not in demands, but in peace. You don’t have to chase clarity. It’s already close.

I’m here with you like someone who knows what it feels like to try to listen through the noise. And I’m inviting you into a space that is softer, quieter, more real. Together, let’s make some space. Not to force God to say something big—but to remember the voice we often overlook because it’s not always loud. The whisper is still there. You haven’t lost your way. Let’s find our stillness, and tune in.

The Theology of Hearing God

There is something deeply reassuring about how Jesus described His connection with us in John 10:27. He didn’t choose complicated language or spiritual tests. He used a familiar and intimate metaphor—the Shepherd and the sheep.

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

— John 10:27 (NIV)

He wasn’t offering a theology of confusion. He was offering a promise of closeness. He said His sheep—those who belong to Him—listen. Not because they’re perfect. Not because they’ve memorized the Torah or can recite every prophetic word ever spoken over their lives. They listen because they are His. He knows them. And they respond to His voice because it’s familiar.

Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “My sheep try to guess what I’m saying.” He didn’t say, “My sheep strive to earn a word from me.” And He certainly didn’t say, “My sheep decode complicated spiritual signs to find out if I’m near.” He simply said they listen. They know. And they follow.

This kind of listening isn’t transactional—it’s relational. It’s rooted in being known. In being held. In being part of the fold, even when you feel a little lost. The voice of the Shepherd doesn’t need to shout over chaos. It calls you back to peace. It draws you inward. It meets you where you are.

So often what feels like silence is actually an invitation. An invitation to become more aware of what’s already present. An invitation to notice the voice that doesn’t compete with your chaos but waits for you to turn your face, slow your steps, and attune your heart.

And this is where spiritual disciplines like fasting or moments of intentional stillness become sacred space. They’re not performance tools. They are posture tools. They realign our attention. They turn our inner dial toward the frequency of the One who never stopped speaking.

How Stillness Rewires You to Hear

Your body is not separate from your spiritual life—it’s a co-laborer. And neuroscience is finally catching up to what Scripture has been saying for centuries: the way we live, think, and move through our days impacts how we experience the voice of God.

When you’re under stress or constantly moving from task to task, your nervous system activates what’s called the sympathetic response. This is your body’s way of saying, “We’re not safe. Stay on high alert.” It’s the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode—your internal security system working overtime.

In this state, your brain’s priority becomes survival, not discernment. Your ability to sense God’s presence is still there, but it gets muted behind the alarm bells of urgency, fear, or mental fatigue.

But God, in divine wisdom, created the parasympathetic nervous system—a built-in recovery system that helps bring your mind and body back to peace. At the center of that system is the vagus nerve, a long, winding nerve that acts like a communication highway between your brain and your body. When activated through things like deep breathing, stillness, prayer, and silence, the vagus nerve tells your body, “We are safe. We can rest. We can listen.”

In that calm, your awareness shifts. You’re no longer looking for the next problem—you’re available for presence. You’re no longer scanning the horizon for what could go wrong—you’re here, grounded, ready to receive.

Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Newberg found that when we engage in spiritual practices like meditation or prayer, activity increases in the anterior cingulate cortex. That’s the part of your brain responsible for empathy, focus, and emotional regulation. It also quiets the amygdala—the part that overreacts to stress. In short, when you engage stillness, you become more emotionally clear, more spiritually open, and more attuned to what’s happening beneath the surface.

Stillness is not the absence of activity. It’s the presence of attention. And when your body feels safe enough to be present, your spirit becomes open enough to hear.

What This Looks Like in Everyday Life

This isn’t just a concept to admire—it’s a reality that intersects with your Monday mornings and midnight moments. Because let’s face it—most of our lives are lived in the middle of mess and motion.

You might wake up with a dozen things already calling your name. Your phone is buzzing before your feet hit the floor. The news feels heavy. The inbox feels endless. You’re thinking about groceries, finances, family, appointments, and the conversation you’ve been avoiding. In all of that swirling, the thought of tuning in to God’s whisper can feel distant or even unrealistic.

But it’s not about escaping your life—it’s about learning to listen within it.

You can hear God in the carpool line. You can feel His presence during your lunch break. You can receive wisdom in the middle of washing dishes or walking the dog. It’s not about the place—it’s about the posture.

We’ve been conditioned to think that clarity comes in dramatic moments. But often, clarity comes in the ordinary ones. The whisper doesn’t need dramatic background music. It just needs your awareness. It just needs space.

And here’s the thing—when we get used to operating in urgency, we start mistaking peace for boredom. We look for the adrenaline of breakthrough and miss the grace of quiet alignment. But the whisper doesn’t arrive to hype you up. It arrives to draw you deeper. To build trust. To invite you to move, not in panic, but in peace.

You’re not waiting to find the voice of God. You’re learning to notice it. And the more you practice slowing down, the more familiar it becomes.

Let’s Get Honest and Shift the Narrative

If your schedule is constantly packed, if your mind rarely slows down, or if your default mode is productivity at all costs, then stillness will likely feel awkward, even uncomfortable. But that discomfort doesn’t necessarily signal that something is wrong. It usually indicates that something is unfamiliar. And unfamiliarity is the place where true growth and transformation often begin.

In many cases, the root issue is not that we don’t want to hear from God—it’s that we’ve unintentionally trained ourselves to avoid the kind of conditions in which His voice becomes clear. When you feel anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally overloaded, what do you instinctively reach for? Do you scroll your phone without thinking? Do you start organizing, cleaning, or planning to feel a sense of control? Do you binge-watch or overcommit just to stay busy? All of these behaviors are forms of distraction. And while they may seem harmless, over time, they form patterns that push silence—and therefore clarity—farther and farther away.

You may not even realize it, but you could be equating silence with laziness or unproductivity. Stillness, to some, feels wasteful—especially when you're used to measuring your worth by how much you accomplish in a day. But spiritual clarity doesn’t come from busyness. It comes from presence. And presence requires stillness. This isn’t about stopping your life to go live in the mountains. It’s about becoming aware of where you’ve built a lifestyle that no longer makes room for inner clarity.

Here’s a coaching truth that may feel hard but is necessary to confront: many people struggle to hear from God not because they lack spiritual maturity, but because they’ve normalized noise as a form of coping. It’s not that God isn’t speaking. It’s that attention has been outsourced to distraction. And distraction, though convenient and familiar, leads to confusion. Discipline—particularly the discipline of stillness—creates the environment where clarity can grow.

When you build rhythms that allow you to pause, you give your mind and your body time to regulate. Your nervous system shifts out of reactivity, and your soul becomes more receptive. You begin to process instead of panic. You discern instead of doubt. You listen instead of overthink. And it’s in that regulated space that the voice of God becomes distinguishable—not because He just started speaking, but because you’ve finally turned down the static.

Here’s a mindset shift I want you to carry into this week, not just as a quote to repost but as a truth to build into your rhythm: God is not hiding. My nervous system and my habits simply need space to receive.

You don’t have to chase down clarity or manufacture direction. But you do need to create structure and margin that allows clarity to rise to the surface. Margin gives the mind room to breathe. Structure gives your body a place to rest. Together, they create an internal atmosphere where spiritual guidance can land and take root.

This is where coaching meets formation. So instead of stopping at theory, let’s take this insight and translate it into real, daily practice. What you’re about to step into isn’t a spiritual ritual—it’s a structured space to make what you believe actionable. Because transformation doesn’t just happen in what we know. It happens in what we practice.

Let’s move forward. Not with pressure. With intentionality.

The Sacred Five Sensory Reset

Let’s put this into action in a way that doesn’t just sound spiritual but actually meets you in the real rhythms of your day. The goal here is not to escape life to find God—it’s to invite the presence of God into your life exactly as it is. This activity is called The Sacred Five Sensory Reset, and it’s designed to gently bring your body and spirit into alignment so that you can notice God’s nearness with your full being.

Set aside fifteen minutes today—ideally during a time when you’d normally reach for a distraction. Instead of grabbing your phone or turning on music, walk slowly through this five-sense experience. Begin by getting into a quiet space, either inside or outdoors. Sit or stand in stillness and take one slow, steady breath. Don’t rush it. Let this moment be marked as sacred.

Now, engage each of your five senses—one at a time—with full attention and the intention to invite God into what you notice. Start with sight. Look around and choose one thing that is beautiful or surprising—a flicker of sunlight, the color of a wall, the shape of a leaf, the texture of fabric on your clothing. Gaze at it without judgment. Let your eyes rest there. Say quietly, “God, thank You for the beauty in what I see. Teach me to notice Your nearness.”

Next, shift to sound. Close your eyes and listen deeply. Not for something extraordinary, but for something real: the hum of the air, the sound of your breath, distant traffic, or birds outside. As you listen, pray: “God, quiet the noise within me, and let me become more aware of Your whisper.”

Move to touch. Feel the sensation of your hands resting on your lap or the surface beneath you. Notice the texture, the temperature, the weight. As you become more aware of physical contact, let that groundedness remind you: “God, You are as close to me as this touch. I am not disconnected from You.”

Then, focus on smell. Inhale slowly. Even if you don’t have a candle or essential oil nearby, smell the air around you. Is it cool? Warm? Does it carry a memory? Let that breath become a prayer: “God, awaken my senses to what You are doing in this very moment.”

Finally, if it’s accessible, engage taste. Sip tea, water, or a small piece of fruit. Let it linger. Let yourself enjoy it. Pray, “God, You nourish me—even in small, overlooked ways. Help me to taste and see that You are good.”

After you’ve walked through all five senses, sit in stillness again for two minutes. Don’t analyze. Don’t strive. Just breathe and be present. Then, pick up your journal and write what you noticed—not just what happened externally, but what shifted internally. Did you feel more grounded? Did a scripture come to mind? Did peace return to a place that’s usually tense?

This Sacred Five Sensory Reset isn’t just a mindfulness tool. It’s a spiritual invitation. It’s a way of saying: “God, I’m not waiting until everything is perfect to hear You. I’m meeting You in the now—right here, with everything I am.”

Practice this once a day for the next five days. Let it be less about outcome and more about awareness. You may be surprised at just how near God feels when you invite your full body to listen.

Faith-Based Affirmations

I was created to hear the voice of God clearly and consistently.

My mind is aligned with peace, and my spirit recognizes God’s whisper.

I choose presence over pressure, and stillness over striving.

Reflection Questions

What voices or internal noise have I allowed to be louder than God’s whisper?

Where have I mistaken God’s quietness for absence?

What simple rhythm of stillness can I commit to this week to realign with the voice of truth?

Prayer Targets

Holy Spirit, silence every anxious voice that drowns out Your gentle presence.

Jesus, remind me that You draw close in stillness—not in my performance.

God, awaken my spirit to recognize the familiar sound of Your whisper again.

Song of the Day

Let this worship moment open your heart and reset your focus. Turn it on during your Whisper Window or as you prepare for the day. Let the lyrics remind you: God will fill whatever space you make.

Let’s connect. Not just in the comments, not just with a double tap. I want to know what’s been on your heart. Let’s talk, dream out loud, pray if you need it, laugh if you feel like it, just real space for real conversation.

Listen to Meditation

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