This week's exercise will give each of you the opportunity to see how God is constantly speaking to you in day to day life and to sharpen your ability to recognize when he speaks to you.

PURPOSE

PROCEDURE

Easiest:

Pair off in groups of two.

Stop and review the previous week, looking for ways God spoke to you during it. Share them with your partner. As your partner shares ways that God spoke to them during the week, it may spark your memory of other ways God spoke to you.. if that happens, share that with your partner as well; it may remind them of other ways God communicated with them during the week. Continue sharing back and forth until both of you have shared everything that comes to mind.

Now begin to ask yourself (and each other) questions like:

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• What were you doing when God spoke to you? Were you in quiet time with him, or were you busy doing day to day activation? If possible, identify your activity for each communication you listed, and then see if there are any patterns.

• What was your mental state when God spoke that to you? Were you in communion with God or Worship? Or were you upset and crying out to God, were you happy or mad or frustrated or were you just concentrating on mundane things when God suddenly broke in? If possible, identify the mental state for each type of communication, and look for any patterns.

• Were there ways God spoke to you that were easy to identify/notice that God was speaking to you?

• Were there ways God spoke to you that were harder for you to notice.. ways you almost missed.

• Did you notice any patterns of ways God may commonly speak to you? (For instance, when I first started learning to recognize God's voice, he would frequently speak to me through object lessons.. pointing something out to me in the natural and then showing me the spiritual application. Another example is that God used to speak to me by repetition.. first I'd read something in a Bible verse, then later that day, I'd hear it in a song, then a bit later someone would mention it to me and maybe an hour later I'd see it an a magazine article... finally I got the idea that God was trying to tell me something.)

The point of asking all these questions is to look for patterns that might help you more easily identify when God is speaking to you.

Then pray together with your partner and ask God to make you more aware of him speaking to you.. to make the patterns he uses to communicate really jump out at you.

Medium:

Begin this early in the morning. Pray and invite God to orchestrate (e.g., plan) your day for you and to make you aware of his leading and direction in it. Try to pay special attention to details, asking yourself if "this" or "that" is God's hand. Feel free to pray frequently, asking God what He is doing and how you can do it with Him.

At night, before you go to bed, put aside some quiet time and ask God to review your day with you. Ask him to point out those cases where you heard his voice (and review whether or not you obeyed him and what your attitude was when you heard him ... e.g., did you obey gladly or obey grudgingly or did you decide you were not going to do what he asked?) Ask God to reveal to you the times throughout the day (if any) where you missed his voice all together. Ask Him how you can be more sensitive to hearing him next time, what types of queues to listen for, and ask him to alert you next time you "miss him".

Then, for the activation, share these with your partner, and apply the same set of questions (looking for patterns) that were specified in the "easiest" description.

Most Effort:

Do the "medium" effort exercise for an entire week.

Jot down notes about this each day.. what you heard, what you missed, ways God spoke to you, etc.

At the end of the week, review your notes and evaluate whether it got easier or harder to hear God's voice as the week progressed, or if it stayed about the same.

For the activation, share with your partner, and apply the same set of questions (looking for patterns) that were specified in the "easiest" description.