The Secret to Hearing God's Voice Every Day with Eric Amos

Prayer can feel confusing when you’re doing all the talking, carrying all the pressure, and still wondering if God is actually near. We wanted something more honest and more practical, so we sat down with Eric Amos, founder of Listening Prayer Workshop, to talk about how listening prayer turns faith from ideas into relationship.

Eric shares his journey from a more intellectual, classic evangelical background into a lived experience of hearing God’s voice. We explore why listening prayer is not about being “extra spiritual”, it’s about creating space for a real conversation with Jesus, then learning how to recognise His tone and character over time. Along the way we talk about seasons of waiting and singleness, and why God’s stability, kindness, and joy matter when life feels unresolved.

We also go deep on inner healing and spiritual formation. When unmet needs for comfort, belonging, worth, and security stay buried, we reach for validation in relationships and end up exhausted or disappointed. Eric explains love as reconnecting to God as the source, building a secure attachment bond that reshapes identity and frees us to love others from overflow. We name common prayer traps like shame and the Santa Claus mindset, then offer a healthier framework for discernment, journaling, and daily “practicing His presence.” You’ll hear concrete stories from listening prayer practice, plus a clear overview of Eric’s free Zoom prayer workshops (Listening Prayer 101, praying for others, and intercession). 

Whether you’re longing to hear God’s voice more clearly, grow in discernment, or simply experience a deeper relationship with Jesus, this conversation offers practical tools and hope for the journey. If this episode encouraged you, be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, and let us know what spoke to you most. To learn more about Eric’s Listening Prayer Workshops and free resources, visit http://www.listeningprayerworkshop.com

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Eric Amos

Renee Richel 0:04

Hello, loves. Welcome back. I am so excited to be sitting here with Eric Amos. He is a business owner of this incredible concept and company called Listening Prayer Workshop. He is an owner, investor, problem solver, and profound inner healing journey that began in his early 20s. He has dedicated his life to studying practice and praying ministry and has had this business since 2016 when he launched this ministry to help so many hearts. So I am honored to be sitting here with you today and all that you do for your audience and just God's children. Welcome.

Eric Amos 0:49

Thank you. It's a privilege to be here.

How Listening Prayer Began

Renee Richel 0:52

So I would love for you to share with our audience what the purpose of listening prayer ministry is all about and how it began.

Eric Amos 1:02

Sure. Well, maybe I'll start with our history, just because I think that gives you a little flavor for what kind of how we became what we are. Um it started back for me back in like 1997. So it's been a while. I was an undergrad, and uh that was when I first began to experience listening prayer in a college fellowship context. And I came more from a background of sort of Baptist Presbyterian, a little bit more kind of classic evangelical um background. And that this idea of hearing God's voice wasn't really a thing for me growing up. But then I got into this context where people were starting to try to practice this idea of hearing God, I started to experience it. And it was like for me a very much a game changer. Like it was, because I felt like faith was a little bit more like a little more theoretical. It's more about what we believe, our theology, things of that nature, a little more intellectual. And when I started to, and I wasn't a prayer guy at all, it wasn't all that interesting to me. Uh, I was had an engineering background, and so I was very practical and functional. It's like, well, I want to do things that work and make sense. And prayer was felt a little bit like, well, I don't know, you know, is this worth my investment or my time? When I started to experience God in prayer, uh, that like I said, it just opened up a whole new world for me. Prayer became very real and relevant. Um, actually became something that would I would say is one of my favorite things to do, which is a very strange thing for me to say, but you know, God works in mysterious ways. And so that kind of started me on a journey of maybe like a parched desert that started to experience a little bit of rain. And it's just like, oh my God, what is this? I need more of this. And so I just started to, I think, look uh for opportunities to practice hearing God's voice and do it with other people. And so it's kind of kind of a journey of trying to figure out who would do this with me and do it on a regular because I realized I need more of it in my life. And so I think it was around 2014 I found a church that was a new church and it was a new church for me. And it seemed like folks were in the same kind of camp that I was looking for this kind of real experience with God. And they're coming from a similar background. So I was like, hey, this listening prayer thing is a good fit for folks who are new to this, want to have a grounded, not not, you know, kind of a natural, uh normal kind of way of doing this. It's like entering in the shallow end of the pool, so to speak. So we started to do that sort of organically there, and it took off. People loved it. I was loving it, and so it just started to mature into us having to figure out well, how do we teach this? How do we scale this? Because we were having like 50 people show up to these gatherings. It's like, okay, how do you do that in a way that's constructive? And then a few years into that, I just I felt like I was kind of saying, um, it's time to take this out, and it belongs to something beyond just a single church. And so we formed the nonprofit around. And it's been about we're going on 10 years. So, but yeah, we're as a ministry, we've I would say started out just like how do we get people doing this together, learning to hear God's voice. And then I started to feel a particular calling to what we call like inner healing and deliverance prayer, which is taking this kind of experience and allowing God to talk to us about these kind of deeper hurts and wounds and uh you know emotional trauma and things of that nature, uh, to work through and process those things and come out a healthier person. And so we started working on that um as well. So the R mention really covers the kind of full gamut of like the just the basics of hearing God's voice, all the way to kind of obviously very highly advanced applications of prayer and in terms of you know inner transformation, heart transformation. And uh as and so I've I've kind of see what we do as really like a, I would say kind of a really it's about kind of Christian discipleship. How do you actually help people experience God in a way that's highly transformative in the deep ways that matter? Because it really leads to like I would say deep just deep maturing and transformation, moving past old wounds, hurts, patterns, and whatnot, and becoming kind of released into the fullness of what it means to be a thriving Christian, I would say.

Renee Richel 4:47

Yeah. Well, and then when you leave church, right, how do you continue what you learned throughout your week before you then go back in on Sunday? So for people that aren't involved in a life group, I love this because it's also easy, right? It's right at your fingertips and you can just get plugged in and feel so accepted. So I'm so excited to share this with our audience while they're in the season of waiting. I love that. So thank you, first of all, for you know, listening to God and that this is your calling because it's just it's so needed, especially with all things going on today. So two of our core beliefs in our ministry is that God's plan cannot be um thwarted. He is complete, he is in complete control. And also God's value, you know, is a process. Value is like the processes you're going through all the phases and stages. As you said, you learned a lot of this in your 20s, right?

Seasons Of Waiting And Singleness

Renee Richel 5:44

How can that specifically encourage those listeners that are walking through a season of singleness and trying to figure things out?

Eric Amos 5:52

That's a good question. Um, and not an easy one either. But I would say I'll speak a little bit from my experience as someone who's walked with a lot of people through, I would say call it long-form conversation with God. Because a lot of what we do is helping people sit down and actually have a conversation with God. And I'll sit and watch people have that conversation for an hour to three hours. I think the longest one I've done was like seven hours or something. And walk, see God walk people through really difficult things from their past, even you know, present circumstances. And the thing I've noticed about God is like just uniformly, always consistently like Jesus is never bothered by or overwhelmed by anything. Like obviously he's present and empathetic to what people have gone through, what they're dealing with, but he's I would say large and in charge. He's just he's just stable, joyful, hopeful. Just the ways he can turn even the worst things into our good and redeem things is just it's to me, it's just awe-inspiring to see this sort of on display as he works with people. And they're just sort of those deep, really deep and precious and sensitive places in our hearts. And so I've kind of grown to be very confident in God's character and abilities and capacity in terms of his ability to take all this and make good of it. But in my own life, I'm, you know, I'm I'm single. I just turned 50, so I hit the big marker.

Renee Richel 7:07

I was gonna ask you, but I was like, I was gonna wait till the end to ask that question for our audience out there listening because I definitely wanted to learn more about you because we might have the perfect bride for you in our uh pool of God's children that He is constantly bringing us, the most incredible, incredible ladies' hearts that are seeking for something, just it sounds like you are too. So we will have to have another side conversation about all of that. What is the majority of what would you say is your audience? Or, you know, I saw in your and I'll have to tell everybody, you know, where to go to find this out and check this out, and we're gonna put this out to everybody. But like your events are a little bit for everybody. You've got family, right? You have singleness. Like tell me a little bit about your demographic of audience.

Eric Amos 7:50

Yeah, it's kind of dependent on the format and where we're at, but I would say um most folks that kind of stick to us as community tend to be more singles and fairly wide range of age, but oftentimes 30s to you know, I would say maybe 60, something like that. And now they're on the Zoom, we're you know, we're pretty Zoom workshops we do attract people from across the country. So they're usually small, fairly intimate. We prefer to be a little more focused and go deeper with the people that God brings us. And then just spending on other environments, uh, you know, we've come into churches and things, and obviously the demographics and the will will vary depending on uh that environment. But really, this I think what we have to offer is really for everyone. But I think when in terms of who God's brought us, it's been a lot of folks who are um who are single, actually.

Renee Richel 8:33

And okay, well, we attract like-minded people, right? So that's kind of who you're speaking to in that demographic of life right now as well. So uh that's great. I am so excited about this.

God As Source Of Love

Renee Richel 8:46

So you also stated in your list of ministry values that love is center in all of what you do. Can you unpack that for me or for everybody listening? Of what does love truly look like? And I would love to hear this from your single side of things, because of course we have our look of what that looks like, watching and matching hearts to fall in love.

Eric Amos 9:08

Sure. Um, I'm gonna come from this from uh, I would say an inner healing perspective. So I'm gonna hopefully it'll be helpful that as a way to think about things. And the way I see it is I basically the the human problem is I think comes down to the fact that we've been separated from the source of love with the fall, with just the human brokenness. You know, God is a source of love and we struggle to connect to him and receive that. And obviously, Jesus provides a way back to him. But I think practically speaking, what happens is we have unmet needs that we don't know how to get met through God. God wants to meet them, God wants to love us, but we don't know how to receive that. It's it hasn't worked over from our you know past backgrounds or whatever. We don't know how to do that. So we look for love. We look to get our needs met in all the wrong places, so to speak. And so I think a lot of this, what God's wanting to do, and I think the whole thing that follows and what we're invited into in terms of the Christian experience of having a good, flourishing life, is to learn to tap God's love. And to me, functionally, that looks like allowing God into those deep places that we have unmet needs and learn to get those needs met through Him. So that could be a need to belong or a need to be respected or need to be comforted. It could be you know physical things like security and provision. It can be these deeper things. Usually when it boils down to the deep base of it, it's like a need to be unconditionally loved and accepted to be valid, to know we have value and worth, that we're blessed in our authentic identity. And some of these deep places, it's like we go looking for validation outside in a lot of dysfunctional places where we consume each other or look to things like marriage and relationship to kind of meet these needs, um, where actually these needs can really only be met by God. And he may flow through these other kind of other you know, relationships and things like that, but he's the source. And so we're talking about love, we're trying to figure out in prayer, how do we actually get reconnected to God as source, source of everything we need to sustain life. So that's kind of how I think about it. What's interesting is you start to uh realize that what God actually wants in prayer is to build what I would call like an attachment bond with God. So it's like learning to like that, plug our umbilical cord into God and let that source of living water, that love, life flow from Him to us. As we build that secure bond, then what you start getting to the brain science of this, some of the stuff, is we start to actually bond with another party who's delighted to see us, which God is, we have like what the brain science would call like identity circuitry, which says it's kind of like our definitions and understands of who we are, what what our past has formed us into, for instance. And that's pretty hard to change. Like this is kind of the heart structure of who we are, it's hard to change. But when we when we start to connect to God in this way, it opens that up and we start to naturally become like God. And so what we're talking about in terms of like the core foundation of everything is to kind of get secure in God's love and then let that naturally begin to transform us into something that looks more like Jesus. And what starts to happen then is we start to become someone who can partner with God, who can be trusted to work in the with the kingdom work with him. We start to see other people through his eyes, which is to love them. Once you start seeing people in prayer and how God sees them, you can't help but just kind of like be invested in their benefit, you know, in what God.

Renee Richel 12:27

Yeah, well, your judgmental hat comes off, right? Because you now see somebody so differently, which is so huge.

Eric Amos 12:35

And then you end up with basically you have this radically foundation, you become someone who can begin to love as Jesus loved people, which is to like basically like what we call it voluntary self-sacrifice because you're getting filled and your needs are getting met by God. And so now you're free, sort of out of that overflow, to love and serve and pour out into others. And to me, if you want to be in a healthy marriage and be a parent, you're you're you can't be sucking life out of your spouse and out of your kids. That's very toxic. Like you want to be a person who can serve and and serve your partner and serve your kids and pour out into them. And if you have two partners who are doing that for each other, that's a very, very beautiful thing. Especially that then that flow flows out into the the people around you, it flows into the kids. And to me, that's what to me that all starts with tapping God as source of love, yeah, yeah. Which percolates and ends up setting it up for for a successful marriage relationship and just relationships in general. Yeah.

Renee Richel 13:31

Yeah, because if you're not personally fueled, right? Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but if you're not personally fueled, you have no energy, you're exhausted, you cannot help anybody else.

Eric Amos 13:42

Yep. And a lot of times we're there's a lot of pressure in the church to say, Oh, you have to be serving, you have to be doing, you're supposed to be pouring out. But if you haven't learned to tap God as source, you will burn out. Like you, you have we have limited love tanks. And we leak. Uh, and if we're not getting that tapped off and filled with God continually, we can you can't just pour out of your own strength because you will run out very quickly. So the secret to all but coming back to this kind of love concept is like I think the core endeavor of prayer and the Christian life in general is the foundational piece is learning to uh really tap God's love and experien in an experiential way. Because that's something our hearts can actually receive and benefit from.

Renee Richel 14:20

I love that you say that. Yeah, because if you don't experience it and you don't feel it, how can you actually love somebody else unconditionally? People think they can, but like all day long, you know, we're asked advice like, what would you say to this? And I'm like, read the Bible, stop bringing terrible dating advice out there. And we are about to do a podcast. I'd love your input on this, but for men to start teaching men how to be, you know, godly biblical husbands, right? And no different than women, right? How to relinquish some of that control so that God can actually allow them to be the bride that He has made your husband to be. And just it's so crazy, all the bad advice out there. And I'm always like, just go to the Bible when you seek what should I do and be more like Christ, right? In every area of your life. So I am, I love this. I love what you're preaching, what you're teaching, and what you're doing for so many people. So, you know, there's a lot of temptations out there, right? Like all the time.

Common Prayer Traps To Avoid

Renee Richel 15:25

So, what temptations do you see in modern modern Christians that are falling into when it comes to spiritual prayer practice? And how do you help them navigate the needs and what they need to for adjustment?

Eric Amos 15:42

I thought this was a great question, very practical, which I appreciate. Half a dozen things I see that I figured I would work through just I think I think would be helpful for your audience. The first I think is just I I see is in a lot of the church, we feel like God is distant or uninvolved or angry at us. And usually the things like we I think I call it maybe the shame factors that we feel there's something wrong with us, and we have to get our act together before we can come to God. Sure. And I would just like to say that that is uh not not true of who God is, that's not true of what God uh invites us into. He takes us just as we are. Prayer is a place to come with our mess and help allow God to help us sort it out. We don't have to go fix it. Um, he's very uh interested, he wants to help. And so I just say the maybe first thing is don't just don't self-disqualify yourself uh from going to the uh and receiving the the benefits of prayer. Um we're all a mess, we have a lot of things that we need to work through. We need all we all need a lot of help, and prayer is that that space where we can really experience that help from God. So uh run, don't walk. Bring all your job and help. That's the that's the first thing.

Renee Richel 16:52

Yeah, I mean God forgives us.

Eric Amos 16:55

Yes, that's the whole point, right? It's the good news because you know, it's this wasn't out of our own effort that this works, it's because of what Jesus did, right? So he knows he's not surprised by anything that we have gotten into or the ways we struggle. He's very acquainted with all of it. And he's not put off by it. He's when you start to experience God in prayer, you realize that he's the kindest, most loving being you will ever encounter. So, like far kinder than we are to ourselves. And so if you want to be loved well, this is the go to Jesus, you will not read it. Um it is it feels great. The second thing here I would say is that I would see this is pretty common in churches. I think we kind of get into a kind of like a Santa Claus narrative or a Santa Claus trap. Uh we start to see God as Santa, and we see prayer as like us having to like check off our uh Christmas list. You know, here's all the things I want God to give me. And if I'm a good boy or a good girl, then I'll get what I want. And I think that's I think just an appropriate view of how God operates. He is a good father, and it's it is okay to ask for things, but prayer is meant to be much more than that. He wants it to be really about going back to cultivation is really a deep bond of relationship. And out of that place, you know, we can have these conversations, but it's not like it's not we're really prayer isn't a way to manipulate God into giving us what we want.

Renee Richel 18:11

It's so true. I remember as a little kid, I was like, Lord, if you just help me pass this test, or if you have this boy like me, I will be the best child ever, right? Or whatever, all the little things that you tell yourself. When at the end of the day, you should be asking for clarity and direction and discernment in his timing.

Eric Amos 18:28

Yes. Much better requests, yes. Yes.

Renee Richel 18:32

Which takes all the pressure off of you and puts it on God because I always say, if I have a terrible day, that was God's plan for my day. So you know what? I'm gonna ask for a better day tomorrow and you move on.

Eric Amos 18:45

People like to ask questions like God, where were you in the day? How do you feel about what's going on? What do you want to teach me about? What happened? What are you doing in me through this? You know, those kind of questions would be really helpful.

Renee Richel 18:53

Yeah, I love that.

What The Workshops Look Like

Renee Richel 18:55

Okay. So tell me all about the workshops and really what it entails and what powerful experiences people can encounter by, you know, plugging into one of these workshops.

Eric Amos 19:06

We kind of rotate through workshops. So on Zoom right now, we have four that we rotate through. We've also done series on like inner healing and deliverance and things sort of topically from time to time. But basically, our goal is to create a little bit of context to teach some things just to help people uh come to understand, get grounded in scripture, come understand how to think about these things so they can enter into it and feel safe. So we kind of create some structure and some guardrails. But then really we want to spend the bulk of the time, maybe at least half the time, uh practicing this stuff and doing so in a way that you can practice it, but then we can also share and debrief and learn from each other kind of how this works. Because we all are a little different, we hear God differently and experience God differently. So it's kind of fun and very, I think it's very edifying to see what God can do sort of corporately at the same time as He's kind of working in each person. So, you know, our 101 workshop is kind of our on-ramp workshop where we just kind of teach the basics of listing prayer. And it's really more focused on um interpersonal communication with God. And then our two one is a little bit more, we kind of cover the question of like, okay, what God, what happens, what do we do when God starts talking to us about other people? And kind of, you know, labeling those buckets. And we in that case, we're telling dealing with things like, well, God's, you know, what if God's asking me to be a messenger and relay a message to someone else, or if I'm listening for another person, how do I handle that? So that's a very beautiful place to practice and get some feedback. And and I'm more of an engineer, I like to set up tests and ways to, you know, feedback's really helpful for any kind of learning process. So it's like, how do you get how do you set people up for good, I guess, good success in terms of being able to try something and then get some kind of feedback to say, okay, this was God, this wasn't. Um, where can I grow and improve? And so we're trying to, and then our third one we usually do is that intercession. So we're basically listening to God for how to pray for as a group, and then kind of working as a group to you know, discern what God's leading us into, and um, and then and then we get to pray kind of for the group or person, or usually we just has it has this praying for the church, but then we get to kind of and then enter into prayer uh in a way that's um I'd say very empowering because we feel like, oh, God's led us into praying for this person or for this group in this way. And so we can join in with a lot more confidence that what we're gonna pray is uh gonna have benefit.

Renee Richel 21:15

Sure. And I love that you're walking everybody through kind of the steps of prayer because I remember I was introduced through my church years ago, uh, through somebody that came in from out of the country and basically was teaching us all how to pray. And I was like, how hard is it to pray? But I really don't know how to pray. And I it was so beneficial. And I got partnered up with the pastor's wife of all people. And I'm like, great, I've never prayed for somebody in my life before. And then, Lord, this is who you partner me with. Long story short, she's like, Renee, just close your hands, hold, close your eyes, hold my hands, and just start talking to me like I'm a girlfriend. And I was like, Oh, well, I can do that, right? And so, like, I love that you give people kind of stepping stones. Of how to even walk into this world that seems easy, but it's so uncomfortable for so many people. So they don't know how to do it with power, right? That then they hear the Holy Spirit. So I can't stop raving about how I'm excited I am about this because there's so many people that aren't doing this.

Eric Amos 22:19

We do, we will pray at God at times, but a lot of times what we're focused on is like the other side of it. Just like, how do you, how does God speak to us? And what's interesting is it does make it very interpersonal, why you were kind of saying it's just being natural. It's talking to God is just like talking to a friend. But it's also being able to hear and listen to the other party, right?

Renee Richel 22:35

Yeah.

Eric Amos 22:35

And so um I've had some really

Real Stories Of Hearing God

Eric Amos 22:37

interesting experiences. I'll share a few just to kind of illustrate what can happen. Maybe I'll start with the basic, simple one is I had a friend, two friends came to this workshop early on. We uh and they were listening for each other and they didn't know each other, they're very new to this. And one person sends the just just the phrase Tinkerbell. Like, I don't know why I'm getting this, I just get Tinkerbell. Does this mean anything to you? It turned out that the other person that was her nickname in growing up, Tinkerbell, because her last name was similar, which he didn't know that. Okay. But okay, this whole idea is like, okay, he didn't know, but then he was God showed him something that meant a lot to this other person. And it just in the for the other person, it was like, God knows you, he sees you, and he just gave you this little bit of a you know experience to say that hey, I love you, you're seen. This kind of thing can be very simple, and it's not like sophisticated, like I have to know how all these, you know, how to orate um and say all these things. It's just like, hey, I'm experiencing something, this is what I'm getting. And it's like God just boom, just kind of does the rest in a very profound way. I had something similar, it was maybe just to demonstrate how it can be a little more sophisticated as well. I was at a community group environment, this was years ago, but but and some some someone came to the group who I didn't know, no one knew her. And it was kind of our we were trying to do some of this kind of listening in that context. And so we her being new, we said, Hey, can we listen and pray for you? And we didn't really have any prayer requests or anything, we just kind of listened for her. And I found myself, I'm more visual when I pray, so I'm seeing things in my imagination and whatnot. Um, and I began to sense and it almost felt like I was on an island, and I was sitting in the sand, it was just like super peaceful, and I could see Jesus walking a beach, sort of on a distant, it was kind of a distant beach. He was out there walking. I was like, I don't know why I'm seeing this, but it feels really real. And so I was like, okay, you know, um, it was my my turn to share. I was like, hey, I just feel like I was on an island and I could, you know, I just I don't know, does that mean anything to you? And she says her jaw kind of dropped open, and I was like, okay, something's going on. And she's like, whenever I'm scared, I go to my island. It's like her little inner place that she would retreat to just to kind of unplug and deal with the anxiety and fear and whatever. And just I'm and I was like, Oh, I think what God's saying is like, I think I'm I was like, I think I'm on your island. I think Jesus wants to let you know is that he wants to be there with you, and and just to say you're not on your island alone. And if you're whatever you're dealing with, he's he knows and he wants to walk through that with you. And I think it was just super encouraging for me, it was super encouraging for her, and I you know, I I all I did was try to be available and just kind of share what I was experiencing, and and it was a beautiful thing for both of us. So it's just fun to see. Like, I was actually had a prayer appointment for myself this morning, and I started to experience Jesus in my imagination. Jesus showed up as a plumber wanting to work on my kitchen faucet, was sort of the experience. He's like, I want the water to flow better, there's a something's not flowing right. And so he he was just Jesus coming in dressed as a plumber, which was hilarious. It's always hilarious to me. He's like, He's because he's God is uh Jesus, in my experience with listening praise, like he's very uh he has a great sense of humor. Yeah, so he's not the uptight, serious um that we can kind of think of. You know, God's obviously, you know, uh God is high and should be respected, but he's also very with us and um knows us and can speak in ways that we understand and can really kind of lighten our hearts. So he shows up as this plumber and he he starts, he taps on the uh the faucet and a little bee pops out that was blocking the flow. And then he took, I was like, Well, what's this about? And he took me back to a memory where I was when I was I think in I was a teenager playing Badman in our backyard, having a good time, feeling kind of free. And I stepped on a bee and was stung.

Renee Richel 26:28

Oh my goodness.

Eric Amos 26:30

And I was so I was in back, and then I was like, But just where are you taking me here? And he's like, and I saw Jesus and myself me sitting on the ground nursing the beasting, and Jesus sitting, coming and sitting next to me, and just kind of saying, I I'm here with you in this pain.

Renee Richel 26:46

Yeah, and it was just like a memory to go back to, yeah, to remember that emotion you had that time.

Eric Amos 26:52

And so it was just God saying, Hey, I'm with you, I understand the pain of it. Um, and really what it was kind of saying in this kind of to bring us through, he's like saying, Hey, like life has a way of dishing out kind of disappointment and pain. Things don't go well, and I know it's sort of sapped the joy of life for you. It's like I'm here with you in that thing if things haven't worked out the way you know you've wanted or whatever, but we're changing seasons here, and it's time to get up and play again. So he's like, Come and play with me again. And we started, you know, just sensing it. He and I playing Badman and that involving into sort of what's coming in this next season. So I share that just to say that this is what can happen in prayers, like it's not just a theoretical conversation, but all of a sudden they're sensing and seeing things, and God's pulling back from you know, working through things that have happened in the past and like showing how he feels about what we've experienced, how he wants to help us in that, what he's invited us to move into. And it's when it touches the heart in that way, it actually helps you make that shift and change and move through. It's like releasing, in that case, like I had to release some pain and disappointment and allow him to help me do that, and then embrace the idea that hey, it's okay to move forward. I don't have to stay here and it's time to kind of play and be free again. And he's like cleaning out the sink as the plumber, and he's like, all good, the water's flowing again. And like, you know, it's like, okay, yeah.

Renee Richel 28:13

So it's just I'll be back when there's the next clog, right?

Eric Amos 28:16

Exactly. So this is this is kind of just an example of what can happen in these kinds of experiences, and really in our workshops, we're trying to create space and opportunity for our participants to have that kind of experience with God.

Renee Richel 28:29

Yeah, no, I love that. And it's what you're doing too, because I feel like there's so much more depth. We have a course called Love Starts With You with God, and it goes through your timeline of utero to who you are today. And there's so many things that people don't even know that we're little blimps on the radar, just like you're talking about, that emotion that God wants us to remember because it's something that we either shoved, stuffed, or never dealt with that. Then we don't understand and keeps coming up in any type of relationship you have, whether it be work, whether it be home, whether it be with your kids, whether it be your spouse, whether it be whatever, right? Or that's the blockers of why we're not finding that person. So by having depth deep conversations, I love to hear these stories of what it will pull out, to then trust in him in every way, clean it all up so the line is right clear. So then your pathway to who it is you're supposed to be with is also there's no question, right? So I I love that.

Simple Ways To Practice Daily

Renee Richel 29:32

Okay. So what I that my so I think you kind of answered it, but like baby steps that someone can take to prioritize prayer.

Eric Amos 29:41

Yeah, I would say if you have time, come to a workshop like ours and experience.

Renee Richel 29:44

That's what I was thinking you were gonna say too. So I would agree.

Eric Amos 29:47

Because that was a safe way, it's a set apart time to try it. And if you're like me, once you taste it, you want more. So like when you have something that starts to work and it makes a difference in your life, you find ways to prioritize it essentially.

Renee Richel 29:59

How frequent are your workshops and how long are they?

Eric Amos 30:03

We do them twice a month on Zoom. They're free, open, all they run around, depending on the workshop, usually around two hours. So wow.

Renee Richel 30:10

Okay.

Eric Amos 30:13

But we do have folks who stay up late and do the East Coast thing. And if there's enough folks out on the East Coast that want to do something earlier, I could arrange it.

Renee Richel 30:20

Is it ever uh recorded in case you miss it or something so that people can still not lose out?

Eric Amos 30:27

We generally don't just we have recorded the teaching component, but I feel like the the real magic is actually in the practice and the experience.

Renee Richel 30:35

True, because you're hearing people's stories live firsthand. Got it. Okay.

Eric Amos 30:40

Well, honestly, if there's folks that can't come, like and there's enough folks, we can always arrange to to run something for for folks in a time that does work. I'm I'm open to that. Okay.

Renee Richel 30:49

Well, we are definitely going to talk more as we continue to uh have conversation.

Eric Amos 30:54

And for those who maybe can't do this or want to try some things in the meantime, I would say just recognize that God is always with you. And that prayer to me at the base level is really just about learning to look for God in the present moment because he's here, he's around you, and just being aware of his presence and kind of practicing his presence is the way they describe that. Call it abiding in Jesus. It's just this idea of hey, God's with me, he's going through life with me, he wants to help, he wants to be involved. So just look for ways like, hey, like I'm struggling with this work problem. I've got this challenge. Jesus, how do you want to help me with this? What you know? Just look to include him. He wants to be involved. And it's just you don't have to stop and really, you know, take a half hour to block out. Just it's just becoming like more, hey, as I do life, how do I start to have eyes that begin to recognize maybe where God is around me, invite him to to speak into what's happening, invite him to be um present with you to help? And I think you'll find that some things start to shift and change. And of course, if you do have devotional time, if you're in scripture, taking time in the morning to pray or whatever, you can we like to ask Jesus questions. So it's like, as you're in scripture, Jesus, is there anything here you want to highlight for me? How do you feel about what's going on here? If you're journaling, share your heart. Jesus, this is how I'm feeling right now. Feel good. How do you want to help me? How do you feel about what I'm sharing with you? And just see what he if he responds. I think it's a lot of times we can think about prayer sort of like being like it's about guidance or it's about the business side of things. Already in my view and experience has been that he's he's wanting the heart relationship, the heart to heart, sharing the feelings, passions, desires, you know, really getting to the sharing the deep places within us. He wants to know us in that way. He wants us to experience being known like that. But he also wants to share his heart. What's he passionate for? He's excited about what does he see? Um and so just you know, being able to have like kind of a back and forth emotional sharing is actually very, very helpful. Yeah.

Renee Richel 32:49

I always say sharing sharing is caring. And the more that we share with God and we listen, it's only great practice for when we're in a relationship because so many people, I witness it all the time all the time. Why they don't work out is because they've never done this journaling, they've never actually heard or executed outwardly their emotions. And so it's just jumbled mess that comes out into an argument environment because they have never processed or listened or taken it to God to actually know what they mean instead of just blurting something out. So I love that suggestion and it is so powerful when you learn that walk, right? So, what scripture, personally, do you return to most that really helps with encouragement or direction uh when you're needing it in

Psalm 1 And The Good Life

Renee Richel 33:40

prayer?

Eric Amos 33:40

You know, one I've been focused a lot on lately, and this may feel a little weird because it's probably not one most people would share, but I look at Psalm 1 actually.

Renee Richel 33:48

Okay.

Eric Amos 33:48

Which is um Bible Project does a good job with this if you want to look into this. But basically they talk about the psalm being really about it starts out with how how good is the life of the man who? So to me, it's like it raises these big questions I've been thinking about about it. Like, well, what is a good life? And how does one get there? And to me, it's like, how does one get their needs met? How does God want to bring us into the fullness of life that He's kind of promised for His followers? Because He wants us to flourish and have a good life. And so it raises this question, like, what how does one enter into that? And even to think of like, well, what does it look like to be a tree? If I'm a human being, what is it, what do human beings have in common with a tree? Like, how do you get your roots down into good water? And I think going back to like how do we get your needs met by God? And then how does that flow through the tree? And just like how would that flow through a human being? So to me, I think it just helps with the narrative of what God's after. Um, He wants us to have a good life. A lot of what we're trying to figure out as human beings is like, how do I make my life better? How do I solve for the problems I've had? How do I improve my quality of life? How do I get these needs met? And God's in that business. So I think just for me, that's a good passage to return back to and say, what is this really all about? What drives my behavior? Well, that's you know, not logical. I think human beings are actually fairly illogical. It's all driven by kind of these deeper narratives of the heart where we're looking to get needs met. And so being able to work with God on that level and say, what really drives my motives? Like, what am I really after? And what are the narratives within that I kind of tell myself that says this is if I do X, Y, or Z or get X, Y, or Z, that my needs will be met, and really allowing kind of God into that. So I think that just being able to think of it that way has really helped me because I'm like, I'm not doing well today, I don't feel good. I'll stop and say, okay, what you know, what am I badly within that says I'm not my needs are being frustrated or I'm not that my narrative of how I think this should work out is not going according to plan and allowing God to kind of come into that and say, okay, do I am I operating out on a faulty narrative here? Is there a first correction I need to make in order to tap because like I should be able to get my needs met through God here? So like if things aren't working right, I'm probably doing about something wrong. And so to me, I don't know, yeah. So that's been a I would say kind of a game changer to be just think of it of the good news of the gospel in that framing. Yeah. Just to say, hey, it's not just about I'm a sinner and I God just want you know doesn't want me to go to hell. That's part of the thing, but I think there's much more going on that I think is practical in our day-to-day experience.

Renee Richel 36:16

Yeah, 100%.

Eric Amos 36:19

How am I going about trying to do that for myself? And maybe where where do I need to give up and let God kind of point me in a better direction?

Renee Richel 36:28

Yeah, no, I completely agree.

Discerning God From Your Thoughts

Renee Richel 36:30

How can you trust when you hear, right, the word of the Lord, that indeed that's from him? And that's not something that we've kind of just we wanted to hear versus what we actually hear.

Eric Amos 36:43

That's a good question. Uh, this is uh in our listening prayer workshops, especially the 101, this is the question, this is the most common question. This is one that everyone struggles with. It's like, how do I figure out if it's God speaking or my or me or somewhere else, something else, just all these different voices. And Paul kind of alludes this. He says, you know, learn to take your thoughts captive, which kind of implies that, hey, there's a lot going on within us. It's not all originating with us, right? There's a lot of different voices that are kind of bombarding us. And so, how do we sift that or discern what's God and what's not? Uh so we talked through that uh in our workshop. Obviously, we use scripture, we're looking at the fruit of the experience in our lives. I think the main thing, though, I find is like when you start to experience God over time, it's like building any kind of relationship. When you come to know somebody, uh, whether it's a good friend or a family member, someone you've been around enough, you start to recognize their personality. You recognize the tone of their voice, the kinds of things they talk about, their sense of humor. You build an inside, a library of sort of inside, you know, shared history and inside jokes and you know, references and symbols in terms of meaning and things. And so I feel like as you get to know the person, you start to recognize their personality. And same with God. As you around him, you see him interact with you, you see him interact with other people, you're like, okay, that's what God looks and sounds like. And so if it's I'm experiencing that, it's probably God. And if it all of a sudden something happens and feel like, oh, that's really out of character. That's like, okay, what is what is that then? Where's that?

Renee Richel 38:08

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I like that.

Eric Amos 38:10

So I think that's probably the number one. See, right now, if you're new, you know, had that history, you're gonna have to lean on scripture a lot, you're gonna have to lean on community. And that's why I think like our workshops are helpful because you get to be with people who are have been have done this down through a lot.

Renee Richel 38:25

That are great mentors. Like I hear so many people say, Oh, I'm looking for a good mentor outside of my church or whatever, which I mean that's you guys are great mentors in that way too, for leading others.

Eric Amos 38:37

Find folks that that are healthy, can provide some safety and accountability.

Renee Richel 38:43

Um, some and we mirror what we surround ourselves around. So talk about great leaders. That's what you guys are doing. Okay, so I have, and I feel like I can ask a million more questions, but I just want to I want to clarify this and ask this question.

Desires Lists And Healthy Asking

Renee Richel 38:56

We go through with the needs and wants analysis, right? When we're holding our clients accountable and what we're taking to our prayer warriors and all these other things. And, you know, I think it's important every once in a while we have our non-negotiables to share our wants, whether or not God agrees with them or not. I always give the whiteboard experience. I throw a lot up on the whiteboard and God erases a lot of it, and then some stick. And I'm like, yes, right. But how do you um, I guess the best way, like, is it okay, or what do you advise people when to ask God for things that you want?

Eric Amos 39:30

I think yes, absolutely. Because a lot of times the things that are on our heart are actually from God. There's nothing wrong with the desire. That's that's a natural thing that God's put, yeah. And sometimes it'd be misdirected or missorted desire. And so I recommend don't just treat it as a you know, the Santa Claus Christmas list kind of thing. Treat it more like a conversation, a two-way dialogue with God. God, this is what my is on my heart. These are things I think I need or want. Um but then it's like, well, why do I want this? You know, invite him into that. Like, Jesus, how do you see this list? Is there anything you would change? Like, Jesus, is there anything you want me to know about the timing of these things? Um Jesus, how do you I what's the underlying need that I'm looking for here? And how do you do you want to meet it in a different way? Um, these kind of questions would be very helpful to say, like, hey, let's dig a little bit deeper, let's involve God in and make it more of a process and a conversation so that we can actually work through and find something that um find out what God actually wants to do for us versus just expecting God to kind of deliver on what we what we're just you know, our demands essentially. So you treat it more like a negotiation versus just like a list of strict demands or something. But I think it's more relational. God wants to be more relational in it, wants to be involved in it, wants to help us chew on it and process and get to the a lot of times he's trying to prepare us for something he does want to give us. But if we're stuck and rigid and we're not willing to kind of enter into that process with him, then it obviously frustrates his ability to to bring good things into our life. So to me, a lot of what he needs to do in us is position us and transform us and prepare us to receive things he has. Because if he he's a good father, he doesn't want to give us a good gift and then but have it be in a place where we're not ready to receive it, and we just then turn around and uh destroy it, uh missteward it. Or if it's a relationship, I mean we could do a lot of harm to the the other party or whatever. So there this thing of receiving things from God is a little more complex uh in terms of um what it actually looks like to become someone who can receive good gifts from God is, I guess the way to put it.

Renee Richel 41:24

I love that. I love

How To Join The Workshops

Renee Richel 41:26

all of this. So tell our audience how they can find you, find the workshop, and just start to register and plug into some upcoming events.

Eric Amos 41:36

Yeah, well, we run Zooms, uh Zoom workshops twice a month in a rotating format. They're usually on Wednesday evenings, uh, 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. We, if you go to our websites, listeningprayerworkshop.com, there's a little events link uh under the menu, and we list the upcoming workshops there. You can simply register for anything that looks appealing to you. If you're new to this, I would probably start with the 101 workshop. But you're willing, if you know if you're dying to just get into it, you can jump into a two-one or whatever, we're happy to have you. And we try to obviously cater to whoever's there. Um they're free, open to all. Um, so we'd love to have you.

Renee Richel 42:11

And so you go to um listeningprayerworkshop.com, correct? That's the page and website that you go to, which we will have that in our show notes and more details. So please, um, I strongly, highly recommend this and encourage you to check this out. And I can't wait to hear your individual stories. And we will definitely, Eric, be having more conversations about maybe who your perfect bride is. So if you're interested, by all means, fill out a profile and we would love to interview you for Eric as well. We hope that you've enjoyed this podcast and this conversation, and we cannot wait for our next chat. Thank you so much, Eric, for doing what you do and joining me in this conversation today. It's been another great talk on this episode of 1 True Talks by Renee Richel. I look forward to our next chat. Please write in your questions and comments so I can be sure to talk about whatever it is you want to discuss in our next upcoming episode. Lots of Love. God Bless. XOXO.