Struggling to hear God in the Unknown - Learning to Listen

In seasons of uncertainty, many of us ask the same question: Why can’t I hear God? When life feels unclear or overwhelming, it can seem like heaven has gone quiet. But what if the problem isn’t that God has stopped speaking — it’s that something is interfering with how we’re listening?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Whenever you feel like you need a friend. If ever the world gets to participate. Always remember to be.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome back to the Impostus Movement. We're sitting on couches today because we just wanted to create an environment where we could just feel more comfortable and just feel the spirit more, and we felt like the chairs was gonna wake up again. It's much better now. Yeah, it does feel good. But another thing that we try to change as well is just the titles of the episodes. So because we're the imposters movement, yes, we want everyone to recognize their impostors, but above that, we want people to move past letting those control you. And so we've decided to sorry about the fly. So we've decided to um name the imposter as the po as the episode, followed by kind of like the solution. And so today the imposter is struggling to find God in the unknown and struggling to hear him in the unknown, yeah. And then the solution is kind of learning to listen. And so today we're just gonna really nail down on how we can recognize the spirit and just some things that maybe prevent us from being able to hear the spirit, but yeah, that's kind of that's kind of what the whole episode was gonna be about. But just to provide a bit more context, um, did you wanna read it?

SPEAKER_02 1:36

So we have this um quote by President Nelson, and it is honestly one of my favorite quotes of his that really relates to this imposter. So he says, in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost. So I guess what are your thoughts that come to mind?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, I just like that um I see because that talk was quite a few years ago now, but I like that I'm seeing the truth of that more even now, like with just the wars and everything happening, but also not just wars like societally, but also like the wars within my own personal wars, personal life as well, and so I can really feel how important it is now to recognize the spirit, not just generally or on Sundays, but to really have it in your life as a daily thing. So, to start us off, so I've been reading this book. I feel like a broken record, I've been talking about this book to everybody. It's amazing! And uh, yes. So, this book is called Learning to Listen by Dale G. Rendon, who's one of the apostles, and um, he's a cardiologist, which is a heart doctor, and so he teaches about the principles for personal revelation and just how to recognize the spirit more because we want to do what President Nelson has said, and um, and so he uses this really cool metaphor um with a stethoscope and how and just the parallels or the um the similarities between listening with a stethoscope to listening to the spirit. Um, and so here we have a stethoscope, and um this is by this cardiology stethoscope.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

It's like really like cool if you have stethoscope.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, so that's all this is, and um, and so I'll just give you guys like a basic tutorial of the parts of the stethoscope, um, or the relevant parts for the um episode today. So, okay, so um on the stethoscope you've got like the wider circle and then the smaller circle. The wider circle is what we usually use for listening to the heart, and that's um for it's called the diaphragm, which is for higher frequency sounds, and then on the other end behind it, you've got the little circle, which is called the bow, and that's used for lower frequency sounds. And so if you you can rotate it to switch between those two settings, right? Okay, and so um in the in the um in the book, he talks about how if you're listening to someone's heart and you put the diaphragm onto someone's heart, but it's rotated to the bowel, you won't be able to hear any heart sounds, and so he says it's not because there's no sound there, it's because you have it rotated against, like it's rotated incorrectly, and so he uses that as an analogy for listening to the spirit in the sense that sometimes we can't hear God's voice, right? It doesn't mean that it's not there, but it just means that we've kind of rotated ourselves against or away from God's voice, and so we kind of just wanted to talk about like what are some of those things that prevent us from hearing hearing God's voice or that kind of like rotate us away from God.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, so I'll speak from personal experience. Um, the most basic thing is sin, or when we're not living within the commandments that God has given us. If we're not living according to God's ways, it's it's a lot harder for God to communicate with us and for us to hear what he's trying to tell us if we're not aligned with him. And so sin is one thing that separates us from God, and also like moving forward from that pride. I think like that's a personal one I can relate to. But when I'm prideful and I think that I know better than God, or I know what I want to do, and I'm I want to do things my way. Um, I realize after that I that the spirit was speaking to me still, but it was my problem. Like I had a dysfunction in a way of hearing what God wanted to tell me at that time.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah, and I think another thing on top of pride as well, and pride I think is the underlying cause of this as well, but contention, like just yeah, uh when you're when you're when you haven't made peace with other people, or maybe things within yourself, I feel like that can sometimes hinder you from being able to hear or recognize God's voice as well. Yeah, on top of sin, pride, contention. Another one that maybe we don't think about as much is um is emotional and mental exhaustion, yeah, but even physical exhaustion too. So pretty much just burnout. That's something that I've been feeling for like a while the last few months, but burnout can really um really hinder your ability to hear the Lord's voice as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

And I've noticed um in times where I've felt burnt out, I'm not getting enough rest. If I'm not sufficiently rested, my body is not in a physical state where I can hear the spirit at church on Sunday or at seminary or at institute, and so like like helping our body to be in a state of receptiveness and openness and readiness to hear the spirit is really important.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah, and I've got an experience of that actually. So when my in the early stages of my career, like when I first graduated as a as a doctor, you you don't have control, you don't have control over what days that you work, and you you just have to do weekend shifts, like that's the nature of the job. And so I would have to do night shifts and then work on Sundays and then still like I'll I'd work like late Saturday and then finish at like 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and then have church at 9am and I'd still have to like rock up to church. And I remember whenever I had those shifts, either I would there was like there was one day whereas I just didn't want to go to church, yeah, and and I didn't, and I decided to just sleep in, and man, it like honestly, it it's the first time that I've really recognized the difference in like the difference it makes to your life when you just don't go to church. Like I think that was the first time where I was like, shoot, this is actually like I don't like this feeling. It was either that or it was like I'd be at church and I'd just fall asleep throughout the whole meeting, and it was like such an interesting time for me because then it started happening consistently where I was just like nah, like I'm saving lives, it's all good, I can just put this off and like God knows my heart kind of thing. But then sleeping at church during sacrament meeting turned to like not wanting to do my scriptures anymore, and then being lazy with my prayers, and so that's just an example of how lacking rest or not physically resting can really impact on your ability to like participate and be a disciple, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah, can I add on to you? Um, there's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that pretty much says exactly um what your experience was. So we're in 1 Nephi 17 right now. So Nephi's building the ship, or he's built the ship and he's talking to his brothers, and um in verse 45 it talks about them being in a state of past feeling. So in the verse, in verse 45, it talks about how they've seen an angel and how they're swift to do iniquity, but they're slow to remember God, and um that God has spoken to them in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling that ye could not feel his words. And I think like if we don't consistently nourish our testimony with the small and simple things like prayer and script study, going to church, we become in the state where we can't actually feel the spirit, and we we're not as sensitive to those promptings as we were if we were consistently nourishing it.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, I like that, and I feel like we're um like it's so easy to like focus on the bigger commandments, you're like, oh, but I'm not like breaking the word of wisdom or I'm not breaking the law of chastity. But like you can see how detrimental the little things are as well, yeah. In hindering your ability to hear the spirit, yeah, just as important.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

So I love from your experience or what we've been talking about, it's like these things happen over time. Like you don't usually you lose the spirit instantly, it's usually over small and simple things that you've been neglecting that you come to a point where you can't feel it and you're you become past feeling. And so, in thinking about the analogy that we've been using with the receptors, um I think when we constantly ignore the promptings of the spirit, it blocks the receptor in ourselves that we can't feel what God is trying to tell us.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, and so on that receptor, um, Dale G. Renin in his book, he has a prescription because he's a doctor, um, that he has a prescription for dysfunctional receptors. Um, and honestly, like I don't think anyone is exempt from experiencing this. Like, I think we've all felt at one time in our life that we couldn't really hear what God was trying to say to us, right? And so his prescription, I'll read out the whole thing, but I think we'll probably just focus on some that that are relevant to us right now or recently. Um, but he says repentance, which which is a solution for what Elise was saying about sin. Yeah, feasting on the words of Christ, especially in the Book of Mormon, the sacrament and the temple, exercising greater faith in Heavenly Father, and his plan and in Jesus Christ and his atonement, prayer, searching for evidence of God's love and service to others. So, all of those things are included in his prescription for dysfunctional receptors, and we wanted to just like delve a little bit more into some of those um medicines. Yeah. I love that. I love that too part of myself when I said that.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

I love that. Um and just before we get into um that really cool discussion, I think another foundational principle we should be thinking about in this discussion is that yes, God's spirit is always there, but his love is always there, and his love is constant. And um just a few scriptures I wanted to share about that so we can really remember how much God loves us is that in 2 Nephi 1 verse 15 it says, I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love. And I love that picture of like God or or the savior and or the savior, like wrapping us eternally in his love. And when it's really hard for you to hear what God is telling you, picture that for yourself, like God just wrapping his arms around you eternally in his love. And another verse that I love in the Book of Mormon is in Mosiah chapter 27, verse 30, it says, He being God, he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. And so God being our creator, he remembers every creature that he's created, including you. And although it might be hard for you to hear him right now, it says in this verse that he will make himself manifest unto all. And so remember that he's constantly reaching out in love to all of us. Um, and although we might not be able to hear him, his love and his voice is always like he's always trying to communicate with his children.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah, and so yeah, and so we wanted to like talk a little bit more about some of these medicines that we've just um that we've that we kind of just listed.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Sorry guys, we had problems with our mics again, so this is our iPhone audio, but hope you enjoy the rest of the episode.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Um, the first one we wanted to focus on, I think is a really, really big one, is repentance and how repentance can help us to hear the Lord's voice better.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah, so the way that I view repentance is cleansing us from sin, and sin is the blockage, like that's blocking the receptor. And so repentance is that tool that unblocks our receptor so that we can more clearly feel and hear God's voice in our life.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

And repentance is like I think every like we have this tendency sometimes to associate repentance with big sins, yeah, but even the little ones too. For example, I won't be too specific, but for a long time I've been feeling prompt this prompting to like not do something, and and I would not do it for like a while, but then I was like, nah, and then I'll go back to it. And and I just thought, like, why does that it wasn't a sin? Like it wasn't a sin. I'm just like, why do I need to not do this?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Like a habit, or like just something that you just do every day that's not detrimental to your life in any way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

So I thought, yeah, so I thought, but it was like like from the outside, you would look and be like, why does it even matter that you were not doing that? Like it was one of those things, yeah. And I was just like, Well, God, if I'm doing everything else except this one thing, like, why can't you just still like why can't I just still hear the spirit clearly? But every single time I just felt like like I just couldn't hear the spirit because I wasn't choosing to do this one thing, yeah. And then eventually, after like so many failed attempts on trying to stop this one thing, I eventually just stopped. And when I did decide to stop and for good this time, I knew that I was actually gonna like stop for real, for real. I just like my I'm not even kidding, like my life changed. Yeah, like I just started to see clearly after the fact that I stopped why I needed to stop, and then I just I just started getting more revelation and more guidance for other aspects of my life as well, and it was yeah, literally just deciding to stop that one thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, the principle from that that I've learned is that God knows what is blocking our receptors, yeah, and so he often prompts us with things that we should be doing in order for us to unblock and hear um more of his voice in our life. I think if if if we can all notice um the things that maybe are not sinful, like one to recognize the sinful things, but two to recognize the things that are small and simple and that are getting in the way of our relationship with God and putting those to the side, like our ability to hear his voice and his love will increase dramatically, just like you were saying.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And I think that's why repentance is so important is that repentance is also you showing God that you want to put him first and that anything else is secondary to that relationship with God. I think that's what repentance really shows to him. Um, and that's yeah, that's what I've been able to see about it. Yeah. Another one that we wanted to focus on as well is uh can you read the feasting one? What did it say?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

So the second one is feasting on the words of Christ, especially in the Book of Mormon. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

So something I've been struggling with lately is deciding on whether to stay at my current job or not. And uh sometimes it is a dog there, it's just really easy to go into like every job when you've got uh certain actors outside of the control to just make it a little a little less enjoyable. And so I was um I was gonna I was gonna do my job basically. And then I read through the Book of Woman, and I was reading about the story of the Sons of Hulamen, the 2000 Stripping Warriors, and how they had never fought before, but they uh successfully uh won the war against the Lamanites, and then on top of that, not a soul was lost, yeah, which is such a miracle. But what it taught me in that moment is that we can't put God on a box, like there is no limit to what God can do in your life, and he can make the impossible happen as cliche as that sounds. But how I relate that to my rote situation was like, man, there's gonna be so many things outside of my control. But if the Lord told me to stay there, then he's obviously going to provide a way or there are sort of lessons that I need to learn there. And honestly, if it wasn't for me reading that scripture in the Book of Woman, I honestly would have just resigned. And so that's like sometimes the noise will be very convincing, you know, like convincing to the point that it doesn't even seem like it's noise, yeah. But I feel like the scriptures really reveal it, just helps you to see things as they really are, and that's what it did for me in that situation. So I'm still at my job currently, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yeah, I love how you highlight that like the Book and Woman, like the words in the Book and Woman helps you to see your situation in such a different light. And um, I also had an experience like that, so I was deciding where I should go for my placement for um med school. So, like in different years of med school, you apply to go different different places, and sometimes that's out of Auckland. And so I was I was deciding like if I should put that I should move out or if I should stay in Auckland. I was praying about this for weeks and weeks and weeks, and the date to the survey was like coming up, and I found it so hard to hear God's voice in that time because my fear was that I was gonna do something contrary to to God's voice. You just don't want to get it wrong, yeah. You just don't want to get it wrong, and I was like, what if I stay here? I'm meant to be called somewhere else so I can help someone or something. And I was so paralyzed by that decision, and I I flicked over to the story in Ether when um the Jaredites are building the barges, and the brother of Jared, I think, he asked the Lord um these questions on how to build um these ships, and the Lord kind of answers him in three really different ways. One he tells him what he should do, the second one is that he tells him what he should not do, and the third one is that he asked the brother of Jared, what do you think you should do? And I think that the Lord was answering me in that third way, which is what do you think you should do? And if you want to do that, then that's great for you. And I don't like when God answers me like that. Like I prefer to for him to tell me exactly what I should do, what shouldn't do, and that was a really big learning experience for me through the Book of Mormon that sometimes God answers us like that, like just He expects us to use our own intelligence and our own wisdom and also our own desires and passions to facilitate our choices. And so I think I learned in that experience that God trusts me enough to make certain decisions that I might, you know, like I might be a little bit scared or hesitant to, but at the end of the day, if I'm keeping the commandments, if I'm living within my covenants, that I won't make the wrong choice because essentially I will have the spirit to always be with me as a part of my baptismal covenant.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yeah, and so those are just some um ways that we've been able to see the power of some of those medicines acting in our life, um, and just like someone who needs to take medicines, it's something that you need to take every day, you know. Like you can't just take it one on Sundays and then expect that you're going to be sustained throughout the whole week. Like it's this you have to put in daily work to be able to hear the Lord's voice. Um, and so I kind of just wanted to share, maybe just like to kind of close this off, like we could just share how we've been able to recognize the spirit in our own life, or like maybe like the ways in which the Lord speaks to us. I think it just kind of goes off with your thoughts on Dirt Nevi. Um, but for me, the last few weeks, uh just the last few months to years has been um I've been hearing it a lot differently than I'm used to, and I feel like there's been a a bit of a shift in my relationship with God in a good way. So I'm really used to God always telling me like this is it, go here, move here, and then I move like and and I've always been really confident that like okay, this is what God was telling me to do. Um but lately it just hasn't been like that, and it's been very frustrating, and and um, and something I've um I've learned lately is about the stages of a relationship. There's a podcast that I was listening to. She was talking about the stages of a relationship, and she was saying that like you get to a point in a relationship where that person doesn't seem like the person that you thought they were. Yeah, it's kind of similar in a marriage story. I'm not married, but this is what the content for the podcast says. So they say you get to this point in your relationship, it's called the withdrawal stage where that person doesn't seem to be like the person they thought they were. Yeah, and then in that moment you are thinking to yourself, like, is it worth staying? Yeah, okay, that's what it's also about, and then she relates it to how that happens in our relationship with God as well. It's like this withdrawal stage with God, where God doesn't seem like the God that you thought he was, and then you're wondering, is it worth staying? Yeah, and and that's been where I have been with God, and I I feel like I've never really been in that phase before. It's been like a honeymoon phase, and then it's been like a yeah, this is a trials phase, but like, yeah, but like nothing to make me ever question whether it was worth staying. Yeah, and so I've been in sort of like a withdrawal phase of God this last few like monthsy years. Um, but the other cool thing that she mentioned is that in that withdrawal phase is where you grow the most. If you choose to stay, you really are able to like unlearn some of the things that you learned about that person that weren't correct, yeah. And then you really, if you choose to stay, you really connect with that person in this phase. And I feel like I've been doing that a lot with God, and and the reason like why I bring this up in con in relation to the spur is that like in this withdrawal stage, I just feel like God has been so silent with me. And I'm so used to him telling me exactly what to do, he's just gone from that to being silent, and and it's helped me to learn how to make my own decisions and to trust myself. It's helped me to be more patient with the process and know that like there's gonna be good things to come, and he's also helped me to realize that um that even though he's silent, he's not absent. Yeah, and it has honestly been such a refining and such a difficult and peaceful process for me, and I'm just I'm really grateful that the Lord has been speaking to me like that recently, and so yeah, he's he's been speaking to me in the sense that like I've really taught, like it's not that I know everything now, but he's just like I trust you now. It's a lot more trust in the sense that like you know enough to just make the best decision for yourself right now, and so that's what that's how he's been talking to me lately, and it's been coming in like feeling good about certain decisions, it's been coming in the form of like the scriptures and being in the temple and just peace. I think that's what it's been manifested as like the Lord has just been speaking peace and assurance to me, and not necessarily like specifically saying what I need to do.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah, those are really good ways. I love that experience. Um, another thing I wanted to talk about is that we often we're often living in the spirit, and sometimes you don't recognize that you're receiving revelation in that moment. And I love this phrase in Healamin 11. It says, having many revelations daily, and that's revelations plural, that's not just one revelation, and I think to me, like that doesn't mean that every single second of the day you're having these overwhelmingly miraculous spiritual experiences, but that God shows up in the ordinary moments of your day as well, and He speaks to you in those calm, ordinary moments that you might feel are just like the mundane moments of your day. Um, and I think that when you're on the covenant path, you are in this constant flow of receiving spiritual revelation or spiritual guidance that you otherwise might not know. Um, but when the spirit is not there, that's when I know that I need to change, change my ways. And so I think I've come to have this gratitude for being able to live in the spirit constantly, even though I might not have these like pillar of light experiences, yeah. But it's in the small and simple things, and in the small and simple ways that I feel the spirit that I'm so grateful for, like God and His love.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, and so I think if you're if you're striving to keep your covenants and you're striving to repent daily, the question to ask yourself is not so much like, am I is was this the spirit, was this me, but more like being attentive to when the spirit leaves. I think yeah, that's the approach to take if you're striving already. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Um and just to add on to what you're saying about um I guess just being aware that the spirit's actually a lot more present than we think he is, and on top of that, remembering how cool that is that we have a member of the Godhead with us, and we can have a constant companionship of that godhead member. Um, but in President Nelson's talk that we alluded to earlier, he says, Oh, there is so much more that your father in heaven wants you to know. And as Alan Neole Maxwell talked, to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the father and the son are giving away the secrets of the universe. Oh dang, I know, isn't that cool? Like he's just waiting to tell you so many secrets of the universe, but we just need to make sure our receptors are working, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

No, I love that, and just to finish off, um, it's not just us in our day who experience this kind of spiritual illness, I guess, of like having receptors that can't feel God's love and so or can't hear his voice. Sorry. In third Nephi 11, it talks about when Jesus Christ appears to the Nephites and how they heard a voice three times and they didn't understand um whose voice it was or what this voice was saying. And so we can all like that's what we've been talking about this whole time is us not being able to hear God's voice or understand it. And so the thing that changed for them the third time that they heard the voice, um, was this it says um they did open their ears to hear it, and their eyes were towards the sound thereof, and they did look steadfastly towards heaven from whence the sound came. And to me, to summarize that verse, it meant that they looked up, and everything that we've been talking about today, like everything in that prescription that we mentioned, are all strategies of how we can look up physically, look up spiritually and emotionally towards God, and to align ourselves more with Him so we can hear His voice better.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, yeah, that's all I have to say. So those are the ways that we can rotate ourselves towards the Lord. Um, and so hopefully you guys were able to feel inspired as to how you can learn to listen if you're struggling to hear and you're not. And then, yeah, we just want to leave you guys with an invitation. I think the invitation would be like just a kind of evaluate or self-evaluation on if there are any things blocking your receptors right now. Are you like physically, spiritually exhausted? Is there some kind of sin or something in your life that's not even the Lord's voice? And then maybe think about like one of those medicines and how you can be and how you can use that to hear his voice better. Yeah, I love that. Yep. So looking at your experiences, don't forget to share um anything that may have been of value to you just so that other people can be more aware of that the success otherwise. Thank you for your support and for joining and bye.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Bye. Whenever you feel like you need a friend. Always remember to easy, a