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The Wake-Up Call
Hearing God's Voice, Part 1: Learn to Listen First
00:20:32
In this episode, Dan Wilt explores the theme of hearing God's voice, emphasizing the importance of discerning divine guidance in everyday life. He shares personal experiences and insights on how to differentiate between one's own thoughts and the messages God might be conveying. Dan highlights the significance of removing barriers to perceive the Holy Spirit's voice, encouraging listeners to adopt a posture of listening before praying. Through a touching story about a prayer session, he illustrates how being open to God's voice can lead to profound connections and understanding. further discusses the practice of listening to God's voice as a journey of growth and learning. He emphasizes that hearing God's voice is not about achieving perfection but about being willing to surrender and open oneself to divine guidance. The episode encourages listeners to engage in prayer with a focus on listening, using scriptures, images, and impressions as tools for spiritual connection. Dan conclu...
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Good morning Sower Nation. Today is Wednesday, June 24th in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. Good morning. Good morning. We are turning a bit of a page in our series all the Things Everyday Ministry in the Power of the Spirit to do a little bit of a deeper dive into this idea of how we learn to hear God's voice. It's my deep belief that we can learn how to discern the difference between our thoughts and the thoughts that God might be depositing in us for a particular moment between our impressions or our sense of insight and what God is wanting to bring out in maybe a moment of conversation or in a text or in encouragement. We can learn these things and we can learn them because of what today's text is going to remind us about that the sheep of the great shepherd know his voice. And so this is about getting barriers out of the way to begin to perceive the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us and then through us to others. All right, so wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration together as we begin today's meeting with Jesus. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, today's entry is titled Hearing God's voice, part one. Learn to listen first. And our text for today is from John 10:27. Hear the word of the Lord. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. The word of the Lord. Consider this. I was just beginning to learn how to listen to God's voice before I began to pray for someone. During a particular conference workshop, people were invited to stand for prayer and I was one of those on the prayer ministry team. I walked over to a man who was standing, his head was down and he was clearly heavy in heart and I asked if I could lay my hand on his shoulder and he nodded. As soon as I put my hand on his shoulder, I immediately saw a picture. And the picture I saw was of a black stallion running on a beach. I waited for a minute or two and then I began to pray. But know that I paused thinking maybe this is just me. Maybe it's the pizza I had for dinner last night, or maybe it's this or that. And I Still, after years of learning to go with these things, felt pause. Lord, is this you? Is this me? Is this? But in this moment I saw the picture and I waited for a minute or two listening to Jesus, because I could do that in that prayer ministry context. And I said to him, we're just going to wait on the Lord for a moment as I listen. And then I began to pray and I began to follow whatever I sensed God speaking to me for the next 20 minutes. I'll often say, I just want to submit what I'm seeing to you in this prayer. And I just come with humility as I begin to pray. When I sensed we were done after about 20 minutes, he raised his head and we looked at one another with eyes filled with tears. He said, do you know what I do for a living? I work with horses. Do you know what my favorite movie of all time is? The Black Stallion. We both laughed and truly were humbled and grateful for God's kindness to both of us. Jesus said to his disciples, my sheep listen to my voice or my sheep know my voice. While it's easy to make that a metaphor, what if Jesus was saying that in our day to day lives we can discern his voice among among the many in our ears or in our heads? Hearing God's voice is not as hard as we might think it is. We try to muster up enough holiness to believe God might speak to us for someone. But in my experience, it's more about letting go. It's more about being willing to surrender to hearing God's voice than it is about being the perfect vessel. It's more about choosing love and opening ourselves to hearing what God might want to say for someone else. In the story I shared today, I opened my heart to listening to God for this man. I didn't know Him. He didn't know me. The image that materialized quickly in my mind, I have come to know as a common way God speaks to me for someone. I believe this emerges from taking a posture of listening before praying rather than just praying. Whatever comes to mind, a mentor and a treasured friend says it this way. We must develop and maintain a constant posture of listening and watching. Continually focus your attention through questions like Lord, what is yous invitation here? What are you seeing doing? What is it that you care about here? This helps to remind us that the entire prayer process is to be dynamically led by the Holy Spirit, not executed by us on his behalf. It's important that we listen on two levels to the people we're praying for and to God's spirit. Now, that quote comes from this book, naturally, joining God in his work, and some of this might feel a little bit advanced for you, and that's okay. What we're saying here is we want to learn to be led by God's spirit so that God's spirit is leading us in prayer rather than us just doing everything on behalf of God, because that has everything to do with our strength. And I'm trying to just help us kind of get over a hurdle, step through a veil, and sometimes fear looks like a wall, but it's actually just a veil once you finally touch it and it opens. But just get through this thing of I don't hear God's voice. That's for other people to do. As we become like Jesus, and we are all becoming like Jesus, with up days, down days, hard days, good days, we sin, we fall, we repent, we conf.
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Jesus meets us. We're transformed from glory to glory over time and over time. And over time, as we begin to pray for people, we can begin to listen and then have some expectation that God will give us some things, particularly for that person. And we learn and we grow along the way. As another friend says, it's like a wave. We learn a little bit and then we recede a little bit, and then we learn a little bit, and then we recede because we're not sure and maybe we didn't hear it right, or we learn a little, but all along, like waves, you're actually making progress. If you're seeing this on YouTube, you'll see that I'm actually kind of making motions that make progress over time. And so as I begin to pray for someone, I will often, particularly if it's in a church setting or it's a Christian, I don't always do this with people who are not following Jesus or in a restaurant or. And again, I don't do these things all the time. I do them on occasion. I might have four stories a year, maybe more. But when I do this for someone that's not a believer, I tend to wait less. I'm more waiting as I'm talking to them and listening to the Lord, if you will. But when I pray for someone, often for a believer or in a church setting, I'll often say, let's wait on God for a few moments together. It helps me to listen before I pray, and then after listening, I move into prayer. Now, I've shared that before, but this is just really important in practicing hearing God's voice. What are the impressions that come. What are the scriptures that come? The pictures. Maybe there's just a phrase. That's a word of encouragement. I had a friend pray for me many years ago in a church service. And in that context, he was trained. He was part of a prayer ministry team. And as he came up to me, he just said, you can do this. And I said, thanks, let's pray. And he said, no, that's what I sensed. The Lord saying, you can do this. And I was going through a particularly difficult leadership situation in my life. And it was just after he said it the second time, I went, yeah, that is the Lord's word to me. I think that's right. You can do this. He said, I really believe that. I submit it to you. But I'm like, it's right. I feel it in my bones. You can do this. And I went. And that really helped me that week. It was the word of the Lord. That's why I like to listen first. So what would it mean for you today to begin to believe that you, as Jesus sheep, actually know his voice? You're listening for his voice and you can hear it. What would it mean for you to believe that the Father may want to speak to you about someone, about someone, to see them healed, delivered, or set free? And again, I keep saying, it might be in a moment, it might be with the person. I'd encourage you, invite the Lord to use you, to move through you with people in person. But the Lord may also say, I want you to take this away in prayer. I want to speak to you about this person, but I want you to pray for them. And we're going to pray for them. I have some people I've been praying for now for three years, four years, five years over particular issues, and just now, are we beginning to talk about it? And I can say, may I pray for you in this? And that's been really cool to see. There's no rush here. The Lord is using other people in their lives as well. I trust it. I trust it. And then there's some people. It's decades, and I'm seeing some prayer answers and some areas not answered in a way that I would want. But we stay in the game. We keep listening to his voice, we keep praying. And then in moments when I'm listening in prayer for someone, like I did that man in the story, sometimes God just gives a gift. And truly, we were both humbled. It wasn't like, wow, look at that. It was very much thank you, Jesus. Because these gifts aren't ours. To hold on to. I didn't then put on my business card. Now, Dan, hearer of God's voice. Are you with me? We all get to play. That's what we talked about yesterday. We all get to play. And in those moments, I am so aware that it's the Holy Spirit doing it through me. It's not something I need to hold on to or make some big ministry out of. You know, it's about me learning to do it. And then I want to be faithful like I'm trying to do now to teach others. What are those things that, that God might be speaking to you? To pray for someone else about. To journal about. To. To enter that long game of praying for them and then maybe having an opportunity to listen to God for a moment as you pray for them. And again, different contexts, different stories, but go for it. I also want to encourage you as you have stories like that. They don't have to be as dramatic as mine as any little steps are taken. Please, we'd love to hear from you. Send them into seedbed.com holy spiritstories and we're taking those in to share in a season to come. All right, let's pray together. Lord Jesus, your sheep know your voice. I am your sheep, and I believe that I can hear your voice. Help me to learn how to listen. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And here's our journal prompt for today. Take a few moments to think about someone who is on your heart. It might be someone. If you're, if you're using your all the things journal, it might be someone. Back in those early pages when I was asking you to just write down people that are coming to mind that God is wanting to put on your heart. Take a few moments, look at those names or come up with a new one to think about someone who is on your heart. And as you sit in quiet with your journal, write down any images, any word pictures, phrases, or scripture verses that come to mind. Take the first one that came to you and begin to write out a prayer for that person based on it. You're praying now, but you're praying in writing writing. See if God begins to guide you deeper into the idea as you write your prayer. Amen. Now that's so such a good exercise. I have people writing me letters that I connected with years ago and haven't seen them. I'll have people who write me a letter and say, hey, there was something I just have been sensing for you, and here it is. And I realized, I thank you, Lord. I'm still on their heart. Thank you, Lord, that they're still listening to you. About me. How selfless that is. What a great act of love that someone is listening in prayer for me, for you. And what a great growth curve it would be. What a great learning it would be for us to do that and be that for others, those who are near us, those who are far away. So bless you as you figure out what this means. And it might come out, manifest itself in praying for people. It might manifest itself in sending them letters or emails or texts. It might find other ways of expression. But let's recognize this 101 in hearing God's voice. Is that his sheep? We know his voice. So our activation for today is today. Practice listening as you talk to someone. Do any images, word pictures, or verses pop into your mind. Don't try too hard. Just lean into the impressions you're getting. Say, jesus, I'm open. I'm open. You can choose to say them to the person, pray for them, or just keep them to yourself. Like Mary. Just ponder them in your heart. Let them simmer for now. We're practicing the listening part today. All right. That's our activation. So for our song of worship today, we're going to sing Be Thou My Vision. I love this song. You probably do as well. And we're going to make it our place of meeting with Jesus in worship. As I often say, songs are a place we go to meet with God. They're what I like to call sonic sanctuaries. They are places where we pray with melodies and with words and interactions with God. So let's sing in that spirit. Be Thou My Vision. It's hymn number 49 in our great Redeemer's Praise. And we will sing all four verses. Okay.
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Be Thou my vision O Lord of my heart not be all else to me save that Thou art Thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping Thy presence Thou my light Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true word I ever with Thee and thou with me Lord, Thou my great Father I Thy true son Thou in me dwelling and I with the one Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise Thou mine inheritance now and always Thou and Thou only first in my heart High King of Heaven My treasure Thou are key change High King of heaven my victor Rewind May I reach heaven's joys O bright heaven sun Heart of my own heart what ever before still be my vision O ruler of all
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Be Thou my vision Let me see you as you are Lord and let me see others as you see them as you go into today. I just encourage you, believe, trust that God wants to speak to you and he wants to speak through you. And if it resonates with the gospel, if it resonates with the fruits of the spirit, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self control, if it comes to you with a sense of the gentleness and humility of Jesus, if there's a sense of impetus in you to share it, to encourage and to lift up that person, then I'd encourage you to lean in, say it, and learn, learn and grow. That's how this works. We are practicing learning how to hear God's voice and minister to others with great, great, great love. All right. Let's get our seeds together and I look forward to seeing you on the field for the awakening. I'm Dan.
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