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# Listening to God
- URL: https://www.belonging.house/listening-to-god/
- Published: 2025-12-05T11:03:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-24T23:50:42.000Z
- Description: It begins with setting down your agenda.
- Author: Christ John Otto
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1784937001272, #Import 2026-07-24 23:50

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThank you for your prayers.  
  
When I first started sending the Friday emails,  
and speaking at retreats and events,  
I was asked the same question  
over and over again.  
“**How do I learn to listen to God?**”  
  
This was a hard question to answer at first,  
because I had learned to listen to God organically.  
And at first,  
the answer I gave to people didn’t satisfy.  
  
I told them to stop talking.  
  
Then I said you have to get quiet.  
And then I said you have to pay attention.  
  
And then the hardest one of all.  
You have to **lay aside your own agenda**.  
  
I have learned a hard lesson over many years.  
Most Christians listen to the sound of their own souls,  
think that the sound of their soul is God,  
and then ask God to bless their own *soulish*   
beliefs,  
agendas,  
and visions.  
And God doesn’t.  
  
And when God doesn’t bless their agenda  
they will use manipulation and control to get their own way.  
  
A lot of what we call "ministry" is this.  
  
Jesus said,  
"If you abide in me,  
and my word abides in you,  
**ask whatever you will and I will do it.**"  
That means  
you have to learn   
to get comfortable  
living in Jesus and his life.  
And you have to listen for his word,  
and let that word direct your prayers.  
  
This is very different than finding verses  
to back up your beliefs and barking them out at God,  
in an attempt to change the spiritual world.  
  
You have to listen to the living word  
that God is saying in each moment  
and do what the Lord is directing.  
And when you do,  
there is a flow  
**and you will be blessed.**  
  
The mechanics of listening follow:  
The Belonging House community   
reads the daily gospel lesson every day.  
That means we start with Jesus and what he is saying  
and **tune our soul to him**.  
We spend at least fifteen minutes in quiet,  
and we let God talk.  
And we don’t.  
And then,  
we ask a few questions.  
  
Lord,  
**what’s on YOUR agenda today?**  
It’s not about you.  
**Lord,who do you want to be for me today?**  
He wants to be in relationship with you.  
**Lord, how are you praying for me today?**  
He is interceding for you.  
  
You learn to follow this pattern,  
and wow,  
you are on a fast track to listening to God  
and doing what God tells you.  
  
This works, and we see fruit all the time  
in the lives of artists and creative people.  
We now have a proven track record that   
**anyone can learn to listen to God in thirty days.**  
  
Our lives depend  
on hearing the Word of God.  
If you surrender to the One  
who has the words of eternal life  
every rough place will begin to be smooth  
and every mountain will become a plain.  
  
He Never Fails,

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ed/59/ed590bfa-368b-4bcf-b1f2-6ba9ca9abcdb/content/images/2026/07/3d38f313-72ff-4c57-97de-f56c2e204041_1200x125-heic-2.jpg)

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