There are lots of skills we can learn in life. Every area of existence has room for improvement. But one skill above all others is the absolute essential.

One skill. Not ten, twenty, or six hundred.

Just one.

“Get skillful and godly Wisdom, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation); do not forget and do not turn back from the words of my mouth.”

Proverbs 4:5 AMPLIFIED

Wisdom we are told is the principal thing!

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom”

Proverbs 4:7

The skill required to get wisdom?

Hearing God’s voice.

That is the one essential skill required for every realm of life.

God wants to lead you, yet so often we run after men and their ideas. We look at them and seek to attain to their high stature. All the while God is waiting patiently to guide us, if only we would ask.

The problem is, we are more prone to consider the earthquakes, mighty winds and fires that rage around us than set time aside to tune into what the Bible describes as a “still, small voice”. (See 1 Kings chapter 19)

When you do you’ll be surprised how loud that tiny voice becomes in your life.

But it does take work. Like any skill, the hearing of God’s voice in a noisy world takes a focus that excludes other things. A million options insistently and incessently flood our mental inbox every day. Sifting this daily deluge can be a full time job if we do not stem the flow of banality thrust upon us (and often even addictively invited by us!).

Here’s the key to begin your “Hear His Voice” training program.

SWITCH OFF THE NOISE!

I choose the early early hours. It helps me because there is little to distract, and the demands of the day do not beckon at 3am. It also means by 9pm I’m fried and ready for bed, but sacrifices must be made.

Choosing God’s way of working demands that you shape your day around prayer, not shape or shove your prayer around your day; a snatch here and a sprinkling there. Prayer snacks are good and well, but really? Can you develop a skill in a minute gobbled in the cracks of your busy schedule? Can you really purport to hear when the raging storms of the world are swirling around you?

Get still. Get real. Get your heart immersed, and get to work.

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

John 6:29

To believe. To have faith.

And faith, my friend… “cometh by hearing” (Romans 10:17)

If there is any skill you seek to obtain this year, let it be this.

Knowing the Voice of God!