Have you ever wondered if God is speaking, but you're just missing it?

Maybe you've prayed, waited, and wondered why God feels silent. Or perhaps you've convinced yourself that hearing from God is something reserved for pastors, "super spiritual" Christians, or people with extraordinary faith.

What if the biggest obstacle isn't that God isn't speaking...but that fear, shame, or old wounds have made it difficult to recognize His voice?

In this deeply encouraging conversation, Willow sits down with author and pastor Mike Neelley to explore how healing our hearts often becomes the doorway to hearing God's heart.

Show Notes

Does God really speak today?

If you've ever questioned whether God still communicates—or wondered why He seems silent when you need Him most—this conversation will breathe fresh hope into your faith.

Author and pastor Mike Neelley joins Willow to discuss his new book, Hearing the Heartbeat of God, and shares how years of ministry, inner healing, and learning to recognize God's love transformed the way he experiences prayer.

Together they unpack the misconceptions many Christians carry about hearing God's voice, why fear often keeps us from intimacy with God, and the surprising ways God is already communicating with us every single day.

Rather than focusing on simply hearing God's voice, Mike invites us to discover something even deeper: learning to hear God's heart.

Whether you're longing for deeper intimacy with Jesus, wrestling with spiritual silence, or simply wondering where to begin, this episode offers practical encouragement and hope for your journey.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How childhood wounds and past experiences shape the way we hear (or don't hear) God
• Why healing often precedes hearing God's voice
• The many unexpected ways God communicates—including through friends, books, nature, music, and everyday moments
• How to discern God's invitations in ordinary life

Resources Mentioned

• Hearing the Heartbeat of God by Michael Neelley
• Can You Hear Me? Tuning Into the God Who Speaks by Brad Jersak
• The Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson
• Reading the Bible with the Damned by Bob Ekblad
• The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas

Connect with Collide

If today's conversation encouraged you, we'd love to hear from you! Share this episode with a friend who longs to experience a deeper relationship with Jesus, and let us know what stood out to you.

Subscribe to The Collide Podcast so you never miss an episode, and explore more resources designed to help women find healing, hope, and freedom in Christ.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Collide Bible Study | A Six Week Journey Toward Healing

What if your pain is the very place where Jesus wants to meet you? In this six-session companion to the book Collide, Willow Weston invites you on a journey to experience powerful moments in the Bible when Jesus collided with people that were wounded, outcast, and broken - and to discover how He wants to meet with you, too. Includes video access to 6 teaching sessions from Willow.

Collide Bible Study | A Six Week Journey Toward Healing

Hey there. Welcome to the Collide Podcast. This is Willow Weston, the founder and director of kolide. And today I have my friend Mike Neelley on the podcast.

He's been on it before. He just came out with his first and brand new book called Hearing the Heartbeat of God.

And in this interview we talk about whether or not hearing God is woohoo for crazy people.

Only the things that get in the way of hearing God, what ways God speaks and how we can increase and cultivate our connection with God, ways we can kill intimacy with God, ways that past wounds and relationships are projected onto God. They get in the way of us hearing. I mean, guys, we covered the gamut on this one. So my hope today is that this would truly help you.

Wherever you're at, you're in your car, you're on the treadmill, you're cooking in your kitchen.

I hope that God meets you and speaks to you through this podcast and that this conversation actually increases your sense that you have a God who knows you personally, loves you personally, and speaks. Speaks to you personally. So here it is. Check it out. Mike, it's so great to have you on. I feel like this is twice in one year.

That might be a record around here.

Has it been? I know we did one. You did one with me before.

Like I was between my time of having left here nueva and I hadn't started Emmaus Road Ministries yet, which was a year and a half ago when I started. But then you and I had you on my podcast.

Yeah, we're just podcasting it up. Yeah, this is fun. But today what's so exciting is to have you on.

I know last time when we talked you were working on a book and now you have like in your hands, in people's hands. I've seen people share it. You're holding it right now. I love that so much. I've seen people post and share about it already.

They're mid read and they have amazing things to say. I'm so excited.

I am too. I am too.

Does it feel.

We were just talking offline and I know you said, you know, you've never given birth to a baby, but what does it feel like to have worked on something so long, to have felt a leading, to do something, to dream about something, then finally like hold it in your hands.

It's really surreal. I, I mean, when, when the idea first came to me and, and I, I'd like to say that like the Lord said invited me to do this.

Like the, the thought I had was I, I love to Teach on hearing God. I love that, that for me, particularly in the last 20 years of my relationship with God has been the most invigorating and life giving.

Part of my faith, of my interaction with God is that God communicates and I, I can receive that communication in some way. And it just, it just changed things from sort of this dry theological information, interaction of faith to a real relationship with a living friend.

And, and so the idea that oh, I, I want to write a book about this was like, oh yeah, if there was anything I could write a book about, this is what I'd write a book about. And immediately this thought comes, well, there's already a lot of books out about that. And I thought, well that's, that's true.

I've actually read a lot of them. And then the, the opposing thought was, but your audience hasn't read those books. And I thought, oh, I have an audience, okay.

I don't know who that audience is.

But I've, I've felt for some time that the things that God has shaped in me during my 13 plus years at Tierra Nueva are fairly unique in the body of Christ and that God has wanted me to express those things more widely. And so that's part of why I have the PODC and part of what has sort of led into this book.

And so just that thought came to me probably four and a half years ago.

And so I've been in this process that like the first journey into the process was really, I was deeply influenced by Brad Jurczak's book Can youn Hear Me Tuning into the God who Speaks.

That was very foundational for me in just learning and creating spaces where I can give God my attention and engaging in those spaces with my imagination. And so my first foray into writing was basically Mike's version of Brad's book. And Brad was really generous about it.

Before I started writing, I went to Brad, he lives just across the border in Abbotsford. And I just said, hey Brad, I've been so influenced by your teaching and, but I, I don't know where your teaching ends and mine begins.

And so as I'm writing this and he said, oh well, just say that and go for it. And he was just, just so generous in his encouragement and his affirmation and he wrote the forward to the book.

So that was, that was a real blessing too.

No, but I think it's interesting that you were being invited to hear God while writing a book about hearing God, if that makes sense. That's, that's beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's like when I, when.

And then eventually I got asked to do a sermon on prayer.

And so I just dove into all these books on prayer, and I'm writing my sermon, and then the Friday before the Sunday, I'm leaving the coffee shop and I'm in my car and I realize I'm preaching a sermon on prayer, and I haven't even prayed. And so I. I just stopped and I said, jesus, I'm so sorry that I haven't even asked you what. What is it you want your people to know?

And even before I finished asking the question, what I heard was, tell them that I love them and I want spend time with them. I thought, wow, I get to tell them that. What an honor and what a joy. What an invitation.

And so that's really the invitation of the book too, is tell them that I love them and I want to spend time with them and I want to share what's on my heart with them.

One of the things that just was sort of transformed in me more and more during my years at Tir Nueva is I had unhealthy views of God that were part of what I call my heart theology, part of unhealthy, unhelpful, toxic theologies, part of my own woundedness and sin. And those were all filters that either they filtered the way that I saw God, they filtered the way that I perceive what God would say to me.

And that was a lot of the journey that God took me on in the writing of this book, which was it's not simply about hearing God's voice. It's about hearing his heart. And it's like St. Augustine said, oh, Lord, let me know myself that I might know thee.

And that the journey actually into knowing God's heart more is a deeper discovery of our own hearts. And the converse is also true that as I know my heart more, I'll actually discover God more.

And it's both a liberating and somewhat terrifying journey, as I know you know, but like, where God led me with it was into a deeper revelation of my brokenness. And that that's exactly where I discover my belovedness.

My belovedness isn't summed up in this self Improvement project that I project to the world around me. It's. It's down in the deep chasms of my heart, all the places that I hide.

That's where Jesus wanted to go with me and say, this is the guy I died for. This is the guy that I love so much, that I died for.

Mike, you've mentioned Tiara Nova multiple times. And. And so I just feel like it's important to pause for a minute and. And make sure people listening know, because it sounds like it was such a.

Such an impactful experience and played a role in you hearing the heartbeat of God. What is Tiara Nueva so people understand what you're referencing?

Yeah. So Tier Nuev, a ministry in Skagit county started by Bob and Gracie Ekblad.

It originally started in Honduras in the early 80s, and then in Skagit county in 94. And Tierra Nueva works with people impacted by immigration and incarceration and addiction. So it's really. It's a ministry on the margins.

He's an Old Testament, has his PhD in Old Testament, and so he's a Bible scholar. He's written books on Bible studies. Probably his most profound one was his first one called Reading the Bible with the Damned.

And how essential it is for us to read Scripture with people on the margins, particularly if we come from any sort of a privileged point of view. And then.

So the Word and then the Spirit is like Holy Spirit empowerment for healing, for deliverance, for the prophetic, for wisdom, for all the things the Holy Spirit wants to do through us. And then. And street is that it's social justice on behalf of these particular contexts where people are marginalized.

I was having some experiences that I thought, man, my first 20 years of my relationship with God just felt like dry obedience.

And this is life that I never thought was possible in my relationship with God of just healing and freedom and just transformation in myself and through the Holy Spirit with other people. Just really exciting. And I just was like, wherever I go, I want. I want to be able to tap into that.

And, and it's like the Holy Spirit said, well, I have, I have something for you. But it's, it's, it's outside of the box, which is where the Holy Spirit loves to go is outside of the box.

Yeah, well, let's talk about that because I, when I was thinking about interviewing you, I really thought about people on this podcast listening and some of maybe their experiences around the idea of hearing God around not hearing God baggage, religious baggage and hang ups we have around it.

So I wanted to throw out several questions to you and one is, is tied in with what you just talked about, which is that a lot of people think the idea of hearing God sounds very woohoo. Like something that crazy people do.

What made you convinced in your own life that it's actually very true and possible that God is not only real and alive, but that God speaks and we can experience hearing Him?

Well, I mean for me it really involved sort of inner healing prayer in summer of like I said, the first 20 years of my faith in Jesus was really felt like dry obedience and like talking about the love of God but not experiencing the love of God. Feeling like you're doing sin management and trying to be good by your own efforts and really not feeling sort of any sort of victory.

It felt like a lot of futility. And yet like, like Peter says to Jesus, where else am I going to go? You have the words of eternal life, but it kind of sucks to be here.

That's my own translation.

And so, so it was, it was reading Neil Anderson's the Bondage Breaker and the subtitle and the Bondage Breaker is Overcoming Irrational Thoughts, Negative Feelings, Habitual Sins.

And I just like checked all three of those boxes and he really sets up all sorts of stuff in there in order to go through these prayer exercises that are at the end of the book. So none of that is talking about hearing God at that point. He's not even explicit about the Holy Spirit.

But, but I know that as I prayed through that stuff like the, the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 where there it says that some of them fell among the weeds and they grew up, but the, the weeds choked it off so that it didn't produce fruit. I feel like that was like a great description of my life.

There was all these weeds that were choking off the fruit and praying through all of this stuff from the bondage breaker pulled a lot of weeds out so that, not so that now God can do something, but so that now I can actually perceive what God is doing, I can actually, there's room for me to receive it.

And that just probably the most significant shift for me that happened at that point was prior to that, I was convinced that God was as disappointed in me as I was in myself because of my failure to overcome sin and obstacles in my life. And. And that led me to not want to get very close to God. Like. Like, if I.

If I think that God speaks, but I'm pretty convinced that what God is going to say is going to be condemning or shaming or criticizing. I don't really want to hear what he has to say. And so even if I believed that God spoke at that point, I. I didn't want to come into his presence.

I was actually terrified of it. And what shifted for me was I couldn't wait to go be with Jesus because those. What I.

What I was living out of were lies that were connected to my woundedness and my sin. And once. Once I got healing and forgiveness and some freedom around that, like, I just wanted to be with Jesus. And.

And again, there wasn't like, oh, now you're going to hear Jesus speak. But it was. There was just a sense of, as I'm spending time with him, there's a sense of His. Like, I'm. I'm not alone in the room.

God's somehow here with me. These thoughts are coming to me. I started writing music. You know, even.

Even the idea of hearing God's voice is maybe too limiting of a way to describe it. I like to say more that God communicates in some fashion and we receive it in some fashion. So some people are very visual. They're seers.

They get images and pictures, movies, visions. Some people are hearers. So they might have a. It might come as a thought or a word or actually even a sense of hearing something.

Some people are more intuitive and sensors. Like there's not even a word or an image where there's just a feeling or a sense about it.

Gosh, there's one other one that I can't remember what it is. So I find it helpful to try and take some of the. The. Take it out of the box of hearing because there's just.

I think there's so many ways that God communicates and along the way. So that's when I got introduced to Brad Jurczak's book, Can youn Hear Me? Tuning into the God who Speaks. And I love Brad. Just.

He's so helpful in just sort of laying the table for us and says, like, there's all Sorts of ways that you're already hearing God and they all count. And he starts off by saying the first one is invitation.

Like, if you consider yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, Scripture tells us that no one comes to the Father, but that the Father draws them, that no one comes unless there's an invitation and you're being drawn. Now, that invitation may not have sounded like a voice from heaven.

It may have have been, I heard Willow speak at this collide conference or my mom, or a book I read or a series of, like. For me, it was a series of invitations from my. My Christian friends who kept inviting me to these church events over two years. And.

And there were all these invitations to the point where I finally said the deeper. Yes. And so. So somehow God was communicating with me all along in that.

But then what Brad will say, because when he uses the phrase tuning into the God who speaks, so he thinks of a radio, if anybody uses radios anymore. But you can do preset buttons on your radio. And so he says, so invitation is a preset button.

We already know that God communicates through invitation. So maybe the question today is Jesus, what's your invitation for me today? Is there something. Is there a conversation you're inviting me into?

Is there a relationship? Is there an action you're inviting me into? And then to pray that. And to try to begin to cultivate attentiveness in some fashion to.

How would I know if God was answering that? And some of it is. Yeah, I actually need to cultivate it.

So, Mike, I have so many questions for you.

I want to go backwards a little bit to you talking about this idea that you had about God, that he was as disappointed in you as you were in yourself. And so you kind of had this expectation on how the conversation with God would go.

Yeah.

Which made you not want to spend time talking to him or hearing. Hearing from him.

Yeah.

And I'm curious if there was something you heard or learned about Jesus that changed your mind and changed your expectation, that invited you to recognize that Jesus would be different than what you expected.

Well, yeah, again, it was. It was Neil Anderson's book, the Bondage Breaker. So he. He spends a lot of time talking about his phrases, who I am in Christ. And that's.

All of it is utterly dependent upon what Jesus has done. None of it's dependent upon what I've done. And so he. He has these three. He has, like, these lies or false beliefs that we.

That tend to be probably under the surface, but they are in three categories of security, significance, and acceptance.

And so there's these beliefs that we have about how the world works, about what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about God and others that fit into those categories. And then he counters each of them with a scripture that has something to do with who we are in Christ.

And then he talks about the battleground that we actually have, a real enemy. Like Satan is not a metaphor for some disembodied evil. We actually have an enemy, the enemy of the human soul.

And the primary battleground for that enemy is our minds. And then in Jesus, we have authority over this enemy. So. So, like, none of it was like, absolutely new to me. But.

But for whatever reason, the, the kairos moment of God's timing, the divine appointment was like, let's. We're. We're gonna. We're gonna pull the curtain back and reveal the wizard behind the curtain.

Like, it was all like, I don't think, like, I've gone to seminary. I've been doing ministry for years, and I feel like I've never heard this before. And, and then the process of.

Of really like, praying through some things, some places of woundedness and even recognizing lies. I believe, like, like God is as disappointed in me as I am in myself. Like, that's, that's a lie. It's not scriptural.

It's not the Father that Jesus reveals who always runs down the road to us. And so actually it. To name that as a lie, to confess it, to maybe even get in touch with. With where that lie came in. So a lot of that had to.

Was connected to me and my relationship with my own dad. And I talk about that in chapter four in my book called heart theology that we. We tend to relate to God like, like we.

We can teach all of what we call the good orthodox right theology, but in our hearts we relate to God through the lens that we receive from our primary nurturers. And that's our heart theology. And so my heart theology, in the story of the prodigal son, the Father doesn't run down the road to the Son.

He stays back at the house. And the Son comes crawling up the driveway, and the Father's standing there with his arms folded across his chest and says, well, I'm.

I'm glad you're home, but things are going to change. There's some rules. Well, that's not the Father, Jesus reveals. That's my dad. And, and so I need to do some healing there.

And in particular, I had to do some forgiveness work towards my dad. And I talk about that a lot in there as well.

And I love.

I love that so much of what we've talked about so far in this conversation is a lot about almost what needs to take place in our hearts before we even want to hear God.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so much about. I mean, there's so much there that gets in the way of us even desiring to want to hear God. And then when we get there, you know, you.

You were talking a few minutes ago about God often laying out an invitation. There's invitations around us all the time.

I think sometimes when people hear that, they might think it sounds kind of like, O God hands you an invitation to a party. I had a conversation with someone this week who. Who had an affair in their marriage.

And, you know, as they're processing how they got to this place, they start kind of going backwards and talking about not ever having experienced luck growing up, and now that need to experience it has come out sideways and looking for it in the wrong places. And I, I, you know, in a long conversation, one of the things that I laid out was this is an invitation. Invitation into deeper healing.

Yeah.

Like, what has happened? What. What you've chose, what has happened to you? This. This terrible circumstance that you are now in is actually an invitation from God.

Yeah.

And I think maybe we need to sort of reframe what God's invitations look like. They're not always like, here's a. Here's a invitation to a party. What.

What are some other examples of how it might be evident that God's handing you an invitation? Well,.

One of the things that I talk about a lot in the book, and this has been a. A way that for the last several years, I feel like God communicates with me is what I call name dropping, where I'll just be.

And it's usually not when I'm doing something quote, unquote, spiritual or religious. It's not when I'm having my quiet time or when I'm worshiping, although it's often when I'm making coffee, which is a form of worship for me, but.

But it might be just driving and. And out of nowhere, a name comes to me.

So I get the name Willow, and I'm like, I haven't been thinking about Willow, so that I suspect that that's from the Holy Spirit. And so I will typically. So the invitation is to enter into that. So the. The invitation has your name on it, and I open it. And. And my.

My typical approach is to just pray. Father, would you take Willow deeper in your love Today. And I pray that for whoever's name comes to me.

And then as I'm doing that, I'll, I'll sit, I'll sit with it for a while and, and there may be a thought or that comes up about work or about a relationship or whatever, or even a feeling like suddenly as I'm praying, like I'll feel anxiety. Okay, well, I'm not feeling anxiety today, so maybe Willow's feeling anxiety. So Lord, would you speak into that?

Would you bring your peace into that place of anxiety for Willow?

And, and most of the time I will then text that person and just say, hey, Holy Spirit dropped your name on me today and this is what I prayed and let me know if there's other things that I can be praying for you.

And I've found that man, like 85, 90% of the time, like the timing of it and what I feel like God is leading me to pray is exactly what they needed at that moment. And so that's been a. I mean, that's what I love about the invitation is it's an invitation to partner with God.

Paul calls us co laborers with the Spirit. And that's part of what that is. And what I love about that is like it's not.

I mean, when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, it was for everybody. It wasn't just for ministry people and leaders. And that's.

And even though I'm a ministry person and a leader, what I'm hoping is that people will recognize like this is for everybody and you can do this anytime. This is not a, this is not a church sanctioned event. This is not a program. This is, this is you and the Holy Spirit today.

And it's a living relationship with a risen friend.

When women gather together, showing up authentically as they truly are messy, broken and beautiful, amazing things happen. This is why we're so excited about our new Collide and Converse video Bible study.

This six week video series centers around New Testament stories of people having life changing collisions with Jesus.

Taught by Collide's founder and director, Willow Weston, this Bible study is designed to be used in a group format and includes everything you need to host a group. So grab your neighbors, co workers, sisters or friends and dive into this study together and experience life changing conversations.

We are certain that as you gather with your group, you will collide with Jesus.

For all the details, check out the link in the show notes and enter the special code CONVERSEPodcast at checkout for 15% off the purchase of your course. You talked about the fact that there's so many ways that God communicates. Can you share a few more to sort of.

Because you mentioned you love to kind of take things outside the box. There's a lot of expectations, there's a lot of religious baggage around. God communicates this way.

And this is what it sounds like and this is what it looks like. And he always uses these words, you know what I mean? And that tone of voice, that's my voice, everybody.

But no, for real, like, can you lay out some different ways God communicates? Because that will be an invitation for us to pay attention to.

Yeah, well, I think, I mean one of the ones that comes to mind just because I'm surrounded by books here is through, through books and music and art and, and it doesn't have to be religious stuff, it doesn't have to be Christian stuff. In fact, quite often it's not. It's, there's a, you know, you, you're, you're listening to this music and it moves you deeply.

Like that's, that's spiritual, that's kingdom stuff, you know, and it may, so it may not be like God is communicating to you to go do something or, or even that you would have more information about God, but it's simply like God's there with you and he's blessing you, he's touching you, he's ministering to you, he's. He's wanting you to know that he's present with you. And so, I mean, some of the most profound books that speak to my heart are not Christian books.

And there's a lot of Christian ones that are as well. But like I, I remember going to, I'm a big science fiction fan. My wife says, are you going to go watch your nerd show now?

You know, And I say, yeah, yeah, I'm not ashamed of that. But so the, the book Dune by Frank Herbert is one that I've, it's like the Lord of the Rings of science fiction.

And, and it's, I've read it many, many times and they've, they've come out with a new two part movie. The second, second half of it hasn't come out. And there's a, there's a point where the main character Paul is with his father, who's the, the Duke.

And the Duke says to Paul, you know, there comes a time when a man is called to lead. And, and, and this is what it looks like to step into that.

But he says, even, even if your answer to that call is no, you'll still be the only thing that I need you to be, which is my son. And I just almost burst into tears in the theater.

Like, that was the Lord saying, yeah, I've got all these calls on your life, but even if you say no, you'll still be the one thing I need you to be, which is my son. So I just love how, like, yeah, there's. There's media out there. There's all.

All these different ways that are just stuff we're regularly engaged with that we often write off because it. It. It's not happening at church. It doesn't sound spiritual or look spiritual.

And.

And friendship conversations. I mean, how. How often have you sat with a friend and. And they said something that.

That you'd been thinking or that spoke into a question that you hadn't even articulated yet? I mean, we often maybe experience that when a pastor is preaching or a speaker's up front.

You're like, man, did somebody give them my journal this week? Because they're like, reading my mail. But that happens at coffee shops with our friends, too. You're sharing something, and they say this thing.

It's like, oh, man, I really needed to hear that. Like, that's the Lord, and he's using your friend. So there's. There's that. I mean, nature. I love how.

Yeah, just my appreciation of the Northwest where we live.

Like, sometimes you're in these places where you want to keep taking the picture over and over again because you're pretty sure, you know, the last time you took the picture wasn't what you're seeing now, you know, and it's like you're getting a window into what the Bible calls glory, you know, the glory of the Lord.

And it just blows me away to think, like, someday, like, we're going to stand in the presence of God and we won't have a camera, you know, to keep taking the pictures. But there's just this sense of. And Psalm. Psalm 19 talks about this.

Romans 1 talks about this, that through creation, God's divine majesty is made known. And obviously, scripture is probably our core one. That's how we know what God is like and that we measure and filter all the other stuff through.

But there's all these ways that God speaks to us through Scripture. Whether it's like, okay, I've read this passage a hundred times, and today it seemed like there was a highlighter on this verse.

Or I've had this question burning in me this week, and I decided to read the lectionary, which is something that was planned decades ago. So I didn't choose the passage.

And then I read this, and it's like, oh my gosh, God's speaking directly into this question that, that I'm wrestling with. I mean, there's so many. We could spend a whole podcast talking about how scripture. God uses scripture to speak to us.

One question I do have about that, though, and times have even changed since I first collided with Jesus and my life was changed by Him. You know, in the 90s, when I was in my 20s, I'd never read the Bible. Never. I didn't know the gospel story. I, I just, it blew me away.

But there's so, so many people who have issues with it, right? Like, they're, they're sort of, in a sense, illiterate. They, they call themselves Christians, but it makes them feel dumb. It makes them feel bored.

They've had people use it as a weapon. I mean, I could go on and on about people, people's issues with it.

And yet it is a way that God speaks about who he is, who he's been in history with, humanity. There's this sort of beautiful narrative from front end about his love for, for his kids and what he would do for them.

And I'm curious what invitation you have for us to maybe reframe, why it's a beautiful way to hear from God.

Well, it is. It is the human historic revelation.

I mean, as you were talking before you asked that question, though, the thought that I had is like, Scripture was always meant to be read in community. And, and we're not very good at community. I'm not. I'm sitting here in my basement by myself and doing ministry over zoom.

We're talking. We're talking.

We are, we are talking. We're miles apart from one another, but we're talking. But, but you know how often the, the word you.

Y, O, U, we are, we have a Western, individualist, cultural mindset. And, and, but the, the word you in Scripture is most often plural. And, and, and we are meant to read scripture with people different than ourselves.

That's, as I said with, with Bob's book, reading the Bible with the damned, like, how critical it is for us to read scripture with people who experience marginalization. And he says for our mutual liberation, like we, we need one another as we read Scripture.

And so there's, I think there's a lot of ways, I agree that Scripture has been been weaponized and it's been used to control and, and we get bored with it.

And so there's, I think there's also really creative ways, you know, approaches like lectio divina, sort of the reflective reading of scripture, or there's a Ignatian approach called imaginative contemplation, where you take a gospel passage and. And as you read it with your imagination, try to imagine yourself in the passage as a participant.

And so there's ways, I think, in which to make it come alive. And I think it's also so important for us to do that with one another because my hearing is not pure hearing.

My interpretations are not pure, my perceptions are not. And I need other people and we need to give each other permission.

We need to be kind about it, but we need to give each other permission to say, you know, well, I don't think that's Jesus, what you're bringing there. Let's explore that a little bit more.

Yeah, no, that's. That's awesome. I think that's a great invitation for us to be reading it in community. And what does that look like?

And if we don't have it, what does it look like to step outside of ourselves and ask someone to enter in with us and read and hear God from his Word together? I think that's great. I wanted to ask you, what do you believe kills intimacy with God?

Fear. I think fear, I mean, that's in my own personal experience, you know, and I think it's in the.

In first John, it says, you know, perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. But though I think it's like. And those who fear are not perfected in love. And the fear has to do with the fear of punishment.

Like that God's disappointed in me and he's not safe, he's not good, he's not trustworthy. Yeah. So, yeah, that for me, and that's been a sort of a lifelong journey for me is. Is healing and freedom around fear. And so, and.

And I still wrestle with it more. More so actually with, you know, fear of conflict or, or people pleasing, that sort of thing. But, but yeah, I think, yeah, whatever.

Whatever we're afraid of with God is going to be an obstacle. And God can deal with our obstacles and he wants to, because he wants to remove those things so that we can come close to him.

What does silence say about God when we want to hear God, but we feel like he's silent?

Well, I think. I think there's a lot of silence, and I think we need.

Rich Fiotis in his book the Deeply Formed Light says we need to befriend silence in terms of our prayer life. But There also might be other reasons for silence besides the fact that there's just often a lot of silence in prayer.

You know, so there, there might be silence because there's stuff I need to deal with in my life. There's, I'm, I'm actually focused on something else. There's, there's sin I'm not willing to address in my life.

And so I'm wondering why God's not talking to me. Well, he. He was talking to me, and I stopped listening because I didn't want to hear what he had to say about this area of my life.

And sometimes the silence is a waiting.

You know, there's times, I mean, as you describe with your book, you're in sort of this waiting for, all right, I've told the Lord what I need, and I'm waiting. And there's things that we can of learn about God in the waiting. But, but Scripture is full of it. Like, for God alone, my soul waits in silence.

My help comes from him. Psalm 62, verse one, you know, Be still and know that I am God. We're, we're the ones that are uncomfortable with the silence.

And, but, but I would say, like, if, if there's a person who's coming and their desire is to hear God, to be, to grow in intimacy with God, that's again, where, where community can be helpful, which is, let's listen together. And, and, and, and maybe you actually are hearing some things, but you've just written them off as not God. And let's talk about that. And.

Well, actually, Willow, that actually sounds a lot like something Jesus would say. So maybe you are actually hearing from God or let's explore what's in the way.

My friend Zach, who went through 13 treatment centers before he finally got clean, and then his road of recovery included having to face obstacles that were uncomfortable for him, he would regularly say that the thing in the way is the way. And so, okay, Jesus, I want to talk to you about silence. I feel like you're not talking to me. What's going on there?

You know, and is there something I need to know? What's the most important thing I need to know right now? Is there something I need to do?

But I also found there was a point where I, I kind of headed out with God and I just said, I feel like I'm the pursuer in this relationship. Like, I know that's not theologically true. Like, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you hadn't loved me first.

Like, but, but I really feel Like I'm doing all the work here. And I know that's even stupid to say, but that's my what I feel.

And, and along the way I realized that, oh, that's actually how I felt in my relationship with my dad.

But it was, it was, you know, to forgive my dad for not being a pursuer in our relationship and for expecting me to be the pursuer all the time.

And, and then when I was done with that, then I, I, I said, and Father, I recognize that I've actually taken that framework and I've unconsciously or subconsciously put it on our relationship. And so I, I renounce that. And I'm looking forward to how you're going to pursue me, God, and how I'm going to experience that pursuit.

And it was a, it was still a couple months after that, but that's when the name dropping first started to happen for me. Was it right was following that sort of prayer work.

It's so interesting how much of our wounds that we've experienced in other relationships get carried into our relationship with God.

And also the counter to that, the, the beauty we've experienced into other relationships can also be projected onto what our relationship with God can look like. Because I think about, you know, and I understand because I have mother and father wounds and have God has, you know, taking me through the ringer.

I'm still in it.

But I also, after being married now, Rob and I have been married 25 years and I see silence with God differently because Rob and I can get in the car and drive to Portland. We can talk for hours.

We can just chat and chat and chat, but we can also sit and like stare out the window and go for a walk and hold hands or, or listen to music and we don't have to talk.

And I think there's this weird thing in Christianity in, in expectations that God should just be chatting at us all the time and we should be chatting at him all the time. And I think there's an element to God maybe that I've learned from my relationship being married, that God also just wants to be with you.

Yeah, like, he also just wants to go on a walk with you.

Yeah.

He also just wants to sit in the car with you and listen to music. Like, maybe we all just need to chill out a Little bit like, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because even the. The danger of. Of telling the stories of hearing God is it makes it sound like that's what it's like all the time. And, and it's not.

It's. It's mostly like you're describing, like, yeah, I'm just walking and I know Jesus is with me and we're good like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike, do you have anything, any closing last thoughts that you want to share? When you think about people listening who truly long and desire to hear from God, but they just.

They kind of feel like it's for other people and not for them. What. What can they do? Where can they start?

Well, I would invite them to pray or just ask Jesus, would you show me where you've already been speaking to me that I haven't noticed? And would you help me to be attentive to that? Because I know that God's already speaking to them.

Without a doubt, God's already speaking to them, and for whatever reason, they're not perceiving it. And it would maybe take a long time of time together to sort of discern what the obstacles are or whatever.

But I know that everybody that's listening, God has been speaking to them. He formed them in their mother's womb. They are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, and he's communicating with them.

And so, Lord, I just ask that you would show them some of the ways that you've already been doing that, help them and, and help them to become aware of that and, and then give thanks. Oh, thank you, God. I didn't realize that that was you.

I love that so much. And for those of you listening, I truly hope that you pray that prayer help me to be attentive to what you're already saying.

We'd love to hear the stories.

If you end up getting a sense of what I'm saying at our info email, you can check that [email protected] But, Mike, I know people are going to want this book. How can they do it?

Well, it's available on Amazon. Hearing the Heartbeat of God is the name. And my. I guess my author's name is Michael Neely. Even though I just go by Mike.

It looked better on the COVID to say Michael than Mike, so. But I go by Mike. Yeah, so it's all available on Amazon. It's actually under Bob Ekblad's People's Seminary Press.

But it's functionally, it's self publishing through Amazon.

Awesome. Well, thank you Mr. Michael on the podcast and helping us to better hear the heartbeat of God.

Thanks, Willow. It's been good to be here.

Friend, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I know that I did. I love that God lays out invitations for us through so many different ways.

And all we have to do is begin to pay attention, to look up, to be attentive. And I love that prayer that Mike gave us at the end to ask God how he might already be speaking to us and we didn't perceive it.

What a beautiful prayer and a brave prayer. And I can't wait to hear stories from you guys that. That you hear God even answer that prayer.

If, if that happens for you, I hope you email [email protected] cause I want to hear about it. I love God's stories. I love hearing how God speaks and moves and. And meets us. And I know that he is waving at you. He's around every corner.

He's journeying with you. He is in the car with you. And sometimes he just wants to hang out. He wants to be with you. Sometimes he wants to encourage you.

Sometimes he wants to exhort you. Sometimes he wants to shape you and refine you. Sometimes he just wants you to know that he loves you with a mad, fierce, unconditional love.

So, friend, keep colliding and running into him. He will speak.