Listen to your life. Listen to what happens to you because it is through what happens to you that God speaks . . . It's in language that's not always easy to decipher, but it's there, powerfully, memorably, unforgettably.

I sit and talk to God, and he just laughs at my plans.

We must always listen to God's voice. He always speaks to us through someone else. So first we must learn to listen to God's divine voice which we may receive through others. Then we will not be misled in our journey of life.

One must, however, take care not to understand this conversation with God — the conversation of which I have to speak in this book and in almost all the works which followed — as something happening solely alongside or above the everyday. God's speech to men penetrates what happens in the life of each one of us, and all that happens in the world around us, biographical and historical, and makes it for you and me into instruction, message, demand. Happening upon happening, situation upon situation, are enabled and empowered by the personal speech of God to demand of the human person that he take his stand and make his decision. Often enough we think there is nothing to hear, but long before we have ourselves put wax in our ears.
(Postscript, October 1957)

No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door And they say "We've got some bad news, sir." No one's laughing at God when there's a famine, fire or flood <p> But God can be funny At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke Or when the crazies say He hates us And they get so red in the head you think they're 'bout to choke <p> God can be funny When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus God can be so hilarious...

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

I have faith that God will show you the answer. But you have to understand that sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what God wants you to do. That's how it often is. God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell.

Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?

God doesn't want us to pile up impressive phrases. He doesn't want us to use words without thinking about their meaning. He wants us to talk to him as to a friend or father - authentically, reverently, personally, earnestly.

Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen.

Now it is certain, by the voice of all mankind, that God speaks to us through His works—that He whispers to us through our natural conscience—that He attracts us to Him by instincts, and desires, and aspirations after a happiness higher than sense, and more enduring, more changeless, than this mortal life. God speaks to us articulately in the stirring life of nature, and in the silence of our own being.

Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?

Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?

"I seemed to hear God saying, "Put down your gun and we'll talk.