Dallas Willard is a bestselling author and professor at the University of Southern California's School of Philosophy. He won the Christianity Today book award in 2007 for The Great Omission and is also the author of Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge.
Hearing God is an expansion and updating of Willard's 1995 book exploring the yearning many committed Christians have for an intimate relationship with God. It echoes the sentiments of Brother Lawrence who in The Practice of the Presence of God wrote: "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God."
Willard directs his commentary to hearing the Divine in Scripture, in the natural world, and in the still, small voice of God within us. Many readers will stop in their tracks when he says: "We must think of ourselves as capable of having the same kind of experiences as did Elijah or Paul."
If this is to happen we must be trained to be better listeners. We are challenged to look for hints of the Holy One in our experiences and in the activities of other people in our lives.
Hearing God contains new material from Willard's teaching at the Renovare Institute, and six new Scripture meditations. There is also a companion DVD with six 30-minute sessions that incorporate teaching from Willard along with conversations with Richard Foster and John Ortberg about conversations with God. It is available from Renovare.
