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The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond

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Without a doubt, one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Christian life is what we mean when we say that we "heard from the Lord", "received a prompting from God", or otherwise received specific divine direction. The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God. Having the Guts to Respond. is a decent, basic, easily readable explanation of what it means to hear God's voice, but I felt that it lacked depth. I should point out that I received an advance reading copy of the book, so perhaps some of my problems with the book will be corrected in the final publication copy. Chapter 4, "How to Know When You're Hearing from God," is probably the most important chapter in a book like this. Hybels shared 5 filters that he uses to "test every whisper" he hears - to make sure they are from God. But, here I was a little confused, because the first filter was "Is the Prompting Truly from God?". I think his point here was simply to emphasize that not every "prompting" or "whisper" is from God - but that was the point of the whole chapter anyway. The other four filters he listed were: "Is it Scriptural?", "Is it wise?", "Is it in tune with your own character?" (another one I had a problem with) and "What do the people you most trust think about it?" Hybels referred to the "Is it in tune with your own character?" test as the "wiring test," and while I understand his point that God typically does not ask us to do something that is out of character with the way he wired us - that is not always necessarily the case. The Scriptures are full of examples of the most unlikely people being asked to do things that could be considered completely out of character for them. The Lord sometimes uses such unlikely assignments to shape and mold our character to be more like His. The Power of a Whisper isn't a bad book. Hybels gives a number of inspiring examples of the benefits of listening to God's whispers, and a few examples of the consequences of our inattention. But there are much better books on the subject in my opinion. Consider Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, or Henry and Richard Blackaby's Hearing God's Voice, or a resource specifically geared to discerning God's will for your life such as M. Blaine Smith's classic Knowing God's Will: Finding Guidance for Specific Decisions. I like to read Hybels on leadership, but just think that others have done a better job with this important topic.

Greg Wilson
[...].

Hybels encourages readers by asserting Scripturally and anecdotally that God speaks to people, and if they are willing to respond, they will be blessed and led by the Creator of all things. This is one of several books by Hybels that I have read, they have all been encouraging, practical and for the most part Scripturally based. This book follows suit; however, I found the self-aggrandizing of the author somewhat unbearable in this book. For me the constant insertion of Hybels himself obstructed the message of hearing God.

The positive value of the book leads readers to know that the Bible teaches that God speaks to us for our good, as he leads us, teaches us, disciplines us and loves us. He speaks to us by whispers in our spirit, through others, through our observations, and by his Word. Hybels shares a plethora of stories of how people have been blessed, inspired, convicted to repent, warned, led in decisions, etc by God's whispers. He also offers some relevant guidelines for people to follow to learn to hear God and to discern whether a whisper is from God.

The negative feedback for me has to do with the unnecessary, more-than-typical aggrandizing writing by Hybels. Some examples are how he credits one man's hearing of God's whispers not to God's grace or the man's sensitivity but to the author's own preaching; another example comes from his teaching on humility. Hybel's solution to pride is to condescend to having conversations with and tipping "cab drivers, bell hops and room cleaners in hotels...grocery baggers, lawn mowing teams or others employed in service oriented jobs." I honestly couldn't believe I had just read that. Obviously, he assumes such people would not be reading his book or he would have offered some instruction for people in such "humble" positions. Hybels also assures readers that he would have been super successful in whatever career path he had chosen. It just seems he goes to unnecessary efforts to remind readers that he is very important. It is quite contrary to the tone of many books on spiritual disciplines where the author makes him or herself very little so that God is magnified.

Among many great examples of people hearing and following God's whispers, I also think that Hybels offers some examples of his own following God's whispers that contradict his own stated guidelines for discerning God's voice; I think this especially applies to a parenting example or two. I think he needed to spend more time emphasizing the discernment process and offer more relevant examples of people getting it wrong, which can be as damaging as hearing from God can be helpful. Hearing from God can be a subjective experience, and Hybels really does not convey a sense of how careful I think we need to be in telling ourselves and others "The Lord says...". That prelude to a statement can be used for ungodly purposes, unfortunately. Most of the examples in the book are very positive and certainly illustrate God speaking to his children.

I think there is a beneficial message in the book. I also think the book could have used a careful editing by a spiritual director or mentor of Hybels who could have helped to make Hybels less and Jesus more.

Shhh, did you hear it? Can you feel it? The nudge or whisper you just heard could be from God. If your like me it can be a challenge to know if the voice you heard was from God or just your imagination gone wild. In Bill Hybels newest book, The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God. Having the Guts to Respond, Pastor Hybel shares story's of God whispers in people's lives.

This was the first book I have read by Bill Hybels and I was pleasantly surprised. For a non-fiction, religious book, it was a easy read, yet there was a great many pondering thoughts that could challenge a person. (if you take the time to ponder.) One of the things I appreciated about the book was the authentic nature it was written. The examples and story's are very real and believable.

Throughout the book, Pastor Hybels takes the reader on a journey of how he responded to God nudges and hearing God whisper in his life. He leads through example on how we, too, can hear God whisper.

In my opinion, one of the greatest resources Pastor Hybel gives us is short list of five filters that can help us test every whisper we receive. Below is the filter list, you should read the book to get more details.

Filter 1: Is the prompting truly from God?

Filter 2: The Scripture Filter

Filter 3: The General-Wisdom Filter

Filter 4: The Wiring Test

Filter 5: The godly Counsel Test

This is definitely a book I would recommend to anyone who needs encouragement that God is active and alive in our daily life or if someone is searching for the next step in their life journey.

I was given a copy of The Power of a Whisper as an advanced reader copy by Zondervan in exchange for my reading it and writing an honest review of the book. No other compensation was received and all views are mine and mine alone.

I saw the title of the book and knew I had to read it. I have students all the time say to me, "How do you know when God is talking to you?" They also want to know, "Does God ever talk to people today in an audible voice?"

So, it was with curiosity and hope that I started to read Pastor Hybels book. The book is easy to read, lots of stories about people hearing from God, and personal stories from Pastor Hybels on the Whispers he has heard from God.

One troubling problem I had was that often when mentioning a Biblical principle he does not give you the scripture reference. Instead you have to look at footnotes (although chapter 5 doesn't have this problem). So, there is an underlying assumption that people will trust the writer since it is human nature to not look up references while reading.

I found myself agreeing with Pastor Hybels five benchmarks for knowing whether God is talking to you or not. That comes in Chapter 4. Probably one of the best chapters of the book for me. It reaffirmed that what I have been telling my students is what another Pastor feels is important.

Overall the book does a good job of speaking to the topic of how we hear from God. It is written simply enough that everyone can learn the underlying Biblical truths about how God speaks to us even today.

I agree though with one of the other reviewers, Pastor Hybels thinks this is his best book yet, I wouldn't agree with that assessment. I found that it lacked depth. Instead of taking some solid Biblical references and digging deep into them we are given large amounts of scripture, brushed over quickly and piled one on top of the other so much that it almost overwhelms us with proof texts that we don't have time to fully digest. It's almost as though the river is a mile wide an only an inch deep.

I would have appreciated Pastor Hybels taking less time to tell us about Willow Creeks building programs, staff problems in the early days and stresses of jet lag as he fly's around the world. In todays culture we are so busy, there is so much white noise, we are so tired running from soccer practice to school dramas to church activities to family get togethers that we fail to stop, wait on the Lord, be still and know that He is God.

Bottom line. The book is a great reminder of how God communicates with us. A good primer for those who have never thought about how God communicates, but maybe a bit to heavy on personal stories.

Enjoy!

I used to love listening to Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story", filling in previously-unknown important details about current events. In this book, Bill Hybels similarly shares what's really been going on in the past 34 years at Willow Creek Community Church, and in his own life as pastor. For those who aren't familiar with Willow, I consider it the eye of the hurricane in what God is doing in our generation.

In this book, Bill peels back the curtain behind key events in both his own life and that of the Willow Creek Church and Association, and shows how he believes he and others at Willow have been guided by messages from God along the way on such varied topics as speaking the truth in love, women in ministry, AIDS, extreme poverty, racial reconciliation, immigration and human trafficking.

Bill also shares ways to improve our own hearing of such messages, and tips for discerning whether a sudden inspiration is really from God.

As Bill likes to say about Willow's annual Leadership Summit, this is all new material. Some books by pastors are just recycled sermon series -- but not this one. Even if you too have attended Willow regularly since 1990, I guarantee you have not heard all this before.

As Bill notes, this is a somewhat-risky book. Lots of crazies throughout history have claimed to be guided by messages from God. Plus, for a pastor to claim a decision is due to divine inspiration greatly ups the ante for those on the other side of an issue.

I used to recommend people interested in understanding Willow Creek to read Lynne & Bill Hybels' 1995 book Rediscovering Church, to see how a student pastor and a dozen kids in a youth group grew into one of the largest churches in America. But now I'd instead recommend reading this book, covering the same ground at a deeper level and extending it to today.

Highly recommended!

This book took a while to get started and seemed (for me) to struggle with the ability to keep my interest. That's not to say there isn't value in it, but I have read other books that have been more successful in sharing the information Bill Hybels attempts in The Power of a Whisper. The first three chapters, eighty plus pages, were spent on introduction and anecdotal experiences of people who wrote in about their notions and encounters with God's "whispers." A few of these testimonials would have been sufficient to make a point, but after more than a handful they seemed redundant and I was ready to move on to the next point.

I think chapter four, "How to Know When You're Hearing from God," offered the most practical wisdom and guidance in the book. In it, Hybels suggests several "filters" to assist the listener in discerning the voice (or whispers) of God in their life. I'm not sure if I personally agree with all five filters he provides, but they do offer some guidelines for discerning. In chapter five, Hybels writes about "God's written whispers." This is described in part by knowing God's word in a literal sense and committing its truths to memory. I think we often take for granted our knowledge of Scripture with the idea that having the Bible in our physical possession or at our disposal, we can look up a particular "help" when we "need" it. It has been my experience that many people use the Bible as "emergency helps tool." I think the gist of the author's intent in this chapter is learning and committing God's Word (written whispers) deeply in our heart provides the firm foundation of His counsel before we need to "look it up." This embedded understanding of God's Word helps us to avoid, on many occasions, confusion and misdirection before it has the chance to happen

The remaining chapters of the book give other examples and guidance for "hearing" God during particular seasons of life; the Dark Night of the Soul, Parenting, "ministry and mission that extends beyond the immediate circle of our influence" (Whispers that Change the World), Hearing God Whispers through Others, and living obediently to God's whispers (Say the Word).

Overall, I found the book moderately engaging. As I mentioned, I have found other books to be more informational, instructional, and practical in teaching a similar theme as endeavored in The Power of a Whisper. I think the book might serve as a first introduction to the most foundational and fundamental steps to entering the spiritual disciplines as Hybels describes practicing discernment, meditating on Scripture, journaling, focusing on practicing the presence of God throughout the day, spiritual direction, and silence and solitude to name a few. He does not use the language of spiritual formation, but the tools are here. And, ultimately, I think that is the goal of the book... to help lead people into a deeper relationship with God, so they might hear and obey His Word and His guidance and become fully transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.

Since book reviews are subjective, I'll complete my review with these final thoughts: I don't think I'd say the book is suitable to every person, few books are. I did not find anything I took issue with or that the book might be lacking. Perhaps the thing that I find most striking about the book is the message it speaks about our current church culture. The Bible clearly indicates that God speaks man...He always has, and the message of the cross of Christ is that God has always desired to live amongst His people in mutually satisfying relationship...this includes communication; "speaking." I believe this book is primarily directed to people that have some notion and understanding of Biblical Christianity. The mere fact this book is necessary is a somewhat sad commentary. People do not know how to hear God's voice, they don't believe we can hear God's voice, or they don't believe God speaks at all. None of these are healthy scenarios. Even so, I think The Power of a Whisper will fill a niche and for folks in "this place" of their journey, and for them it will be beneficial.

Power of a Whisper is an autobiographical memoir of one of the most innovative Christian leaders of my father's generation cleverly disguised in the garb of a practical theology book. In my opinion, it of course falls short as an exhaustive guide on how to hear God. But as a story line of what happens when one man obeys God, it is really amazing. It chronicles the ministry of Bill Hybels from a young Sunday School student to founding and running the internationally influential Willow ministries and how God guided him from start to present. This is a worthwhile book to read for readers looking for a modern-day story of what God can do with someone who simply listens and obeys.

[...]

Thanks to the Willow Creek Association for sending me a free copy of this to review. Doubly thank you as it had to be done outside the pre-set system (since it only allowed people from the U.S.A. to register).

Whisper is a book about hearing the voice, or the whispers, of God and obeying. The title really does say it all. Hybels begins by encouraging the reader to believe that God does still speak to us and that we ought to listen and obey. He goes on to explain how you can know it is God's voice, what you can do to hear God's voice, and the different ways in which God whispers to us. For this last point, Hybels has four chapters: Light for Dark Nights of the Soul, Promptings for Parenthood, When God Speaks Through Others, and Whispers that Change the World. He concludes with a chapter exhorting obedience.

Hybels offers a clear and compelling picture of what a life of obedience to God can look like. He is absolutely right to point us to the fact that our God communicates, that He longs to affect our lives, to speak to us and be obeyed. This is a topic we need to talk about more, that could be, and ought to be, a reality in the lives of many believers, but for some reason it is oft forgotten. So, thank you for writing this book.

However, for better or for worse, I ended up reading this book alongside of Spiritual Formation by Henri Nouwen. As such, my opinion is somewhat jaded. To be honest, I am more of a Nouwen kind of guy than a Hybels kind of guy. Firstly, the majority this book is stories. On top of that, he has an entire chapter (#3) which is basically a collection of even more stories. It got to be too much. I mean, I like encouraging stories, I really do. But when the message of each of the 10 chapters could be summarized in 3-5 pages (total 30-50), and the book is over 250 pages... too much. Secondly, I found it all very simplistic. In some places, this is good and necessary. There is no point in making the simple complicated. Still, in the middle of Hybels chapter on how to know when you are hearing the voice of God, I wanted to ask: What about Abraham? God whispered to him to sacrifice his only son... that command would never have made it through Hybels 'grid', and yet Abraham obeyed and it was credited to him as righteousness. Thirdly, and lastly, there is too much focus on justification by success. Hybels gives the nod, several times, to the difficulties of listening to God and the sacrifices that may be required, but for him the story always ends well. And often, this 'ending well' is the ultimate proof Hybels needs, and holds up to the reader, to show that this whisper was indeed from God. What about the whispers that lead to the cross? The martyrdom after which others take up our work? Or the quiet life whose affect may never be fully appreciated because the fruit is generations away? I understand why Hybels chooses the stories he does; they are compelling, interesting, and who wouldn't want to have a story with that ending? But, in so doing, Hybels subtly promotes our cultures values under the guise of blessings from God.

Conclusion: 3.5 Stars. Conditionally recommended. Read with caution, in that you are getting mostly stories, and you are getting a very rosy picture of carrying your cross and dying to your self.

This book came at just the right time for me and I think it will be a great encouragement for others. God wants to communicate with us. Our job is to listen. Thanks for being vulnerable and open about your experience, Bill.

I've read and appreciated a number of books by Bill Hybels in the past (particularly on the topics of prayer and leadership) but have not read much of his recent work. His most recent book, The Power of a Whisper, is subtitled "Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond." Through the book, Hybels recounts stories of God's faithfulness through whispered promptings. While the book is full of biblical illustrations and references, it is largely a narrative of personal reflections telling the ways God's whispers have comforted and directed the author throughout his ministry. While Willow Creek's success has been attributed to a number of factors (ranging from leadership and strategy to suburban cultural norms and American consumerism), Hybels attributes Willow's success to these whispers and promptings from God. The chapters journey through the various ways Hybels has experienced God's voice, whether in ministry, parenting, vocational discernment, crisis, or in large-scale social issues like poverty, racism, etc.

I appreciated the honesty and vulnerability it can take to write a book like this, as it is definitely strange to claim reliance on divine whispers in a culture of skepticism (not to mention the frequency that God's voice is the cited reason for actions that are more often than not caused by mental illness). The chapter on "filtering" these whispers and promptings to discern whether they come from God was helpful, although basic enough to be summarized well in a two-page appendix. I wish that Hybels would have mentioned the role that a broader range of spiritual disciplines (such as silence, scriptural meditation, solitude, etc.) could play in the process of listening to God's voice. More, too, might have been written to recognize that God's whispers are not intended to lead everyone to the numerical and financial level of an organization like Willow Creek. That said, I enjoyed reading this book and was encouraged by its message.