Something was said by a former student of mine. "One day I just stopped praying, but God never stopped speaking to me." I have been fascinated with that statement all morning. She mentioned a removal of herself from "what I was socialized to be."

If we have grown up even a bit in or around the Church, there are practices taught to be utilized and enacted in particular ways. I am not sure that this is how we are meant to live. God has made each one of us a particular way with very colorful wiring, and we cannot expect to relate to or hear from God in the exact same way as every other person.

It is very possible for me to hear and know the heart of God at the core of who I am when I allow myself the freedom to hear from God from that place instead of the rigid expectations of how certain people have heard from Him in the past.

As long as I am giving good check to those things I believe I am hearing from God. I want to be more focused on listening to Him than I am on the pathways or practices I have been taught along the way.

Those things I believe I am hearing from God still need to be checked against His Word and His Body (fellow believers) to be sure my heart is not deceiving itself and calling it God's voice, but there is still a far greater freedom in that than the socialized ways I have been taught for years in the Church.

Yes, there was a moment when I stopped making prayer closets, creating calendared "quiet times". There was a moment I stopped praying, but the more entangled I become with the heart of Jesus, I realize He never stops speaking to me.