Stop Looking for a Formula for Hearing God

If you think the H.E.A.R. Framework is just a formula or one of the other four things we’ll explore in this email, you’re about to be disappointed.

Jul 15, 2025

We’re getting close to the halfway mark of Hear From God in 40 Emails (Or Less), and most of the rest of this email series will explore the “H.E.A.R. Framework” in-depth. (And, it’s some of what I’ve been most looking forward to writing.)

If you want to read about the H.E.A.R. Framework in nutshell, read this email. For now, though, here’s a quick reminder of it.

If you want to hear from God, I recommend paying attention to four of the most common ways that God guides us:

HEART: What’s God saying through divine nudges in your heart?
EXPERIENCES: What’s God saying through providential experiences you’re having?
ADVICE: What’s God’s saying through wise people in your life?
READING: What’s God saying through your ordinary reading of the Bible?

It spells the word H.E.A.R.

The H.E.A.R. Framework is a simple tool that I’ve seen help lots of people make sense of how God might be guiding them through the decisions that matter most, but without guidance, it’s easy to turn the H.E.A.R. Framework into something it’s not—in at least one of five ways.

1) It’s not a formula that always “works.”

One of the things that’s always been frustrating to me about the Bible is its resistance to formulas. I’m a person who wants clear, step-by-step instructions that, if I follow them, will produce the same result every single time. Give me a recipe, and I’m set.

But, that’s not how the Bible works.

There’s an episode in Acts, a book in the Bible about the early days of the church, when a man named Simon the Sorcerer thought he discovered the formula for giving someone the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:9-25). He was ready to pay money for it, but Peter told him that’s not how this works.

There’s always a temptation to do the same with hearing God. You go looking for a formula that will ensure you hear from God, but hearing God can’t be reduced to a formula that will guarantee you experience God’s guidance. When it doesn’t work, you go looking for the next formula.

Dallas Willard, when summarizing his own approach to hearing God, says that if you call it a formula, “Note, however, that is not a formula for getting God to speak to us on matters that may concern us. […] It is, instead, a formula for living with God’s voice, for hearing his word in a life surrendered and brought to maturity by him.”1 Yes, you could think of it as a formula, but it’s not doing what you think a formula should do.

The H.E.A.R. Framework is nothing more than categories, framed with a fun acronym, that will help you make sense of how God might already be speaking to you—not a formula for making him speak.

2) It’s not an exhaustive list of all the ways God speaks.

The H.E.A.R. framework is built around four of the most common ways that God speaks to people, but these aren’t the only ways that God might guide you. In fact, in a previous email, I shared a list of 25 Ways God Guides People in the Bible ranging from talking donkeys to dreams and visions.

While the framework will help alert you to some of the most common things to look out for, don’t let it blind you to other possible ways that God might want to get your attention. One of the problems with frameworks like this one is that, sometimes, they can end up boxing out any experiences of God’s guidance that don’t fit into it.

Just because a possible experience of God’s guidance doesn’t fit into the general H.E.A.R. framework doesn’t mean it’s not God’s guidance.

For example, I’ve never had an experience of God speaking to me through a dream, and dreams don’t have their own category in the H.E.A.R. framework (unless we made it into the H.E.A.R.D. Framework).

But, dreams are surprisingly common in the Bible—in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Dreams are also surprisingly common throughout the world, especially in the stories of people converting from Islam to Christianity. In just one example, “There was a family in Kurdistan where each member of the household had a separate dream that they should cross the river the next day to find living water. The next day, without hesitation, they all went, and someone gave them a Bible.”2

Where do you put that in the H.E.A.R. Framework?

3) It’s not prioritized in order of importance.

The H.E.A.R. Framework is an acronym, but the problem with acronyms is that they make a memorable order to something that might not be the best order—especially when it comes to order of importance.

Just because the acronym starts with God’s guidance in your heart doesn’t mean that the heart is the most important way that God speaks to people. Just because it ends with God’s guidance through your normal reading of Scripture doesn’t mean that the Bible should be the last thing you pay attention to.

If anything, the H.E.A.R. Framework is probably in ascending order of importance (rather than descending)—from what is generally the least reliable way that God might guide you to the most reliable way.

These four categories are intended to work in tandem with each other—even if, in the end, the final category (God’s guidance through the reading of Scripture) has a bit more weight than the other three.

4) It’s not meant to replace the Holy Spirit.

I’ve mentioned this in a previous email, but you might notice that the Holy Spirit isn’t listed in any of the four categories in the framework.

That’s not because this framework is meant to replace the Holy Spirit or because the work of the Holy Spirit isn’t important. It’s because the Holy Spirit is at work in all four of these ways, and he can’t be forced into any of the four categories.

In fact, one of the guiding assumptions of this framework is that, if you’re a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is already living within you and guiding you in ways you might not even realize. Jesus said he would give his Holy Spirit to guide you (John 16:13).

Nicky Gumbel, in his Alpha talk on God’s guidance, says, “One definition of a Christian is someone who is led by the Holy Spirit.”

If the Holy Spirit isn’t at work in your life, this tool won’t help much.

5) It’s not the only framework for experiencing God’s guidance.

Finally, the H.E.A.R Framework is a framework for hearing God, but it’s not the framework for hearing God.

Talk to any pastor, spiritual director, or anyone else who has frequent conversations with people who want to hear from God about a decision, and you’ll discover that there are as many different frameworks for hearing God as there are pastors.

I’ve felt this way when I talk to people who care about physical fitness. Each of them have different methods for achieving their goals that are rooted in the same basic principles and best practices. It just depends who you’re talking to.

Many people wiser than me have come up with different frameworks, also rooted in the same biblical principles and best practices, that can help people experience God’s guidance.

In the next email, I’ll share a few other methods and frameworks that I’ve come across over the years—and, if one of those is more helpful for you, use it!