This is a compilation of most of the Workbook lessons that train us to hear God’s Voice in one form or another. I suggest going through this from time to time, reading the passages and doing the practices.
Lesson 49: Meditating in order to hear God’s Voice
We will need at least four five-minute practice periods today, and more if possible. We will try actually to hear God’s Voice reminding you of Him and of your Self….Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world…And be sure to sit quietly and repeat the idea for today [“God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day”] whenever you can, closing your eyes on the world, and realizing that you are inviting God’s Voice to speak to you. (W-pI.49.3-5)
Lesson 71: Asking His guidance for our behavior
Let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal His plan to us. Ask Him very specifically:
What would You have me do?
Where would You have me go?
What would You have me say, and to whom?
Give Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him tell you what needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation. (W-pI.71.9:1-6)
Lesson 72: Asking to hear God’s plan for salvation
Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside, and ask what God’s plan for us is:
What is salvation, Father? I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand.
Then we will wait in quiet for His answer….Whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your request, remembering that you are asking of the infinite Creator of infinity, Who created you like Himself….He will answer. Be determined to hear. (W-pI.72.10-12)
Lesson 76: Asking to hear Him teach us about God’s laws
There are no laws but God’s. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice That speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God….Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the “laws” you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell. (W-pI.76.9:1-10:6)
Lesson 79: Asking Him to reveal to us the problem and the answer
In our longer practice periods today we will ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it. We will not assume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of problems we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told. (W-pI.79.7:1-8)
Lessons 81-90: Asking to hear the message that is waiting for us
Devote some three or four minutes to reading them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and listen. Repeat the first phase of the exercise period if you find your mind wandering, but try to spend the major part of the time listening quietly but attentively. There is a message waiting for you. Be confident that you will receive it. Remember that it belongs to you, and that you want it. (W-pI.rII.IN.2:2-3:4)
Lesson 97: Listening to Him remind us that we are spirit
Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak the words He offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are true. (W-pI.97.8:1-4)
Lesson 105: Letting His Voice assure us that God’s peace and joy are ours
So tell yourself, “God’s peace and joy are mine,” and close your eyes a while, and let His Voice assure you that the words you speak are true. (W-pI.105.8:3)
Lesson 106: Stilling our minds and listening to His Voice
Be still and listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth and they will hear the holy Word you hear…Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by this reminder, given to yourself as often as is possible today:
Let me be still and listen to the truth.
I am the messenger of God today,
My voice is His, to give what I receive. (W-pI.106.9:-10)
Lesson 118: Reviewing Lesson 106
Let my own feeble voice be still, and let
me hear the mighty Voice for Truth Itself
assure me that I am God’s perfect Son. (W-pI.rIII.118.2:2)
Lesson 124: Letting God’s Voice guide our holy half an hour of practice
This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God’s Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest. (W-pI.124.8:4-7)
Lesson 125: Stilling our minds to hear God’s Word
In stillness we will hear God’s Voice today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word….His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled.
Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He. (W-pI.125.3,6,7)
Lesson 126: Asking His help in understanding that giving is receiving
In silence, close your eyes upon the world that does not understand forgiveness, and seek sanctuary in the quiet place where thoughts are changed and false beliefs laid by. Repeat today’s idea, and ask for help in understanding what it really means. Be willing to be taught. Be glad to hear the Voice of truth and healing speak to you, and you will understand the words He speaks, and recognize He speaks your words to you.
As often as you can, remind yourself you have a goal today….tell yourself:
All that I give is given to myself.
The Help I need to learn that this is true
is with me now. And I will trust in Him. (W-pI.126.10:1-11:5)
Lesson 127: Asking Him to help us understand the meaning of love
Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love’s meaning to your clean and open mind. (W-pI.127.9:1-5)
Lesson 135: Resting from our plans and listening to His plans for our day
For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from senseless planning, and from every thought that blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will receive instead of plan, that we may give instead of organize….If there are plans to make, you will be told of them. They may not be the plans you thought were needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you thought confronted you. But they are answers to another kind of question, which remains unanswered yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you at last. (W-pI.135.22-23)
Lesson 140: Being cured by listening to God’s healing Voice
We waken hearing Him, and let Him speak to us five minutes as the day begins, and end the day by listening again five minutes more before we go to sleep. Our only preparation is to let our interfering thoughts be laid aside, not separately, but all of them as one….With nothing in our hands to which we cling, with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:
Only salvation can be said to cure.
Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.
And we will feel salvation cover us with soft protection, and with peace so deep that no illusion can disturb our minds, nor offer proof to us that it is real. (W-pI.140.11-12)
Lesson 151: Giving our thoughts to Him to purify
And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back again as clean ideas that do not contradict the Will of God.
Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son, as proof of His eternal Love. And as each thought is thus transformed, it takes on healing power from the Mind Which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. (W-pI.151.13-14)
Lessons 153-200: Asking His guidance for the hour to come and thanking Him for His gifts in the hour gone by
Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave us in the one gone by.
In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defenselessness. (W-pI.153.17:1-18:1)
Lesson 154: Receiving God’s messages so that we can give them to others
You who are now the messenger of God, receive His messages….It is this joining [of your mind and the Holy Spirit’s] that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. (W-pI.154.9-10)
Lesson 160: Hearing God’s Voice assure us that we are no stranger to God
[God] has answered you who ask, “Who is the stranger?” Hear His Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger to your Father, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. (W-pI.160.8)
Lesson 182: Stilling our minds to hear Christ’s Voice
When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer….Rest with Him frequently today. (W-pI.182.8:1-9:1)
Lesson 186: Hearing God’s Voice tell us our function
All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God’s Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. And if He deems us worthy, so we are. (W-pI.186.4)
Lesson 199: Hearing and obeying God’s Voice rather than our bodies
I am not a body. I am free.
I hear the Voice That God has given me,
and it is only This my mind obeys. (W-pI.199.8:7-9)
Part II
Now do we wait in quiet. God is here, because we wait together. I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear our Father’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son. (W-pII.221.2)
Today I will accept the truth about myself. I will arise in glory, and allow the light in me to shine upon the world throughout the day. I bring the world the tidings of salvation which I hear as God my Father speaks to me. (W-pII.237.1:1-3)
I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms. Each heartbeat calls His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in Him. (W-pII.267.1:6-7)
Prayers for Hearing God’s Voice
Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Father, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me. (W-pII.221.1)
Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine? (W-pII.226.2:1-3)
“Let every voice but God’s be still in me.”
Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today. (W-pII.254.1)
And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us. (W-pII.256.2)
Your healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. I need be anxious over nothing. For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world. The safety that I bring is given me. Father, Your Voice protects all things through me. (W-pII.275)
The Holy Spirit needs my voice today, that all the world may listen to Your Voice, and hear Your Word through me. I am resolved to let You speak through me, for I would use no words but Yours, and have no thoughts which are apart from Yours, for only Yours are true. I would be savior to the world I made. For having damned it I would set it free, that I may find escape, and hear the Word Your holy Voice will speak to me today. (W-pII.296.1)
I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me, and the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return. (W-pII.321.1)
Father, You are the One Who gave the plan for my salvation to me. You have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed path. I cannot lose the way. I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return. Your loving Voice will always call me back, and guide my feet aright. My brothers all can follow in the way I lead them. Yet I merely follow in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go. (W-pII.324.1)
Father, this is Your day. It is a day in which I would do nothing by myself, but hear Your Voice in everything I do; requesting only what You offer me, accepting only Thoughts You share with me. (W-pII.339.2)
This holy instant would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace. (W-pII.361-365)
Epilogue
Now that you have learned to hear the Holy Spirit, He will play the role that the Workbook has played for you, and more
No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead. He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word. His is the Word that God has given you. His is the Word you chose to be your own.
And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful follower, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self. He will continue. Now you walk with Him, as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed; as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end. (W-E.3:1-4:6)
[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
