Hearing The Shift

In this episode of the SHIFT Podcast, Tyila unpacks the second letter in the SHIFT journey, H, Hearing. Life is full of noise, anxiety, depression, career changes, family pressures, and even our own inner narratives—all competing for attention. But learning to hear God’s voice isn’t about waiting for clarity to drop into the chaos; it’s about aligning first so His whisper can rise above the noise.

Transcript

Welcome to SHIFT,

Where faith meets real life and change becomes growth.

I'm your host,

Twyla Cooks.

Let's lean in,

Learn.

.

.

Hi everyone,

And welcome back to SHIFT.

I'm so glad you're here today.

And if you've been following along,

You know SHIFT is not just a word.

It's an acronym that we're walking through one letter,

One word at a time.

In episode two,

We talked about S,

Seeing,

Learning how to look at life through spiritual lenses.

Today,

We're moving to the next letter,

H,

Hearing,

Or tuning into God's frequency.

When you first start driving a manual car,

You rely on the numbers,

Watching the speedometer to know when to shift.

But after a while,

You realize that there's a sound that the engine makes when it's time to shift.

If you ignore it,

You'll grind the gears and fight resistance.

Life's the same way.

What noise is drowning out the sound of God's voice in your world?

Just as seeing pertains to awareness,

Hearing relates to discernment.

Have you ever noticed that during the times that there's a shift going on in your life,

The noise around you gets louder?

The voices from the world,

The emotional weight,

And even sometimes strained relationships,

All fighting for your attention.

And that makes God's whisper easy to miss.

Hearing God in the middle of all that noise requires stillness,

Intentional quiet,

And refining the inner ear.

This kind of listening isn't passive,

It's a discipline.

It's a discipline of filtering out the distractions so divine guidance can arise.

In the last episode,

I mentioned that God impressed upon my husband and me the importance of taking a sabbatical after transitioning from our former church and preparing for our church plant.

Before we heard any of that,

Even before we heard that it was time to transition away from our church,

Away from the family and friends that we built relationships with over the past 20 years and still have those relationships today,

Before we heard any of that,

We had to pause.

We had to get to a quiet place.

We had to go to neutral.

It was during a fast that we heard with clarity that it was time to move.

At first it seemed like instruction for the moment,

A simple step towards the next direction.

But the more we leaned into the silence,

The more that step became a conviction.

And it was a conviction for the journey.

In that place of rest,

When we're quiet,

We can hear whether God is calling us to a plan,

Whether he's pruning us,

Or whether he's preparing us for the next season.

But it all starts with a pause.

As I mentioned,

When the noise gets too loud,

It's important to shift to neutral.

Neutral is your reset.

Life doesn't just test us in the big storms like anxiety,

Depression,

Or the silent mental battles that many people face.

Many people fight in the dark.

It stretches us in our everyday navigating.

It could be a new career,

Or figuring out how to lead our family more effectively.

Leading them with love and patience,

Even in those difficult seasons.

Even when we have a teenager who's failing themselves,

Or even when we have a child transitioning into adulthood.

Even simply in those times that we're trying to remember to care for ourselves while caring for everyone else around us.

It's real.

It's heavy at times.

And sometimes it feels like too much.

But there's always hope when you're a child of God.

We were never intended to carry anything along.

We don't have to stay stuck in the noise.

It is important,

However,

For us to remember that if we don't pause to reset,

The noise around us will drown out the clarity we need within us.

And when we do pause,

Even in the smallest ways,

Clarity comes.

Sometimes it's small in the beginning,

But it grows.

And with clarity,

Strength arises.

And you find yourself able to take the next step forward.

Even if it's difficult.

Even if it's uncomfortable.

And you're able to do it because you love and trust the one whose voice is telling you to take it.

Noise is real.

Alerts,

Headlines,

Opinions of others.

Inner narratives that we tell ourselves.

They all compete with God's whisper.

Think of it like too many apps running on your phone.

Have you ever opened up your phone and you're like,

Why is my battery draining?

But when you look,

You realize you have all these apps open.

The battery drains faster,

The signal weakens,

And performance lags.

You have to clear the background noise to get a full signal.

Life is like that.

What apps do we need to close down in our world so that we can get a full signal?

Alignment precedes clarity.

We don't get direction and then decide to align.

We align first and then clarity comes.

It's like tuning a radio.

When I was in that old Honda and I would turn the station,

If I was off by just a little bit,

The only thing I would hear was static.

But once I was able to align with the right frequency,

The music would come through clearly.

It would be crisp.

And that's the way God's voice is.

We must align so that we can hear his crisp,

Clear voice.

We can hear and we become more aware of that voice over time.

God's voice is distinct.

His tone is peaceful.

It carries order.

It carries conviction,

Not condemnation.

It carries the next step if we're willing to listen.

But if what you're hearing is filled with shame,

Regret,

Hopelessness,

That's not God.

That's noise.

Conviction points you forward.

Condemnation pushes you down.

This discernment that I'm talking about that comes from God's voice is something that you will become more familiar with and you will trust more.

You will hear more clearly the more you spend time in neutral.

Just like the sound of that engine became more clear to me,

The more I practiced,

The more I drove,

The more I went to neutral and shifted into the other gears,

It became second nature for me.

I was able to hear clearly when it was time to shift into another gear,

To take another step forward.

The same is true with God's voice.

Over time,

Your ear will sharpen.

The more you sit with God,

The easier it becomes to recognize when it's Him.

To hear what He's saying.

To hear how He's guiding you.

To hear how He is aligning His view of you with who you really are.

So when you go to neutral,

There are some things you can do to help drown out the noise.

You can choose to do all of them or any one of them.

The first is gratitude.

Taking a few minutes to be thankful for the things that God's already blessed you with.

Sometimes we often take for granted being able to go and do something as simple as open our refrigerator and have food there.

Being able to get up in the morning and walk unassisted.

The little things that we often take for granted.

Having peace when other people are in the middle of a war zone.

There are so many things that we have to be grateful for,

Large and small.

So taking the time to name those things.

Name the moments.

Name the mercies.

Name the grace.

Is a great way to begin tuning in to the frequency that will allow you to hear God's voice.

Another is reading a passage.

Reading a passage slowly and reading it again.

And committing a passage to memory takes you even deeper.

Psalms 23 is a great one if you haven't already committed that to memory.

My husband's in the middle of doing a series on Psalms 23 and I've never seen it in the light that I see it in now.

Even the first words,

The Lord is,

Help you to realign.

To line up with that posture with your shepherd.

To make yourself more attentive and aware of his presence.

Another thing you can do is a breath prayer.

A breath prayer is simple.

It's inhaling a word and exhaling a prayer.

One example is inhaling Jesus and exhaling align my heart with your voice.

That simple posture,

That simple act expresses your desire to be more attentive to his voice.

Another option is setting a timer,

A silence timer.

It could be three to five minutes but during those moments just sit.

No fixing,

No trying to figure it out,

Just being attentive.

And if you're like me and your mind happens to wander off,

Just gently say Jesus to bring you back into focus and alignment.

And finally,

At the end of your time,

At the end of your neutral,

Thank God once again for the time and do what it is he says to do.

If he says to forgive,

If he says to take a step,

If he says come back and pause again,

Then pause again.

Whatever it is,

Do it.

Let's talk about what hearing might be and what actions you might take in different areas of your life.

At work,

Consider some of the sources of noise that you can mute this week.

There are endless alerts at work.

There can be group chat drama or gossip in the break room,

Unhealthy conversations.

Give yourself permission to mute the noise.

And in addition to that,

Give yourself the gift of being neutral five minutes before any big decisions or any big conversations.

In your family,

Emotions and decisions can escalate quickly.

What daily time can you reserve as neutral so that you can respond with clarity instead of reaction?

Maybe in the morning before you pick up your phone,

Or at lunch,

Or during your evening unwind.

Try inserting a 60-second neutral.

Breathe,

Pray,

And ask God,

Of this situation,

What's mine to do and what belongs to someone else?

And how can I help those in my family be better leaders of themselves?

In your health,

Anxiety often spikes without warning.

It can come out of nowhere.

Be attentive to what practice restores your signal this week.

Is it walking without your phone,

Listening to worship,

Journaling,

Or simply sitting in silence?

Is it a step outside for a three-minute reset,

A breath prayer,

A short scripture?

Whatever it is,

Be attentive to those things so that you can pull those tools out of your pocket when you need them so that you can realign and you can go back to neutral.

In your community,

Let's be real,

Every voice in your community does not earn volume.

Some need to stay on mute.

If you're not sure which ones deserve volume,

Curate input.

Ask a mentor.

Ask a wise friend.

Lean into scripture.

Ask God during your neutral moments so this spirit can lead you.

In your being,

This is your core.

When you cultivate inner quiet,

You become less reactive and more responsive.

You stop living from the noise around you and start living from the stillness within you,

Where God's spirit dwells,

Where God's spirit guides.

Our anchor scripture for this week is 1 Kings 19,

11 through 12.

And I'm reading from the ESV version.

And he said,

Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.

And behold,

The Lord passed by,

And a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord.

But the Lord was not in the wind.

And after the wind,

An earthquake.

But the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake,

A fire.

But the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire,

A low whisper.

God's voice was not in the wind,

The earthquake,

Or the fire,

But in the gentle whisper.

Your step for this week,

Your practical step,

Is instead of asking God to speak into your chaos while you're tuned into every other station,

Change the dial,

Remove the static,

Go into neutral,

Align,

Listen,

And follow.

Your reflection question for this week is what noise needs to be silenced so that you can hear God's voice?

Take time to take an inventory so that you can hear more clearly.

That's it for today,

Fam.

Until next time,

Stay ready,

Shift higher.

This is your Shift podcast.