The 5 Best Steps for Overcoming Spiritual Deafness [Simple + Powerful]

Inside: Discover a simple, powerful 5-step process for overcoming spiritual deafness. It will help you draw closer to God, break through the wall of His silence, and start hearing His voice again.

Can you blame me for doubting God’s love for me?

For a long stretch of years during our relationship, He seemed silent in my life. I was drowning in misery with no clue how to fix it. So I cried out to Him for help.

And kept crying and begging and pleading with Him to rescue me.

No answer. No response. And definitely no rescue.

So really, can you blame me for wondering where I stood with God?

In fact, I almost lost my faith over it. Only later did I come to understand the truth.

The whole time I was crying and begging and pleading with God for a rescue, He’d already answered every one of my prayers. But I was too spiritually deaf and blind to notice.

I could have spared myself literal years of agony. If only I’d known then what I know now about overcoming spiritual deafness.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—The Hearing God Cheat Sheet. It gives you 6 guaranteed signs He’s speaking to you, so you can stop missing it.

First, You Need to Face the Truth

As it turns out, the entire time I was wondering why God was silent in my life, especially when I needed Him most, I’d put Him on mute.

I spent countless months and years tormenting myself, wondering what it means when God is silent. I told myself maybe I wasn’t special to God and I felt abandoned by Him. 

Come to find out, I was the problem, not Him.

I know, right?

What an epic facepalming moment. But also empowering. Because when you’re the problem, you have the power to fix it by changing what you’re doing. Like overcoming your spiritual deafness.

You can find lots of reasons why your spiritual ears have gone deaf to God’s voice. In my experience, you can easily miss signs God is answering your prayers when you’re:

1. Asking for what’s outside of His will.
2. Indulging in deliberate sin.
3. Ignoring God’s promptings because of fear.
4. Throwing a spiritual tantrum over not getting your way.
5. Talking so much, you haven’t stopped to listen to what He has to say in return.

These are only a few of the ways you may be inflicting spiritual deafness on yourself.

Related: 7 Practical Bible Study Questions on Hearing the Voice of God

But great news!

If you’re wondering why God doesn’t talk to you, you can overcome your spiritual deafness, get in tune, and start hearing God again.

All you need to do is take these 5 steps.

Overcoming Spiritual Deafness Step 1: Confess Your Sin

Never underestimate the power of prayer. It’s a weapon like no other, and it’s sitting right there in your arsenal, waiting for you to use it.

Related: 9 Helpful Lessons from 3 Inspiring Bible Stories about Prayer

Prayer has probably been your main way of trying to get God to solve your problems or give you your heart’s desires. But it’s so much more powerful when you use prayer as a way to submit yourself and your will to God.

If you want to have a hope of overcoming spiritual deafness, you need to pray.

But what if you don’t know where to start? Easy. Use these prayer points as a jumpstart:

1. You may not only have spiritual deafness. You may also be spiritually blind because of sin. And you can’t deal with it if you don’t bring it out into the open and face it head-on.

So ask God to reveal any hidden and not-so-hidden sin in your life. 

2. The devil condemns but God convicts, which are poles apart. The enemy’s condemnation makes you feel detestable and hopeless. Meanwhile, God’s conviction makes you feel clear and repentant about your sin.

So ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of your sin. This way, you won’t feel bad for a few minutes then suppress the discomfort and go spiritually deaf again.

3. You’ll make a good start when you recognize and feel convicted about your sin. But you need to go further.

Do this by praying for real repentance about your sin, not only momentary sadness.

Then after you’ve prayed, rejoice in God’s promise.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 (ESV)

Overcoming Spiritual Deafness Step 2: Confront Pride and Fear

Once you’ve started overcoming your spiritual deafness by confessing your sin, it’s time to tune your ears to God’s frequency.

This means you need to drop-kick anything blocking your reception right out the door. This further means you need to deal with 2 prime culprits in causing spiritual deafness—pride and fear.

Related: 3 Powerful Prayers for Fear [It’s Time for Courage and Victory!]

Here are some prayer points to cover:

1. Whether you admit it or not, godly counsel has been zinging at you from your Bible, and maybe even from wise people in your life.

Ask God to reveal any pride or fear causing you to ignore this godly wisdom and counsel.

2. You have an independent spirit and I love that for you. But if you’re not careful, your independence can nurture a spirit of pride (“I don’t need anyone.”) and fear (“People let me down all the time so I’m afraid to depend on anyone but myself.”).

The thing is, the only one you need to depend on is God. And you won’t overcome your spiritual deafness if you insist on staying independent.

So ask the Holy Spirit to rid you of the spirit of pride and fear. When you do, you’ll value His guidance more highly than you value your pride and fear.

3. You’ll make a great start by praying to get rid of the pride and fear insulating you in spiritual deafness. But you need to go way beyond yourself to actually get rid of them.

So pray for the courage to shed pride and fear like the old rags they are.

Then after you’ve prayed, rejoice in God’s promise.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NLT)

Overcoming Spiritual Deafness Step 3: Set Your Priorities Straight

At this point in overcoming spiritual deafness, your ears should be getting clearer and your spiritual legs should be burning from how hard you kicked pride and fear to the curb.

Now it’s time to deal with your priorities. And the first place you need to turn is to God in prayer.

Here are some prayer points to cover:

1. Who’s first in your life? Whose help or advice do you seek out first? Whose opinion matters to you most? Who are you the most afraid to disappoint?

Is the answer anyone other than God? Then pray for Him to increase in your life and for yourself and others to decrease.

2. Do you want to follow God’s will but you feel pretty sure your plan is better? Or maybe you’re having trouble working up the courage to go His way instead of yours or someone else’s.

Either way, you need to pray for growth in your desire to follow His will over yours or anyone else’s.

3. What about God’s direct instructions that you’ve ignored, and maybe even forgotten? Pray for revelation about any area where you’ve neglected to follow His will.

Then after you’ve prayed, rejoice in Jesus’ promise.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

Overcoming Spiritual Deafness Step 4: Count the Cost

Hurray! You’re well on your way to overcoming spiritual deafness.

First, you decided 3 things. You decided that you:

• Want to hear from God.
• Are willing to go His way.
• Want to put Him first.

Now it’s time to get realistic about what your decisions mean. Because the truth is, tuning in to God on purpose and elevating Him to first place in your life will cost you.

To count the cost and decide if you want to pay it, ask yourself 2 questions. Don’t skip over these. Take the time to sink into them and consider them. Journal your answers if you need to.

One way or another, be raw and honest with yourself. Don’t give pretty, expected answers. Those won’t get you anywhere except right back into the spiritual deafness you’re trying to overcome.

1. What will it cost you to ignore God’s voice?

• Close your eyes and picture your life if you choose not to do what He says.
• What’s the best that can happen?
• What’s the worst that can happen?

2. What will you gain by listening to and following God’s voice?

• Close your eyes and picture your life if you choose to do what He says.
• What’s the best that can happen?
• What’s the worst that can happen?

After you’ve counted the cost, make a conscious decision about the option you’re choosing. Will you obey God’s voice or ignore Him?

Don’t waffle and don’t try to hedge your bets by sitting on the fence. Decide.

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. 

Matthew 6:24a (ESV)

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—The Hearing God Cheat Sheet. It gives you 6 guaranteed signs He’s speaking to you, so you can stop missing it.

Overcoming Spiritual Deafness Step 5: Act

After counting the cost of overcoming spiritual deafness, you may decide that listening to God will cost more than you’re willing to pay. If so, know this—He’s always ready to receive you when you’re ready to come to Him.

On the other hand, you may decide that obeying God is well worth the cost. If so, then you need to do one more thing to do.

It’s time to act.

You see, prayer is an unmatched weapon in your arsenal. But action after prayer is even more so.

This means you need to get your ears into the habit of hearing God.

I recommend looking at what comes up during your prayers in Steps 1, 2, and 3. Then use this Scripture passage as a guide for your plan to stay tuned into God.

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 2:1-5 (ESV)

See all those action words? They tell you precisely what you need to do if you want to overcome your spiritual deafness and stay clear-eared.

Your Action Plan to Beat Spiritual Deafness

Let me tell you, my relief when I understood my part in creating my spiritual deafness was extreme. I was relieved beyond words because it meant God hadn’t stopped loving me, despite my sins.

Learning how simple it was to get back in tune with Him was just as big of a relief.

This isn’t to say it was easy because it wasn’t.

Overcoming spiritual deafness takes courage and commitment—to God and your relationship with Him above all else. And courage isn’t easy but the payoff is worth it.

A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him, and the people begged Jesus to lay his hands on the man to heal him. Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then, spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man’s tongue. Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened!” Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly! And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Mark 7:32-35, 37 (NLT)

Jesus performed this miracle. And like the deaf man, you can overcome spiritual deafness in one miraculous moment.

Or you may find overcoming spiritual deafness to be a gradual process when you apply these steps.

1. Confess and pray about sin in your life.
2. Confront and pray about your pride and fear.
3. Ask God to help you reset your priorities.
4. Count the cost of overcoming your spiritual deafness.
5. Decide if you’ll listen to God, then act

Even if your spiritual hearing isn’t instantly restored, God will honor your faithful persistence.

Then you’ll look up one day and realize—He’s been answering your prayers and talking to you all along.

Before you go, get your FREE printable download to help conquer your confusion—The Essential Guide to Finding Clarity.

Did you love it? Please share it!