Hearing God: Eliminate Myths. Encounter Meaning by Nathan Finochio

The Synopsis:

Hillsong New York City pastor identifies and deconstructs the most common myths about how God communicates – and then provides clear tools to accurately decipher and follow the voice of God in your life.
So many people wish that God would audibly weigh in on life’s greatest questions of calling, meaning, and purpose. What’s crazy is that God is weighing in on those questions. We just haven’t learned to listen. Nathan Finochio believes that God is constantly communicating with this world he’s created. We simply aren’t following the right advice when it comes to hearing what he has to say. Through biblical teaching and true life stories, Hearing God empowers and enables readers to separate fact from fiction, myth from meaning, and truly understand what God is saying to them about big decisions and daily living.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

In this day and age of a billion choices everywhere we turn, making big decisions can be hard. I’ve gone through this over and over again as I have tried to make decisions about college and grad school, and even with other slightly smaller issues. It can be so hard (for me at least) to know what God is telling me, and what is just a bunch of noise distracting me from what He is saying. So when I got the opportunity to review this book, I jumped on it.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Finochio has such an engaging way of writing and connecting with his audience. He breaks down myths and concepts so that readers can identify what exactly they believe and what parts are correct and what parts are wrong. He oftentimes tells engaging stories to illustrate his points, and makes complex theological concepts understandable even to those completely new to Christianity. I also loved his use of sarcasm – it made him so relatable and it made me laugh several times throughout the book. Overall, his way of writing calls readers out on the myths that they might believe about hearing God while humbly coming alongside the reader and acknowledging that it can sometimes be challenging to do everything that he is writing about. I’m not sure that I agree with Finochio’s theology 100%, but all of his arguments were thoroughly explained and biblically based, so I can’t complain. Between his writing style and message, this book just really resonated with me.

My one complaint is that sometimes Finochio would over-explain concepts and get so lost in the story he was telling that he would go on for a bit longer than was absolutely necessary. While it helped make the book enjoyable to read, there were a couple of times that I was just ready to move on to the theology behind the stories instead of continuing on with the stories themselves.

Overall, this book helped to clarify for me how I should approach listening to God. Finochio does a wonderful job summarizing his points in applicable actions, and I really appreciated the simplicity that he brings to the discussion on hearing God and listening to His will for your life.