The second thing that can cause blocks to us hearing the voice of God, the second thing. very simply is: if I'm disappointed with God. I've found many, many Christians are not hearing God anymore, because they had a difficult situation in which they were hurt and disappointed. When we're disappointed, there's a grief and a pain gets in our life; we don't understand why this happened like it did. We feel God somehow has not been fair to us. Now how are you going to hear God, if you've got an attitude to Him? You know if you meet someone, and you've got a bit of an attitude and you're disappointed in them, you feel the wall go up the moment you see them. You notice with Adam, the moment God came to him, he went and hid. So if we are disappointed with God, and holding grief in our heart, it can block hearing God. What you're better to do, is just face your disappointment, and say: God, we've been needing to talk for a long time, and I've been disappointed, and I shut down my heart, and I drew back from you. I've just been going through the motions of being a Christian, but I'm not connected. Then begin to talk to Him about your disappointment. He already knows about it - you're the one who won't face it and admit it - so disappointment.
The other thing is griefs and offences, grief and offence. So we can have situations which cause grief or which offend us; we get an attitude in our heart. Those things can be just blocks, like a stone in the heart, like they harden up your heart, and build a wall that stops you receiving. So if we're going to come near to God, the Bible says: when you come to pray, forgive; so don't come holding things against people. That creates issues or blocks in the heart, it creates like a lot of noise, that stops you being sensitive; because remember, if we're going to hear the voice of God, we're going to have to listen to our heart; and if you don't want to go there, that's going to be a problem. I was talking with one person who asked for prayer, and the person was wanting to be prayed, ministered; and I began to say: well you know, one of the things you need to do is to face some of the feelings, some of the issues of conflict you've never faced before; and her whole face screwed up - she didn't want to do it. I said: well what you're wanting is for God to solve your problem, without you being willing to look at your problem, and talk to Him about it. You'll have to talk to Him about it. You'll have to bring out what's in your heart to Him.
Another thing that stops us hearing the voice of God, is a mindset. Now a mindset means, you've fixed your thinking; so therefore, anything that's contrary to that, you're not going to hear it; you've got a mindset. If you've got a mindset that all Arabs are terrorists, you know what's going to happen when you meet an Arab? Immediately, he's a terrorist. In your mind, he's a terrorist. Now, of course, not all Arabs are terrorists. This is just actually a mindset; but what it'll do, it'll stop you connecting with that person. It'll create a block immediately, because you've got this mindset; and so many times, one of the reasons we struggle to hear from God, is because we have a mindset about how it will happen, or what He needs to say, or what we want Him to do; a mindset, or we have something we've already set on. So for example, I've had people come, and they want to share with me about a relationship; but when I try to point out the problems in the relationship that need to be addressed, they don't want to hear. They've got a mindset, that blocks everything contrary to what they think; and so they reject counsel, they reject the voice of God, to pursue what they want to pursue. I've had that over and over and over again, and so this is a problem. Mindset is a fixed way of looking at something, and people have many mindsets about God, and about life, and about all kinds of things; finances. If you have mindsets, then you have literally constructed a wall, that stops you receiving anything contrary to it. That's something that can block you off. You can have a mindset about men, a mindset about women, a mindset about finances, a mindset about who you are, you can have all kinds of mindsets. So these are some of the things that can just create blocks, and we need to just be aware of them.