“It is our deepest need, as human beings, to learn to live intimately with God,” John Eldredge observes in Walking with God. “It is what we were made for.” There is a deep and pressing need within each of us to walk with God, hear His voice, and follow Him intimately. While many of us recognize this intrinsic aspect of our humanity, not all of us know how to walk with God in conversational intimacy. In this book that is part spiritual guide and part memoir, Eldredge offers a series of stories about what it looks like to walk with God over the course of a year, modeling the type of relational intimacy we too might cultivate with our Heavenly Father.

Eldredge begins with the assumption that “an intimate, conversational walk with God is available and is meant to be normal. . . [and that] if you don’t find that kind of relationship with God, your spiritual life will be stunted. . . . We can’t find life without God, and we can’t find God if we don’t know how to walk intimately with him.” Creating a dialogue with God is the single most life-changing habit we can adopt because it brings us back to our source of life. 

God DOES still speak to us today—first and foremost through the Bible (the basis of our relationship with Him), but not only through the Bible. We know from Scripture that we can actually hear God’s voice: “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught” (Isaiah 50:4); “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95:7–8); “I am the good shepherd. . . they too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:2, 16). Once we have accepted that God CAN and DOES speak to us, we will begin listening for Him.

Walking with God follows Eldredge’s own journey to growing closer to the Lord—of hearing His voice—through all four seasons:

• Spring: A Time of Restoration and Renewal, and for Finding Our Way Back to Joy
• Summer: A Time of Restoration and Renewal, and for Finding Our Way Back to Joy time of restoration and renewal, and for finding our way back to joy
• Fall: A Season of Struggle, But then Breakthrough hand Discovery
• Winter: Finding God in our Losses, in the Mundane, and Sustaining Our Hearts Over What Can Feel Like the Long Path of Obedience.

Within each season, Eldredge shares experiences of seeking and hearing from God as he walks through day-to-day experiences with his family and in his ministry. We get glimpses into his questions (some answered, others less so), his disappointments, and various insights lifted from Scripture. We see him learning to follow God as he cultivates within himself a posture of quiet surrender and a willingness to hear and abide by whatever the Lord has to say. And we watch him wage battle against dark spiritual forces; practice listening on behalf of others; fight against temptations; identify his motives and find healing when motives are not in alignment with God’s intentions; and pursue a sanctified life that is more interested in the gift of God’s relationship than in the tangible gifts God offers.

The stories and observations are meandering and scattered, which is intentional on Eldredge’s part: “Life doesn’t come to us that way, in neatly organized sections with helpful subheadings and footnotes. We don’t get an outline for each new day, with summary points at bedtime. Life comes to us in a series of stories, over the course of time. There is something to be learned in every story. And there is something to be learned from seeing it unfold through the seasons—see the repetition of themes, the recurring attacks of the Enemy, the hand of God in seemingly unrelated events.” While I would have liked a more cohesive structure, I could appreciate the heart behind this hodgepodge approach, and I definitely found it useful to see Eldredge modeling is own in-the-moment listening to God.

I’ve been following John Eldredge’s work for several years and consider him to be one of the most fascinating thinkers and teachers in the Christian space. Eldredge blends Biblical insight with personal awareness and a keen understanding of humanity to present his ideas in ways that are spiritually beautiful but also easy to implement. His words and his work exude his personal passion for the Lord, and I’ve found his writing to be gently convicting: Eldredge is compassionate in his reflections and teaching, but he is entirely unafraid of speaking truth, including the harder truths that can be difficult for readers to hear.

While there is so much to love in this book, I admit to struggling somewhat with the premise. A few years ago, I would have been totally on board with Eldredge’s casual references to hearing God’s voice, his matter-of-fact discussion of spiritual warfare, and his somewhat charismatic (New Age-adjacent?) brand of Christianity. However, as I’ve grown more conservative in my faith and values, I have also become more wary of this way of talking about the Christian walk. Don’t get me wrong, I DO believe that we can hear the voice of God, and I don’t doubt the existence of spiritual warfare or other abstract ideas that are prevalent in Eldredge’s books (such as spiritual agreements and inner healing prayer).

Unfortunately, I have seen these ideas misused and abused by many Christians who are too cavalier in their interpretations of God’s voice. As a result, I am somewhat skeptical of the claims of others who speak about hearing God so clearly. And I am even more wary of my own ability to hear God speak clearly beyond the words given specifically in Scripture. Eldredge does address this, making it clear that he’s “not encouraging a senseless approach to life. [He’s] not saying that you should follow every thought that passes through your head. There is wisdom and there is revelation.” I was glad for this reminder, even if I don’t always know how wisdom and revelation fit together.

Does this elevated skepticism reflect a maturing of my faith? Or is it a spiritual defect, indicative of creeping doubt? I wish I knew. I am in the middle of this journey, still discerning what healthy dialogue with the Lord can and should look like for me. I talk regularly to God and I WANT to hear His voice; sometimes I feel that I do, but I also doubt what I hear. I don’t want to falsely attribute my personal opinions to God, but I wonder if my slowness to assume I’ve heard from God is causing me to miss out on important steps towards intimacy with Him. . . . I’m taking Eldredge’s warning to heart when he cautions not to “surrender this treasure of intimacy with God because it can get messy.”

Walking with God did not offer all the answers, but it DID prompt me to ask some important questions. And in this—the seeking and pursuing—I am confident that God is with me, even if I don’t quite know how to hear from Him.