Helping Children to hear God’s Voice

Helping Children to hear God’s Voice

by | Feb 9, 2025 | Craft Tutorials

I had the blessing this January of reading Hearing God’s Voice: A Catholic guide to listening prayer by Jonna Schuster.

I’m a cradle Catholic with a deep love for the Lord and my faith. I love to pray, but still, this book was able to add clarity and depth to my prayer life. (I will add, though, that I think this book would be loved by anyone who is open to God’s voice or is seeking for God, even if not Catholic. So if you are a reader of another faith, this book is still for you!)

Jonna’s book helps explain questions like, “Was that God speaking to me, or was that just me thinking that thought?” or “Why would God, who is so big, want to talk to me, who is so little?”

Jonna so beautifully explains how to listen well to God, and the overarching message in the book is that God loves us so much and wants to speak to us of his love. When I finished the book, I felt like I had been on a retreat, and my heart was so full of that message of God’s love… weeks after finishing the book, that deep message of love remains in my heart and mind.

As I read the book, I thought, “I wish I could have had this depth of understanding of hearing God’s voice my whole life, rather than waiting until now.”

I also kept thinking, “I really want to share the ideas in this book with my children!” So, I decided to create a worksheet for my children to help to share the main ideas in Jonna’s book. We had such a delightful time using this worksheet and talking about how we can hear God’s voice, that I decided to share this lesson idea on our blog, so that you can share these beautiful ideas with your children too.

Our printable worksheets and lesson plan ideas are available in our Etsy shop. They are designed for families and faith formation classes.

The printable worksheet has a heart image and the words “God is love” because the main message in the book is that God loves us so deeply and wants to share his love with us.
Once you, the parent or teacher, have read Hearing God’s Voice, you can print out any version of the Hearing God’s Voice heart printable you like, and then follow our ideas about sharing it with your children (or use it in a way that works for your family or class).
Inside of the heart are a number of words from the concepts in the book of the ways that we may “hear” God. I tried to select many key concepts from the book, while keeping it at a reasonable number of concepts for children. You’ll find after reading the book that talking about these concepts will come naturally.
You can certainly add other words into the heart that you find important. As you talk about the concepts with your children, you can also explain that the opposites of these words would not be ways that God speaks to us. For example, God is encouraging to us – He does NOT speak mean and discouraging words to us that make us feel bad about ourselves (those things are from the evil one).
My six-year-old, ten-year-old, and I did this Hearing God’s Voice lesson this past Sunday in place of our regular faith formation curriculum (Into the Deep, which is wonderful, by the way. Definitely check it out if you are looking for a lovely faith formation curriculum!). The lesson went really well, and we are so excited to share the idea with you! 
Here is what we did:
  • We started with the sign of the cross and an “Our Father” prayer.
  • Then I told my children, “Today we are going to be talking about listening to God.” I asked, “Can you tell me about how you hear God?” They thought for a bit, but they were not sure how to answer. I then rephrased the question as, “When do you feel closest to God?” They said, “When I pray,” and “When I’m at Mass.”
  • I then told them about this great book that I read about listening to God and that I wanted to share the ideas with them because there is no need to wait until being an adult to have a clearer understanding of how to listen to God.
  • I let them each pick a version of the heart picture that they liked best, and I gave them some colored pencils.
  • I let them take turns picking the words that we would talk about (in any order). Once they picked a word, they colored in the block letters while I shared with them about that concept. I shared information I remembered from the book, as well as my own life experiences. I asked them questions about how they might have experienced listening to God in that way, and they asked great questions too!
  • I had thought that we might only get through a few of the words and continue the lesson another time, but to my surprise, they were really into this and wanted to keep going and talk about all the words in one lesson! (If you do this lesson with your children, listen to their cues… no need to finish it all in one sitting.)
  • At the conclusion of the lesson, I wanted to include a song. I thought about picking one in advance, but instead, at the end of the lesson, I asked my children what song they thought of after our conversation about hearing God’s voice. They very quickly said, “Ooo child, don’t you know I love you?” (the song is actually called, “Just as you are” by Ryan Stevenson). I love it that they thought of that song, as that song really captures the essence of the message in the book… how much God loves us! We had such a joyful lesson, that we actually had a little dance party to that song… so fun! 

Would you like to get the heart worksheets and lesson plans? You can find them in our little Esty shop.

Yes, please, I want the printables!

Note: You can find the Hearing God’s Voice book on Amazon. Reading this book is essential before using this lesson plan.

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