A Life of Listening

Leighton Ford

Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own

The Christian life is a life of listening.

In this memoir, lifelong minister of the gospel Leighton Ford tells his story as a personal history of listening for God’s voice. Beginning with his earliest memories, he recounts the different ways God has spoken to him, and the different ways he has learned to listen. Through the joys of ministry, first as an international evangelist, often in partnership with Billy Graham, and later as a leader of the Lausanne Movement and a mentor of emerging leaders, he remembers God's voice proclaiming, instructing, reassuring. Through the pain of deep loss, he remembers God's voice calling out to him, even in the deafening silence.

What emerges is not just an account of a long and faithful life of Christian service, but a picture of the Christian life—the life of listening. What will it sound like, Ford asks, when God speaks to you?

"My best friend in high school met Jesus while listening to Leighton Ford forty-five years ago. It is Leighton's profound capacity to listen to Jesus that makes listening to Leighton a gift to us. In a voice that is lean and spare and angular and humble, there is great wisdom."

John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Church, author of Eternity Is Now in Session

"A Life of Listening is a jewel. Leighton Ford is a spiritual giant and a living saint who has learned to listen to the living God all his life. It is a privilege to sit at his feet reading this book, as he shares his lifelong pearls of wisdom with vulnerability and with the authority of someone who knows the Shepherd's voice."

Sarah Breuel, Revive Europe director, evangelism training coordinator, International Fellowship of Evangelical Students Europe

A Life of Listening