The Holy Art of Shutting Up: What Chaplaincy taught Matt about God

What if God is already speaking – long before we arrive with answers?

In this episode of God Conversations, Tania Harris sits down with hospital chaplain Matt Sanders to explore what it really means to listen for God in the lives of everyday people. Not in church pews. Not in polished testimonies. But in hospital rooms, juvenile detention centres, moments of grief, fear, and profound vulnerability.

Matt has spent decades at the coalface of human suffering – first as a chaplain in juvenile hall, and more recently in hospital and hospice settings. What he’s learned overturns one of our most common assumptions: that spiritual conversations require religious language, right beliefs, or even a belief in God at all. Instead, Matt describes chaplaincy as a ministry of presence – the disciplined art of showing up, slowing down, and truly listening.

Throughout the conversation, Matt shares striking stories of what St Ignatius of Loyola called spiritual consolations: moments of God’s peace, hope, meaning, or gentle guidance that arise in the midst of pain. A 16-year-old gang member hears a calm, non-judging voice telling him to remove his gang colours mid-fight. A self-described atheist in his late 80s hears his deceased wife remind him to pay the gardener – an experience that quietly shifts his understanding of life beyond death.

Perhaps most surprising is Matt’s insistence that our role isn’t to interpret, correct, or spiritualise these moments for people. In fact, he warns that rushing to add our own insight can shut down the deeper wisdom already emerging within them. Listening – real listening – isn’t passive. It’s an intentional spiritual practice.

Tania reflects on how freeing this is. If the Holy Spirit is already at work in people’s lives, then we’re not responsible for changing hearts. Our task is simpler – and braver: to notice where God is moving and make space for that to grow.

This episode will challenge you if you tend to overtalk, over-explain, or overthink your role in spiritual conversations. And it may just encourage you to trust that God is far more active in the world around you than you realised.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation to hear these stories in Matt’s own words – and discover how listening might change the way you engage with the people around you.