The story that I wrote about on Monday had two parts – I heard God and then I chose to be obedient (well, I did eventually).
Before you can be obedient to God, you have to learn to listen for His voice.
A relationship with Jesus takes time and intentionality, just like any friendship does. Some people might meet Jesus and hit it off, feeling close to Him immediately and hearing His voice often. I am always jealous of the people that can not only make friends with anyone they meet but can make a best friend as easily as a hot knife slicing butter. Sorry, I have bread on my mind.
For others, you may accept Jesus as your Savior as a pure step of faith and wonder when you’ll actually meet Him. He may seem far away, up in those majestic heavens, too busy to hear you, let alone speak to you.
Both people will need to build a relationship with Jesus to have a consistent and trusting connection with Him. Both people will need to learn to distinguish His voice from others. Both people will go through seasons of seeming silence and need resilience to continue seeking Him.
So how do we become familiar with God’s voice?
Hearing God is a well-worn topic of sermons, small groups, books, blogs, podcasts, oh my! Today, I am writing from my own personal experience, which of course has been shaped by the wisdom of others who have built meaningful relationships with our Savior long before I did. With all of those great resources I mentioned, our initial thought might be to go straight to stories from our peers, but we’ll get back to those in a minute.
Let’s start with our first and most essential source – the Bible. Looking directly at Scripture should always be our foundation. God’s voice is described as living and active through His Word (Hebrews 4, Romans 10, 2 Timothy 3), so we can trust that studying the Bible is the core way that we will hear from Him. God’s voice does not need to be audible today, like a voice from a burning bush (Exodus 3), because it is already recorded in His Word.
If you ever feel like God is silent in your life, open your Bible. He is always speaking.
Do what Scripture tells you to. The best way to become familiar with God’s voice is to be obedient to what He has already asked of us in Scripture. The easiest places to point are the golden rule to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 7) and the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), but there are plenty of other directives that we receive from God in scripture.
You’ll notice throughout this post that I include a book and chapter of the Bible for you to reference but no verse because I believe in the habit of searching scripture on your own. I am going to drop a couple directives right now without references because you should take some time to research them. The rest of this post can help you gain better insight into how to do that. But let’s list – being in community, forgiving, giving a tithe and offering, serving others, being generous, having a sabbath/resting, being light and salt to the earth, practicing stewardship, and so much more!
Discern God’s voice from the voices of man and satan. Scripture is also our main source for validating what is God’s voice versus other sources. Because I came from an abusive relationship, I want to focus for a moment on the immense difficulty that is added to sorting the voices when you struggle to know your own and/or the Bible is being used against you. I am so sorry if you are in a position in which you have lost your own inner voice. I promise that it is there, it is trustworthy, and that you can find it again. If you aren’t sure that you hear yourself anymore, I really encourage going to counseling (for information on how to resource yourself, check out this post). Finding your own voice can help you to discern what Scripture is speaking to you when your partner/parent/church is using it in an abusive manner.
Spiritual abuse is a very real issue.
I would dare to say that it has been plaguing the faith community before God’s Word was ever even in written form (check out stories involving the Pharisees in the Bible). Misinterpretation of scripture is considered abuse if it asks for things like blind submission to a human, enslaving humans, giving undue authority, forcing works over faith, acting out of an appearance not the heart, excusing hurtful behavior, justifying violence, enabling racism, supporting denial of grace, intimidating to isolation or silence, reinforcing male privilege, imposing unhealthy gender roles in relationships, coercing someone to stay in an abusive relationship, not allowing someone to attend a church, etc.
I assert that trusting your own inner voice is critical to hearing God’s voice in spiritually abusive situations because your voice will help you to question what is being demanded of you. Once you begin to question, your first response should be to open the Scripture being manipulated and ask God to speak to you directly about it. Often in abusive situations, losing your own voice makes it incredibly easy to lose the Holy Spirit’s too. It all becomes noise. There may be someone reading this, misinterpreting my words to say that your inner voice is more important than God’s. I am not. What I am claiming is that trusting God is incredibly difficult to do when all trust has been stripped from your life, the core of which is trusting yourself.
Now back to that discernment. After Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and spent 40 days checking back in with His people, He was ready to ascend to Heaven. Lucky for us, He knew that centuries later, we would be wishing for Him to eat dinner at our house too. Instead of Jesus sticking around in human form, creating a lot of fountain of youth conspiracies, He ordained the Holy Spirit to be His power on earth (Acts 1-2). (It’s ok if you chuckle a little).
If you are wondering if you are hearing God’s voice, and it is convicting you of sin (John 16), pointing you to Christ-like behavior (2 Corinthians 3), filling your heart with love (Romans 5), giving you hope (Romans 15), recalling scripture to you (John 14), guiding your prayers (Romans 8), or asking you to speak about Christ to others (Acts 1) – this is the Holy Spirit. You are indeed hearing God’s voice.
If it is asking you to partake in any of the manipulated behavior listed above, it most certainly is not Him.
Learn from the experiences of others. I told you that we would get back to all of those awesome peer resources. I love to learn from others. So many people have heard from God before us. His voice is often described as still and small, speaking when we are quiet, in dreams, visions, heavenly languages, interpretations, through worship and praise, with new insight and fresh eyes, through wise counsel and accountability. We see each of these referenced in Scripture, and it is exciting and enriching to hear of these experiences from other people, just like you and me.
Another way to learn from others is to check out Scriptural commentaries. Like with any other resource, I encourage you to read over multiple sources to see a variety of viewpoints and interpretations. That will help you to learn what others have gleaned from Scripture and give you the opportunity to bring it back to Jesus. Invite Him to speak to your heart about what those commentaries are imparting to you.
Change your environment. Try exploring nature – the wonder of creation can speak volumes. Dim the lights and play soft music in your room – a peaceful place invites focus. Alter your posture – hit your knees or stand with your arms raised. Put scripture around your home. Keep your Bible on your nightstand for easy access. Create a special place just for prayer. Get around Christian people. Mix up the time of day to see when it is easiest to unplug and tune in. Try a calming or creative activity – I hear painting is a common time people hear Him.
I think His greatest desire is that you would create space in your life just for you and Him to connect. He is always present. He is always speaking. He is always moving. But sometimes He wants your full attention. Make the time. Set the place.
Check out this post for a look at being obedient once we have heard God’s voice.
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