Four thoughts on hearing the voice of God

For many of us, the last few months have been a hodgepodge of good and bad during this unexpected pandemic. Our plans for the year have likely changed and we are not sure of how to pivot or adjust.

Perhaps, you’re now trying to figure out what God is saying about your situation.

I can totally relate.

One recurring longing on the heart of most Christians is to hear from God. We often ask questions like:

“How do I know when God is speaking?”

“How do I discern the voice of God?”

“What does God sound like?”

Then there are moments when we are sure we are hearing from God but far more moments of uncertainty when we wonder if we are just hearing things, and have succumbed to an over-active imagination.

While running through some personal projects for the year, I had some reservations about a particular project that was outside my comfort zone. I was worried that things could go wrong and potentially blow up in my face (imagine a volcanic-sized eruption).

So there I was, for the umpteenth time, asking God if this was from him or something I had imagined. I wanted to be sure, to be absolutely certain.

As if this wasn’t enough, my mum had also been asking me if I had gotten confirmation from God.

Backstory:

I got the idea to do this project early in the year, I believe it was sometime in February. At first, I listed all the many reasons why it wouldn’t work. But then, it kept coming back and I prayed, time and again, for guidance. I felt deep in my heart that God was leading me to do this. The ideas were different and the people I was led to reach out to were not people I would normally have considered.

But then, COVID-19 happened.

I felt like I was back at ground zero.

In situations like this, fear and uncertainty are often amplified. We wonder if we heard wrong or have done something to change the tide.

What about you?

Have you had a situation where you really needed to know if it was God leading you or you leading yourself?

How did you confirm this?

I believe this is something a lot of us struggle with in our Christian walk.

We long to hear the voice of God.

We want to be able to discern his voice amidst the thoughts and ideas that bombard our mind.

Here are some thoughts on hearing from God as we pursue our goals and dreams:

Four Thoughts on Hearing the Voice of God

1. Knowledge leads to relationship

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that hearing from God and being able to discern his voice flows from our relationship with Him.

Like, how will we know it is God speaking when we don’t know him?

Which means our ability to hear God comes from a place of knowing and being able to differentiate his voice and his word from all the many distractions and muck that fill our hearts and minds.

“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. he calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.”

John 10:3-4

But this knowledge is not one that can be grown through Sunday and Wednesday services. It is not one where we rely on others to hear for us.

It has to be personal.

Reading through the book of 1 Samuel, this month, I was struck by the differences between King David and King Saul.

King Saul was often looking for someone to hear from God worried about what others thought of him and how to appease the people. Like us, he was distracted by the issues of the world. On the other hand, King David sought to have a deep and meaningful relationship with God. He went to God with everything, good and bad. He spent time with God, which we saw reflected in his life story. Here’s an incredible story of how this relationship helped him.

 

2. Discerning takes time and practice

Discerning the voice of God is a marathon, not a race.

It is not something we will know immediately. It requires a level of stillness, where we tune out the noise and allow Christ in. Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God.”

There is a rhythm to this and it is not man-made but God-ordained.

“…Come to me. get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matthew 11:28-30 (MSG)

Discernment requires testing of sorts, but we need help to be able to know what we are testing for.

“Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every evil.”

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

True discernment is only possible with the Holy Spirit.

He enables us to test our thoughts and actions and march them to the word of God.

But then, this is not about perfection or 100% confirmation.

For some of us, we want 100% assurance before we take a step or do anything. Which only stifles our growth and faith walk. Perfection will only happen on the day of Christ. Here’s how the apostle Paul put it:

“Being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in us will complete it at the day of Christ.”

Philippians 1:6

Being able to discern the word of God is a beautiful learning process as we surrender our hearts and desires to God and allow Him to prune and refine us.

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, reminds us in John 15 that:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful… if you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:1-2,5

God doesn’t reveal all of himself to us.

Actually, I don’t think we would be able to survive that. Moses, the only man to see God could only see his back, for the glory would have right out killed him (good death, though J)

But we submit to a process of renewal where our minds are continually aligned to him by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Romans 12:1(MSG) says:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you; Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

 

3. Check your heart and motive

What is pushing you to pursue this goal or dream? It is about you or about Him?

Here’s a quote I read years ago:

“Dreams that we want require us to run hard. Dreams that God wants require us to bend our knees.”

The truth is that our God-sized dream is not something we can do on our own. No matter how rich, beautiful, connected, intelligent and saintly we are! A God-sized dream is nothing without God because he is the most important ingredient. When we attempt it in our own strength or subject it to our own timing, we remove Him from the equation and end up with just another ‘dream’.

Looking back on my project, I had to ask myself if it was about God or me. The fact that the project was bigger than me helped me stay humble. But I also knew I had to be a daily reminder because of the human proclivity to take over what God has purposed.

Sis, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s something many of us are guilty of. We try to speed things up or worry about how the work will affect our image.

This essentially means that throughout the process, we need to keep checking that our heart is in the right place (right in the hands of our loving father).

We need to constantly check our motives. Check out Peter’s story here to see how easily we can get things wrong.

4. Know the source of your questions – are they from a place of doubt or understanding?

“Lord is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”

“This is impossible, there is no way I can accomplish this!”

“Lord, I am absolutely certain you have the wrong person.”

“Lord, are you sure this is possible?”

“Why would God tell you to do something like this?”

Asking questions is a normal part of trying to figure out if God is speaking to us. You may have been asked or have asked yourself many variations of the above questions. And that makes sense.

It speaks to our innate humanity to make sense of things and also to quantify our risk…like the notion of fight or flight.

And for many of us, this is the area that often derails us.

We may choose to give up once we get caught up in all the questions and the unending cycle of trying to figure out what to do. That was where I found myself: in the harrowing cycle of doubt and fear. I was flooded with more and more questions and not enough answers.

At first, I didn’t fully understand this then I remembered a story of two men who asked the same question that led to different consequences.

Abraham – Father of Isaac and a friend of God and Zechariah – A priest of the Most-High God

God told both of these men they would father a child in their old age. They both asked ‘how can this be?’ God made Zechariah dumb until the birth of John the Baptist but nothing happened to Abraham. I always wondered about this. Why were the repercussions of asking this question different? One thing that struck me was the possibility of the source of these questions.

Were the questions coming from a place of unbelief or seeking better understanding (seeking clarification, confirmation) and not doubting God’s ability to do the impossible?

“If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

Mark 9:23(NKJV)

One thing I learned from this passage is that our faith cannot be in the thing we long for but in the God who can make it happen. You may be wondering if there’s a difference but there is a subtle and important difference.

Our eyes have to be focused on God and not the situation and we need to trust him to bring it to fruition, in his way, and as he wills.

Think back to when you’ve asked questions, were you asking from a place of doubt and fear?

Do you often forget that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that is too hard for God to do?

I say this knowing that the pandemic must have messed up a lot of our plans, including our business, personal, financial and vocational plans.

But we need to go back to our father to know what he is saying about our situation.

This means getting to know him and how he speaks to us. We need to continually surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to teach us what is the good and pleasing will of our father.

God can do more in a month than in all the years we have been alive. I am also speaking to myself; to continually remember the truth and veracity of God’s word.