Daughter in Waiting Ministry

God speaks. The question is, are we still enough to hear Him?

I heard God’s voice a lot in my life. At times, I thought it was a coincidence. When you follow God, you realize there is no such thing as a coincidence. One of my most memorable moments hearing God’s voice happened when He confirmed my calling to me. This was during the first weeks of my surrender. I was acting in disobedience even though God had placed in my heart what He wanted me to do. After a few days of Him letting me wander off doing any and everything but what I knew I should be doing, in the middle of another conversation with Him, He sternly said, “I told you to write.” I sat in shock knowing with complete certainty that this was my calling. I couldn’t run from it anymore even though I had for years. As much as I love and enjoy writing with my whole being, I was too ashamed to claim it in a world where certain professions are propelled over others. In those specific five words, God told me not to fear but to follow Him and to trust in His purpose for my life.

I find that we can often mystify hearing God’s voice to the point that we think we have to be spiritually gifted to hear Him. The only thing that is required of us is to first believe.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

John 10:27

To hear God’s voice is to first acknowledge the work that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, did on the cross and His resurrection from the grave. When we acknowledge and receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we receive His Spirit. We become set-apart and are made new.

“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Romans 10:9-10

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Romans 8:14-16

The good news is, hearing God speak is an invitation for us all. Not just some of us. Not those that are “gifted”. Not just pastors or leaders of the church. It’s an open invitation to everyone on earth.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

2 Peter 3:9

Now that we have this good news that God wants us all to come to Him, we can put aside our doubts and everything the world and society has made us believe about God and whether or not He’s present in our lives. Let’s move on to the fun part of building our intimacy with Him. Often, we come to God in prayer and we speak and speak and speak. We forget that like any relationship, our connection with God can only be built and deepened through intimacy. What kind of relationship is it if all we do is talk but we never give the other individual in the relationship a chance to have their turn? It would be pretty one-sided. Maybe even an unfulfilling relationship. We have to think this same way when it comes to our communication with God. When I pray and speak to God, I invite Him into the conversation. Afterwards, I find it best to tell him I’m listening to whatever He wants to say to me. Practically, I give myself time after I’ve prayed to hear His voice. Sometimes His response comes in right then. At times it comes in later in the day and other times it comes in days later. My posture is this – I keep an open heart to hear any and everything God has to say to me.

There are many other ways that God speaks, but these are the most relevant on my walk to-date:

His voice always matches his word

First and foremost, God’s voice and what He speaks to you will always align with His word; the bible. There will never be a message, a confirmation, a thought He gives you, an idea, a promise, any revelation that comes from God that doesn’t align with His word. God is true to his word. The more you read His word, the more you’ll hear His voice. One way to confirm that God is speaking to you is to make sure that it matches scripture. If you believe God has spoken to you and it doesn’t match scripture or contradicts with His word, it is not God speaking to you. It could be your flesh. It could be the enemy. We as believers must always test the spirits.

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

1 John 4:2

God speaks through my loved ones

In my experience, God has communicated to me using my loved ones or those closest to me in the form of them giving me godly advice. For example, I could be in prayer about something with Him one morning and the next afternoon, I’m having a conversation with a relative and they respond in a way that fully relates to what I was waiting on God to confirm. I love these moments and typically, I’ll say a quick prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to send me to scripture to confirm the message(s) I’ve received. The other people may not always be aware of what is going on (if you don’t share) but this will be an internal revelation between you and God.

God speaks through my thoughts

It’s easier to discern whether a thought comes from God the more time you spend with Him or the more time you spend in His presence. Think of anyone you are close to, you can recognize their voice because you’ve spent time understanding their mannerism, their cadences, their character, their beliefs, values, etc. Now think of someone you don’t know well. When they call, you may not recognize their voice. Or you may not know whether or not they’d agree on a specific belief. And this happens because you haven’t spent enough time with them to get them. It’s the same with God. He’s a personal God and how He speaks to you will get clearer as you grow in your relationship with Him. 

At the beginning of my walk, I had a really hard time discerning if a thought was from God. I still doubt it’s Him speaking at times, but it’s gotten a lot easier to recognize when it’s Him. A practical way to discern if it’s God speaking through a thought is 1) does it match His word? 2) is this something (good) that you would tell yourself to do or say? For example, generally speaking, I really wanted to do something bad one weekend that would lead me to sin. I was in the middle of talking to God and a thought came in to not do this thing. Now, I would never tell myself to not do this thing because I really wanted to do it. And I know the enemy would never tell me not to do it either because he relishes in sin. I knew it was God because it kept me from sinning and it matched His word to resist temptations. 

When a thought comes from God, it almost seems to come out of nowhere. It doesn’t feel initiated by you. I don’t feel like my brain planned to say it. There’s a certain stability that comes with this thought. Some describe it as a “still small voice”, but I try not to get too hung up on that because God’s voice hasn’t always been still or small for me lol. Remember he’s a personal God. He knows exactly how to communicate with you.

God speaks in my heart

There’s a deep knowing in your heart – led by the Holy Spirit – that will confirm to you inwardly that this is something God wants you to do, hear, or see. He sometimes lays certain things in our hearts for us to pray for or ponder over. This often includes a feeling or knowing you can’t shake off. God wants access to our hearts. When we surrender to Him, His Spirit will bring conviction to our hearts on what to do and what not to do on our walk. This is one of the primary functions of the Holy Spirit.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

John 16:13

God speaks through my hobbies

I’ve found myself really enjoying YouTube or certain podcasts and at times, God has spoken to me by sending me a specific video to watch that responds to what He and I have already discussed. Or, He’ll send me a message about something through a hobby I enjoy doing in my spare time that He wants me to focus on or pay attention to. This method of Him speaking usually aligns with Him also speaking in my heart. 

In scripture, you see this exemplified with King David in 1 Samuel. David spent his youth tending to his father’s sheep. He didn’t realize that the same hobby he was perfecting is the same hobby God would use later on in his life for His glory. This was God communicating to David, pay attention to this hobby and take it seriously, without necessarily having to directly say it to David. God placed it in David’s heart to tend to the sheep for his father and take those tasks seriously and the skills he learned from this eventually led to him being anointed king and defeating Goliath in 1 Samuel 16 and 17.

God speaks in my dreams

God loves to communicate in dreams. Throughout scripture, you see him forewarning His people and instructing them in dreams. For example, in Matthew 1, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and declares to him that the virgin Mary will bore a son, the Messiah. This dream not only prepared Joseph for what was to come so that his heart could be open to receive it, it also instructed him on what to do.

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:20-21

Joseph had grounds to leave Mary because she was having a child that was not from him – which would mean that she was having another man’s child. In their historical context, Joseph had every reason to not wed Mary due to this. God comforted Joseph in the dream to let him know that the child was not conceived in the natural way and that Joseph had nothing to fear. Mary had not been unfaithful to Joseph and their soon-to-be-union. She was still a virgin and her baby to-come was the Messiah. The dream prepared Joseph by forewarning him of what was to come and equipping him to receive it. In Matthew 2 alone, God spoke to Joseph three times in three separate dreams. Each dream had its significance  in preparing Joseph for what was to come.

I’ve gotten a few dreams from God over the years. Practically, I know it’s Him when I can remember the dream after I’ve woken up and I pray in regards to the dream and what its significance might be. My godly dreams tend do do one of the following: a) foreshadow something God wants me to prepare for b) inform me of something God wants me to pay attention to or even warn me of something c) declare a promise He wants me to hold onto that will come to pass d) instruct me on doing something He wants me to do.

I leave you with this. In 1 Samuel 3, The Lord called Samuel once, Samuel didn’t perceive that it was God calling him so he ran to Eli. God called him again, a second time. Samuel again ran to Eli. The third time, Eli gave Samuel godly counsel, go back to sleep and see if the Lord calls you again.

And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

1 Samuel 3: 8-9

All in all, God speaks and Psalm 8 tells us that He is mindful of us and Psalm 139 tells us that His thoughts of us outnumber the grains of sand on a shore. The question is, when He speaks, are we always listening?

Go, lie down or remain still and tell God this week, I’m listening.

Here are a few additional scriptures (ESV translation) to meditate on:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John 1:1

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

James 4:8

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Revelation 3:20

“In these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:10-11

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

John 3: 16-17

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!”

Psalm 139:23

“Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.”

Psalm 119:2

“Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Deuteronomy 8:3

I’d love to hear from you! Write in the comment section when or how God has spoken to you.