Q&A: How To Hear God’s Voice

There’s a saying that goes “You hear yourself more than you hear anyone else, so be careful about how you talk to yourself”. It’s true that how we talk to ourselves is important and it’s even more true that the voice we hear most often is our own.

So the question here is, how do we tell the difference between our voice and God’s voice? People can make this seem more difficult than it needs to be. Our sole job on this earth is to have a relationship with God, he wants to know us, he wants to spend time with us and he wants to talk to us. God wants us to be dependent on him and we can’t have a complete dependency on God if we can’t hear him. 

Story Time! When I was in college I had to pass Calculus to get my degree. I failed the first time, so I decided to take the class a second time at a smaller school, and then try to transfer the credits back to my big school. I took my time, studied consistently, and spent a lot of time working on Calculus to understand it. And eventually, things started to stick.

What was once complicated soon became simple and what I couldn’t fathom soon became easy to work through. God gave me his grace to get through that class. Flash forward to now, I haven’t spent any time doing calculus and can’t remember a thing about it. The subject went from being complicated to simple and back to complicated again, all because I didn’t stay in it. 

Have you ever had to learn something so mind-bending you struggled but once you got it you thought to yourself “Wait, that was easier than I thought?” The question of how we discern God’s voice is just like that. It’s so simple it can seem difficult to wrap our minds around. 

I understand your desire to hear God and the confusion of trying to sort through the noise within you. Let’s look at a few principles in hearing God then we’ll cover a few ways that God speaks and I have a tip at the end to help you start working all of this out! 

Principle 1: Trust that God won’t let you fail. God honors our faithfulness. He honors our sacrifice. So even if you hear God and move because you genuinely want to please him do not think that God is so harsh that he will let you make a mess in his name and then not help you out of it or keep you through your misstep. God is kind and his mercies are new each day. In Isaiah 58:11 the bible says:

The LORD will guide you CONTINUALLY giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Isaiah 58:11 NLT

So when God’s word says that he will guide you continually remember he never fails and his word does not change. So when he says he will guide you he does it even when you get things wrong and especially when you’re getting it wrong while trying to please him! That brings me to principle number two.

Principle 2: Know God’s Character. When God speaks to you he has certain trademarks. You can also call it God’s brand. Kind of like shopping at Trader Joe’s versus Walmart. With the Walmart brand, you know you might have to throw a few strawberries out because they might be soft when you get them, and when you grab from the meat section you probably have to grab from the back so you get the freshest possible food. But when you go to Trader Joe’s you expect quality, you expect fresh food, and unique items you can’t get anywhere else. 

Coming to know God’s character is kind of like knowing the difference between brands. As you hear what you believe is from God, ask yourself is this on brand for God? Does this align with his word and who he is? If it’s not on brand for God and does not align with his character it’s not from him, so throw it away! Jesus is consistent the bible says:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8

The character of God does not change he is consistent and you can count on him! So when you’re not sure what you’re hearing go with the thing that sounds most like him!

How do we learn God’s character? We have to be in his word as we read the bible it teaches us about God how he loves us and how he deals with us. As God corrects and grows us he does it with love. You won’t ever feel dirty after god deals with you. Learning God’s Character is an important part of our Christian walk. It’s easy for people to tell you God is working but when you know in your spirit that God is working you can identify where his hand is and what he’s doing in your life. 

Knowing God’s character will change your walk with people because you’ll begin to identify the differences between your assignments and your alignments. Knowing God’s character teaches you what love is.

God always sounds like love, learning God’s character means you must learn perfect love!

Love does not mean acceptance and it doesn’t mean you always hear what you want. But one thing you will never hear from God is fear or condemnation. Now let’s move on to principle number 3.

Principle 3: God whispers In 1Kings19, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel killed all of God’s prophets except the prophet Elijah. But He was terrified so he went into the desert laid under a bush and asked God to take his life then he fell asleep. But instead of taking his life, God woke Elijah up, baked bread for him, and gave him water not just once but twice. God knew Elijah was exhausted from everything going on and how far he ran in fear of Jezebel. 

Elijah finally makes it to a cave where God speaks to him again! God gave Elijah instruction to go out and stand on the mountain because God’s presence was about to pass by. And as Elijah stood on the mountain, things went crazy. First, there was an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake. Second, there was a fire but Elijah didn’t find God in the fire either. Then the bible says in 1 Kings 19:12 “… after the fire came a gentle whisper” and then Elijah hears God speak. Remember, Elijah was on the mountain in God’s presence, and it was at the most quiet moment that Elijah heard God.

Now think about it from a human perspective. If you can’t see someone’s face but you can hear their voice, imagine how close you would need to be to that person to hear them. Elijah shows that we have to be close to God. Becoming close to God is all about developing a relationship with him, it’s our singular job while here on earth. The same way we want to spend time with our favorite person is the same way God wants us to spend time with him.

God wants us to seek him, but remember God isn’t running from us he’s guiding us. God isn’t leaving us he’s leading us. And he isn’t hiding from us, he’s in the secret place. 

God whispers and that means we have to be close to him. 

We have to remember to take God out of the box we like to keep him in. He isn’t limited in communication the way we are. God doesn’t always speak audibly, sometimes he arranges things, sometimes he gives visions, and sometimes he speaks through people. So let’s look at some of the Biblical ways God speaks to his people. 

God speaks through Scripture- 

We aren’t the center of the Bible, Jesus is. But when we read scripture we give the Holy Spirit a chance to work on our hearts. We also begin to learn the character of God the more we read. When we spend time in God’s word, we get to see how God shows up for his people and this allows us to catch a revelation of different aspects of his identity.

 In the New Testament, Jesus referred to scripture all the time the Pharisees should have seen that all of the Old Testament testified of the coming of Christ, but they didn’t have revelation only religion. Reading God’s word with the help of the Holy Spirit opens us up to receive the revelation of Christ, what God has done for his people, and what he wants to do in our lives.

God speaks by example Jesus- 

Jesus is the guarantee of our salvation and solidifies that God is with us, and in us, and working through and for us. Jesus shows us the importance of prayer Jesus operated in the full spirit of God, and he is the best example of following the instruction of God. He wasn’t rushed, he wasn’t pressured into things, he spent time in prayer and walked in love. 

Jesus operated in excellence in all of the fruit of the spirit. 

God speaks through worship- 

You can see through the book of Psalms that King David constantly praised God and as he did he prophesied about Jesus who hadn’t arrived on the scene yet. Worship is an offering from us to God, it’s the only thing we can give back to him. Worship isn’t just a moment in song it’s a way of living. But for the sake of making my point let’s consider music. 

The Bible says that God inhabits the praises of his people so when we come together in praise and worship God’s presence sits with us. He just can’t help but be with us in those moments because he said he would be. 

Wherever God’s spirit sits that’s where you’ll find edification and revelation. As we worship God has his way in our hearts, that’s when we begin to hear prophetic worship and revelatory worship that allows us to recognize God in a way we never have before. 

When we worship we can expect that God will show up and refresh us!  

God speaks through people- 

Throughout the Bible God sent Messengers like Jonah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. God delivered a promise of victory through a Judge named Deborah. And he called people to repentance through John the Baptist before Jesus arrived. Dont accept every word from every person but learn to recognize when God speaks through people.

God is always speaking we just have to be sure that we take the time to listen. 

God speaks Audibly to Abraham- 

Throughout the book of Genesis, we see God audibly speak to Abraham, like when he spoke through the burning bush. 

I have heard what I believed was the audible voice of God. I’m gonna tell ya’ll a story most of my family doesn’t know, but it’s a part of my testimony and I feel like it’s appropriate. When I was 12 I almost offed myself, I was locked in my bedroom, and right before doing it I looked up begging God to change my life and the moment I looked up into the light in my bedroom I heard his voice. He yelled “NO!” it scared me and I put the shears down. The voice I heard that day was the most familiar unfamiliar voice I had ever heard. The best way to describe his voice was like a family member you met as a kid, but as an adult, you could quite put your finger on who the person was, you just know they’re familiar and you should probably remember them.  God’s audible “No” also comforted me, because I knew in that very dark moment I wasn’t alone. 

I heard God and I knew somebody was there even if I couldn’t see him, he was watching and he cared.

Speaking of God watching us another way he speaks is through the order of his plan-

In the book of Esther, God isn’t mentioned one time and he never says anything to anyone, but you can see throughout the entire book that God’s hand is all over his people and he arranges Esther’s life to use her to save his people.

I don’t know about you but I can look back on my life even when I wasn’t serving God and I can see his hand and his grace all over my life. I wasn’t supposed to get that job, I wasn’t supposed to make it out of that situation, I should been in that car accident. There’s a whole lotta “should haves” that God kept me from.

He never fails, and our memory shouldn’t either

In Dreams-

in the story of Joseph throughout the book of Genesis God gave dream after dream and not only did he give people dreams he gave Joseph the ability to translate them. It was through dreams that Joseph was able to save the lives of all of the people of the land as well as save the lives of his family. 

I like to keep a pen and paper by my bed when I have dreams I try to write them down so I dont forget them. During the day we are busy and distracted and we can spend a lot of time ignoring God. Dreams are when God gets us to himself and can interrupt our thought process to speak to us. 

God desires to speak to us, he desires a relationship with us, we have to allow him to be God and learn his ways!

In conclusion, The “trick” to hearing God, is not to just look for him to speak but to allow yourself to be sensitive to him moving and communicating in a multiplicity of ways. Also dont be afraid to ask God for help being sensitive to him, if you feel like you’re constantly missing him. Fasting also helps us draw closer to God!

Finally here’s what I do to help me hear God a little bit better! I keep a journal!

If you write down everything you think, eventually, you will see clear lines of thought that aren’t yours. You can expect to see three lines of thought:

1. Words from yourself, include your thoughts feelings, and emotions.
2. Parts of your writing will probably contain lies from the enemy. Remember, the enemy works in the mind first! The only power he has is what we give him and it all starts with handing over our mind!
3. You’ll also find words from the Holy Spirit. Those are the parts that usually build you up, correct you, and convict you. 

Writing lets you see it all clearly! Write without going back or second guessing, do a brain dump and then when you’re done look back and see where the words came from. Do they align with God’s word and his character or are they lies that cause fear and tear you down? When God is speaking and working on you you never feel dirty after, God cleans you up forgives you, and asks you to let your sins go because he already has. 

There’s a lot you can tell about the state of your mind and spirit by journaling. 

Try this then come back here and tell me how it went for you I’m curious to know!

I hope this helped!