For The One: Who Wants to Hear God's Voice (Part 1)

For the One: Who Wants to Hear God’s Voice (Part 1)

God still speaks. 

“Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’”’ (Matthew 4:4). 

Desiring to hear God’s voice is one the most important things in life, even Jesus himself says our lives absolutely depend on it. But it can equally feel frustrating or disheartening if you aren’t taught how to do it, or don’t know where or how to begin. 

I remember growing up in church, listening to my pastor’s sermons and hearing him say “And God told me…. (fill in the blank)”. I would think to myself, “Why can my pastor hear God, but I can’t? Why can other church leaders or adults hear God, but I can’t? Aren’t we all saved by Jesus? Don’t we all have access to God through Jesus? Doesn’t that mean I should be able to hear his voice too?” And so my search for God’s voice began. It took years of questioning, seeking wisdom from leaders, researching in the Bible, and spending time in prayer to finally find the answer I had been looking for and begin to hear His voice! 

When I share this teaching in person, it usually takes a month, (so feel free to reach out with any questions,) but for the sake of this blog, I have written this two part blog to at least give you a foot in the door with this topic! Learning the voice of God takes a lifetime to master, but a single second to begin. He not only longs to speak with you, but He always is speaking to you! I want to encourage you to look up every passage of scripture I mention in this blog to help you get a better grasp on this subject! 

God’s voice is, in fact, a still small voice we hear in our minds. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says “we have the mind of Christ,” so His thoughts are in us! 1 Kings 19:11-12 says that God is in the whisper. Although He can speak audibly, like a trumpet in the sky (Matthew 3:17), we know that He more frequently likes to speak in a whisper, and since He lives inside of us once we become Christians, He speaks more intimately to our own minds through thoughts, feelings, and images in our imaginations (this is exactly why He gave us these things- to communicate with us through them!). 

Since God speaks personally to our minds, most people (including myself at times), question if it’s really God speaking or just their own thoughts. I’ve learned that in order to hear God’s voice, you must get familiar with what He sounds like, and we do that by getting in His word daily! When we get familiar with His word, since words are what come out of one’s mouth, we will be able to understand what type of diction, verbiage, and tone He speaks in! 

Now I know that there are instantly thoughts of doubt while reading this, because the last thing the enemy wants to do is allow you to hear God’s voice! Because, he (the enemy) knows that once the children of God start listening to their father’s voice, his (the enemy’s) power dissipates. But the fact that we can hear thoughts from the enemy in our head (doubt, temptation, sinful, negative thoughts) can equally prove that God can speak to us through our thoughts (joy, direction, peace, positive, life-giving thoughts)! When I teach this lesson with the high school girl’s I disciple, I initially fought the lie they were believing that “I can’t hear God’s voice” by asking one simple question: “Raise your hand if you have ever heard thoughts about yourself that are negative such as ‘I’m ugly’ or ‘I’m not good enough.’” Instantly, every hand in the room would raise their hand. But when I would ask who has heard God’s voice before, only about 10% would keep their hands raised. I would tell them that the very fact we can hear the enemy’s voice is proof we could also hear God’s voice. As I was studying this topic, I questioned why we were able to hear the enemy’s voice so much easier/ more frequently. What I realized is that the enemy is the prince and power of the air (Eph 2:2), which means he is in control of all our media, tvs, radio stations, music, you name it. He has his hand in all of it. And that is everything we are constantly surrounded with. Everything we are constantly fed. Which is why he seems so much more readily heard, because all of his influence and all of his lies are all around us. 

The reality is, God is always speaking to us, we just haven’t learned to recognize His voice because we aren’t putting ourselves in positions to learn what it sounds like or quiet down the noise to actually hear it. My favorite analogy to explain this with the girls I’ve taught before is the grocery store analogy: 

Imagine you are in a grocery store and suddenly hear someone call your name. You look all around, but your aisle is empty, and you have no idea where that sound is coming from, let alone who is saying it, so you shrug it off and ignore it. Because you don’t recognize the voice, you assume it must be someone else with your name that the voice is trying to reach. Now imagine you’re in the grocery store with your mom, and you hear her call your voice. Even if you were on different aisles, you would immediately recognize the voice and be able to quickly discern where the voice was coming from in order to follow the sound to find where your mom is at. What if I told you that in the first scenario it was my mom calling your voice. Of course you wouldn’t recognize it like I would because you haven't spent time with her like I have. But since it was your mom in the second scenario, someone you have learned the voice of very personally through much intimate time spent together, you are instantly able to not 

only recognize it, but trust the sound of her voice enough to follow the sound straight to her. 

This analogy is so helpful by explaining that time spent with someone helps you learn their voice. You understand the different tones they use to know the heart behind

what they’re saying. You are able to recognize the types of words and diction they use to understand their message. And most importantly you are able to learn who the person is that’s speaking to you so that when you hear their voice, you trust them! 

Trying to cover this topic solely over blogs turns out to be quite challenging because it involves so much detail and explanation, but be sure to check out Part 2 of this blog next week to learn practical tips on how to begin practicing this! And until then, begin asking the LORD this simple prayer “LORD, I long to hear your voice. Please help tune my ears so that I don’t miss a single word you say!” 

This week’s memory verses:

Matthew 4:4

“Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’”’ 

Love,

Ashley

FTO Co-founder