How Do I Know God’s Voice When I Hear It?
Other Posts in this Series
- Listen and Love
- What if God is Silent?
- What are You Expecting to Hear from God?
- How Do I Know God’s Voice When I Hear It?
- How Do I Listen with All This Noise?
- Other Perspectives on Listening to God
I’ve been talking about listening to God as an important way to demonstrate our love for God. What I’ve been avoiding is the obvious question, “How do I know God’s voice when I hear it?” I could say, “You’ll know it when you hear it,” but that would be a lie. God’s voice is not always obvious. Sometimes God speaks to us and we completely miss it. At other times, we mistake other “voices” for God’s voice.
A few years ago while serving on a church staff a young lady entered our building and requested to speak to a minister. She sat across from me in my office and shared how she had received a message from God and was on a journey going from church to church to let the ministers in my town know what God wanted them to hear. She believed God chose her to be the Divine mouthpiece. The difficulty was that her message contradicted scripture in several ways and was quite contrary to the messages I believed I was receiving from God.
On the other extreme are people like the gentleman I introduced to you in my recent post “Listen and Love.” I am convinced that God spoke to him regularly. For some reason, however, he was unable to hear God’s intimate loving voice. Eventually, he gave up trying. One of the most tragic moments in any life is when that individual stops trying to hear the voice of God.
How do I know the voice of God? Honestly, I don’t always. Sometimes I misinterpret. Sometimes I miss it altogether. I am convinced that knowing God’s voice takes practice. Over time it gets easier and easier. I don’t have a magical formula, but here are a few things I look for.
God’s voice is persistent. If I think God is saying something to me I usually file it away and wait to see if I hear the same message again. If I tell my children to do something and they don’t do it, I repeat it. Similarly, I don’t tell my wife I love her just once. I repeat it many times. Intimate relationships often require persistent communication. Listen for the redundancy. It is a good thing.
God speaks in numerous ways. Henri Nouwen writes of three different forms of listening in his book, The Only Necessary Thing–listen to the church, listen to the book, and listen to your heart. Yesterday morning in worship I took communion with hundreds of other believers and heard God in the traditions of song and sermon. This morning I opened my Bible and read the written Word which God uses to speak to me regularly. In the quiet of my meditation and throughout the day, the Holy Spirit brings things to mind I’m certain are messages from God.
God’s voice is consistent. What I told the young woman who came to my office with a “message from God” was that this message was not consistent with scripture which I believe to be one of the ways God uses to speak to us. Nor was her message consistent with church traditions, the collective message of God to his church over time. When you think you have a message from God, ask yourself if it is consistent with what God has said in the past.
God’s voice is not always dramatic. I know we read stories in scripture where God speaks in dramatic ways–the calling of Samuel from his bed or Saul’s blinding light on the road to Damascus. However, just as often God’s voice is unremarkable–a stranger having a conversation with three travelers on the road to Jericho, for example. When we choose to follow Jesus, God speaks to us as a friend. The conversation comes in whispers and in the everyday thoughts of our mind. In addition, God speaks to us about everyday things, such as how to treat a co-worker, what to say to a skeptic, or where to place our trust.
If we are always looking for a burning bush or an audible voice in the night, we will miss the whisper of the still small voice. If we limit God’s voice to one arena such as liturgy or scripture or our heart, we will miss God’s redundancy and parallel messages that confirm one another. Listen close. God speaks to you and to me.
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