How to Discern the Voice of God
Three tools to help you know God’s voice over your own
You feel an inner tug, a thought that comes over you that is about to influence you in one direction or another. Is that God talking? Or is that you?
In my late teen years, I lived by a very simple motto: “Follow your heart and do what makes you happy.”
At first glance, you might see nothing wrong with this affirmation. What’s so bad about following your heart? But time and time again I crashed and burned, falling into a vicious cycle of prideful behaviour.
You see, my priorities were out of whack. I put my own desires first. I believed my own thoughts to be good, and I justified my actions based on this relativistic approach to life and morality. This motto of mine was leading me down a dark path, and I was completely unaware that it was at the hands of none other than myself.
Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV) says:
“The heart is deceitful above all things.”
I was old enough to know that my heart could be deceived, but deceitful? That came as a shock to me even when I started to come to faith. I had yet to understand that my own heart could have malicious intent — a heart I thought to be “good.” Of course, other people certainly had this problem. But me?
We are all deceived into thinking that we are inherently good, when in fact only God is good. As we spend our lives on earth, we are subject to having desires of the flesh (what separates us from God), but we are also graced with having desires of the spirit (placed on our hearts by God Himself). Having the spirit of God within us is our direct phone line to Him with caller ID. This is ultimately how we will be able to hear God’s voice.
Here are the ways in which we can know whether our receiver is fully functional, or whether it is just catching audio feedback.
Spend time in the Word of God
“If you want to hear God speak to you, read your Bible. If you want to hear God speak to you audibly, read it out loud.” (Justin Peters)
When you want to get to know somebody, you try to spend as much time with them as possible. You make the effort to ask about what they do, what they like and dislike. You might even ask about their history, and the people in their life. You sit and listen attentively to what they have to say. Getting to know God is no different, and this is where the Bible comes in.
2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV) tells us:
“All Scripture is God-breathed…”
Every word in the Bible was inspired, and even vocalized, by God Himself. No wonder Jesus spent years studying the Torah and echoed Scripture time and time again as if the words were His own. They were.
Now, not only did Jesus give us the Word, He is the Word.
Let’s go back to John 1:1–2:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (John 1:1–2, NIV)
The Word indeed became flesh (John 1:14) in the form of Jesus Christ. So how can we dissociate what is written from the Lord and Saviour Himself? Every time we open our Bible, we are reading Jesus. He speaks to us to the point where we can even audibly hear Him through our own mouths, as Peters puts it.
When you come at a crossroads and can’t decide whether the voice inside your head is of God, the Bible is your check and balance. Anything that contradicts the Word of God is, well, not the word of God. God does not evolve or change (James 1:17). He is the same today as He was yesterday, and the same tomorrow as He was today (Hebrews 13:8), as is His Word.
Spend time in the Word of God as much as you can, and He will write Himself on your heart (Psalm 119:9–11). Just as you know the voice of your spouse or best friend from a mile away because of the infinite amount of time you spend with them, you’ll know God’s the more time you spend with Him.
Consult your community in Christ
“Isolation is the garden in which idiosyncrasies grow.” (Todd Wagner)
At some point in your life — maybe once, maybe multiple times — you’ll hear a calling and you’ll be unsure as to whether that’s God calling you. You may be in deep with the Word of God, consult it multiple times, and still no definitive answer comes up to guide you. This is where your church can be incredibly powerful.
Thinking that you are the only person that can help yourself in your dilemma is foolish. Your community in Christ is in actual fact the body of Christ. You wouldn’t expect your finger to heal itself if it were harmed. No, your entire body works in a cohesive system to fix a single extremity that needs it. Why should you carry the weight of any predicament on your own?
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20, NIV)
God sometimes speaks to you through other people, namely your brothers and sisters in Christ. This is true, but this statement does not come without a certain asterisk tied to it. It is tremendously vital that we surround ourselves with spiritually mature people and that we always have our Bible cap on at all times.
We humans are faulty beings and can oftentimes make mistakes, potentially leading ourselves and others astray (Proverbs 14:12). So I want to say again that it is extremely important that your community in Christ in which you seek guidance is spiritually mature and strong in the Word of God, for this will help you better discern the voice of God.
Be still in silence and await His confirmation
“Be still and know that I am God;” (Psalms 46:10, NIV)
This might be one of the harder steps in knowing whether God was the one who dialled you: being still, silent and patient.
We spend our prayers talking to God, asking Him for this or that when, in fact, we should be talking with God, listening to Him and what He has to say. I must add, there is nothing wrong with asking God in prayer for things, if they be in accordance with His will. My point is that we certainly aren’t letting God get His point across to us if we keep hogging the conversation.
Being still completely goes against our human nature. We don’t like waiting for things to happen, but do much in our power to make things happen. However, God doesn’t work in the timeframe in which our impatient little minds want Him to work.
Allow God to speak to you in listening prayers. Have quiet time where you open your ears to Him, and ask Him to show you in signs where He can either confirm or deny whether it was He who called you. The keyword in doing this is “open.”
Come with an open heart and an open mind, with no predisposition, and say, “God, is that you?”
Jesus said:
“whoever has ears let them hear” (Matthew 11:15, NIV; Mark 4:9, 23, NIV; Luke 8:8, NIV).
This is not to say that only people with a sense of hearing can hear God. Certainly not! But if we come to Jesus with not our mouths open and ready to speak, but our figurative ears attentive and ready to hear, then we will certainly receive God’s words at a higher volume than our own.
As Todd Wagner eloquently puts it:
Come humbly, come eagerly and come expectantly, and you will be able to be filled with the voice and spirit of God.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5, NIV)
