Prayer, it is said, is a conversation with God. Yet for most of us, it seems to be a one-way conversation. We talk to God, but don’t really hear Him respond. Is this because God doesn’t speak to us today or just because we aren’t listening? Is God perhaps using a language that we don’t understand. Or, is it possible that God is answering us, but we just don’t recognize it as Him who is speaking?
We know that God spoke to the prophets in the Old Testament, as they recorded the things that God said to them. The same thing happened in the only book of prophecy in the New Testament, the book of Revelations. But what about the rest of us who don’t think of ourselves as prophets? While the gift of prophecy is listed as one of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, that doesn’t mean that we all move in that gifting. Apparently only some people do. But what about the rest of us who want answers from God as well?
God does in fact speak to us, in a variety of different ways, although that speaking can be considerably different than what we expect. God isn’t human and doesn’t possess a physical body, so it’s not like He can stop us on the street to talk to us. Rather, God speaks to us in a variety of different ways, which can include Him speaking through people, nature and our circumstances. And yes, He can even speak to us directly, although it’s not as Hollywood has depicted it.
We Can Hear God Through the Bible
The first and easiest way to hear from God is by studying the Bible. Please note that studying the Bible and just reading it are two different things. Just about every pastor there tells their congregation to read the Bible, yet it is possible to read it, without paying any attention to what it says. Studying it, on the other hand, requires taking the time to dig into what is written there and see just what it says.
Some have had the idea that they can just let the Bible fall open and whatever verse they see will be God speaking to them. Not only is this dangerous, it is akin to occult practices. While God can and does speak through His written Word, that’s not the way it works.
There’s a joke in the church about someone trying to just allow the Bible to fall open like that, seeking the answer to their problems. The first time they did so, their eye fell on the passage where Judas killed himself, after betraying Christ. The second time, the verse they saw contained the phrase “do you likewise also.” Trying it a third time, they found where Jesus told Judas, “What you do, do quickly” (John 13:27). If they were to believe that God was speaking to them, they would have gotten the message that they are to commit suicide and to do it quickly.
We need to understand that the entirety of the Bible is God speaking to us, at least in a general way. While prophecies record specific words that God has told to prophets, the rest of the Bible is just as divinely inspired, with God speaking to us through the narrative of the Bible. It is important to remember that every word in the Bible has been given by the Holy Spirit, not by the human author of that particular book.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correct, for instruction in righteousness. – 2 Timothy 3:16
So, just how does God speak to us through the scriptures? He does so by His Holy Spirit leading us to read what we need to hear. As we read, we encountered the answer we were looking for. The Holy Spirit gives witness to us, drawing our attention to that verse, so that we can receive the message that God is trying to tell us.
In addition to hearing specific messages from God through something leaping off the page at us, there isa more general way in which we hear from God through reading and studying the Bible. That is through learning what it says. Then, when we are looking for an answer to a problem or question, the Holy Spirit can bring what we have learned into our thoughts, providing a much quicker answer. People who have been studying the Bible for years will often have answers that would confound others, simply because they had studied that answer long before they needed it.
We Can Hear God Through Others
Besides through the Bible, probably the most common way for us to hear God is through the words of others. This is not to say that anything that anyone says is a message from God; but rather that the messages brought to us by our local pastor and other ministers will often give us something that we need to hear from God. There are times when it will seem that the minister has been reading our mail; but it’s not the minister who has done it, it’s the Holy Spirit. They then impressed upon the minister to preach or teach on a topic which will contain our answer.
Ministers spend a considerable amount of time in preparing their message, praying to God for guidance and understanding. Since they are usually more experienced in hearing from God than the average person is, they will get the answers that people need, without even knowing who needs to hear that or why. All they will know is that someone who needs to hear it will be there to hear what God has instructed them to say.
The amazing thing about this is that the same message can answer the various different questions that many different people have. We can hear and accept that message easily, if our heart is open to receive it, simply because it is easy to hear and understand. However, it is just as easy for us to figuratively throw that message over our shoulder to the person behind us, if the answer is something other than what we wanted to hear. A big part of hearing from God is willingness to accept what He says, even if it isn’t what we wanted to hear.
God doesn’t just use ministers in this way, He can choose to speak through anyone. He will much more likely speak to us through someone who is spiritually mature and spends time in prayer and study; but there was once when God spoke to someone through a donkey (Numbers 22:22-30). When we are looking for an answer from God, we should not disregard what others say, which speaks to what we are questioning.
We Can Hear God Through Nature
God doesn’t need to use another person or even His written Word to speak to us; He can speak to us through His creation. Nature all around us tells us of God, crying out about His greatness, if only we have ears to hear.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. – Psalms 19:1
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse – Romans 1:20
Today, much of the scientific community has dismissed God, preferring to worship the religion of evolution. But the fathers of modern science, Galileo, Pasteur, Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, and others were deeply religious men, who studied nature not to disprove God, but to prove His existence and understand His attributes through His creation.
The world around us is so vast and so complex, that it requires fooling ourselves to believe that it all came about by accident and is not the work of a Creator. One merely needs to go outside the city and look at the night sky to see how great God is. Many a sailor has marveled at the power and grandeur of God, as he looked up at night, out in the midst of the ocean.
We can learn much about God by looking at His creation. But we can also learn much about what we need to know about how to live our lives by looking at it. Jesus even used nature to teach about God and our relationship with Him.
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Lok at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? … 28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? – Matthew 6:25-30
If we let it, everything we see in nature will tell us something about God. He is in charge of the world around us and He can use it to speak to us, if we are only willing to listen. We can ask God questions and He will, at times, show us the answer through the world around us.
We can Hear God through Signs
Some people seek answers from God through a sign. This can be dangerous, as the devil is capable of producing signs as well, giving us the wrong answer. Nevertheless, there is Biblical precedent for using signs as a means of hearing from God. The Judge Gideon used this as a means of hearing from God.
So Gideon said to God, “If You wills save Israel by my hand as You have said 37 look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You wills save Israel by my hand, as You have said.” 38 And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water. 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.” 40 And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground. – Judges 6:36-38
What made this work was Gideon’s specificity in the two requests that he made to God. Not only were they both impossible, naturally speaking; but by repeating the experiment both ways, he made sure that it wasn’t a fluke of nature. God specifically answered and provided what Gideon asked, making it clear that it was from God.
The big error that most people make, when using signs, is that they don’t ask God for anything more than “Show me a sign.” Then they look to see what shows up before them. With that sort of question, there will always be something that shows up, which they can interpret as a “sign,” even if it is not one.
We can make mistakes when “laying a fleece before the Lord” in the manner of Gideon, if we are not sufficiently specific as well. The more specific we are, the clearer it is that the answer came from God. On the other hand, our specificity can make it so that we don’t get an answer, as it requires that God do something unreasonable. Asking that God have the President of the United States call to give you an answer is not a reasonable fleece; it requires God to force someone to do something against their will.
We can Hear God in the Quiet Times
One of the biggest reasons why we have trouble hearing God speak to us, is that we don’t get quiet enough to hear Him. The world around us is constantly shouting their messages at us, many of which easily capture our attention. Then, while our attention is fixed on the world around us, we miss the messages that God is trying to say to us.
When the time had come for Jesus to be born, God selected a young couple to be his parents, Mary and Joseph. The Holy Spirit impregnated Mary before the wedding, causing Joseph to wonder about her fidelity. God needed to speak to Joseph and tell him that it was alright. But Joseph, like many of us today, was busy working and apparently wasn’t taking the time to listen to God. So, God sent an angel to speak to him in a dream.
But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” – Matthew 1:20
The angel went on to give Joseph some specific instructions. Then, once he awakened, he went out to obey what God had said to him through that angel.
There’s a couple of important things we need to see here. First, this angel was sent by God in response to specific questions that Joseph had in his mind. We don’t know what the angel looked like; it could have looked like any normal person. The idea of angels in white robes, with wings and golden halos is something that artists have created. There is nothing in the Bible that gives that description of an angel. Nevertheless, Joseph recognized that it was an angel and that the message was from God.
This is not to say that all dreams are messages from God, as some have supposed. Dreaming is a natural phenomenon, as the brain keeps working while we are asleep. There have been preachers who have stated that the dreams that we remember are the ones where God is speaking to us; but that’s pure supposition. There is nothing in the Bible that says such dreams are always messages from God. On the other hand, if God was speaking to us through a dream, as He did with Joseph, we can be sure that He would make sure we remembered it when we awoke.
God doesn’t need us to be asleep to hear from Him; He just needs us to be quiet. There was a time when He needed to speak to Elijah the Prophet. As with all the prophets, Elijah understood the need to get quiet before the Lord, in order to hear from Him. He had escaped from the wicked king, Ahab and his wife Jezebel, fleeing into the mountains. There, he found a cave, where God spoke to him.
The first time that God spoke, it was to ask him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9). That was apparently early in the morning, as he had just spent the night in the cave. God told him to go forth from the cave, because He wanted to speak to him.
Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice. 13 So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave… – 1 Kings 9:11-13a
Notice that the three obvious “signs” that came weren’t God. In all three cases, the verses above say that “the Lord was not in” whatever physical sign had happened. Rather, Elijah waited for that still small voice, for He knew that would be the voice of the Lord.
Keep in mind that Elijah was a prophet, so He was used to hearing the voice of God. That’s how he knew what to listen for. When he heard it, he apparently reacted to it instantly, preparing to hear whatever the Lord might want to say to him. Getting quiet before the Lord was necessary, because otherwise, he might not have heard that voice.
Some Hear God’s Voice Today
There are those who say that they hear the voice of the Lord speaking to them today. Not all Christian denominations believe we can do that, but there are some who do. Those who claim to hear God’s voice have all learned the same thing that Elijah and all the other prophets had to learn, how to get quiet before the Lord and not allow the distractions of the world to occupy their minds. It is only when they are quiet before Him, that they can hear His voice.
This is not something just reserved to prophets, as there are those who hear from God who do not claim that title. Rather, it is something that can be learned. Taking the time to get quiet before God, after prayer and worship, opens up the possibility of hearing from Him. We must give it time, as we may not hear immediately.
The danger in this is that God is not the only one who would like to speak to us; demons want to also, giving us false messages that would turn us aside from God’s will. There are a couple of things we can do, which will help us to discern the voices that we hear.
- Anything that God says to us is going to be in agreement with the written Word of God
- Anything that God says to us will bring glory to God the Father or Jesus Christ, His Son
- God will never tell us to do something that the Bible defines as sin
- When God speaks to us, we receive the message in our heart. It may not even be words, but rather an impression of what He wants to tell us. When demons do, we receive words in our head
- God will never tell us anything to puff us up or build up our pride, he is much more likely to deal with a problem in our life, humbling us
When learning to hear God’s voice, proceed with caution. Bounce any message you think you receive off of a mature believer or minister that you have confidence in. Although they will not have heard what you heard, they can at least tell you if it is in alignment or contrary to the Word of God. Don’t take action on anything you’ve heard, until you are absolutely sure it has come from God. He is patient, and just as He did with Gideon, He will be glad to confirm His word with you, until you are sure it has come from Him.