During a workshop on hearing God, a pastor asked us to say quietly “Father, I love you” and listen to how He would respond.

Everyone whispered at the same moment which was followed by a wave of amazement. Each one of us heard something; it was obvious only by looking in the eyes. What’s even more amazing is that all of us heard the same response.

God said: “I love you, too.”

We are made to hear God’s Voice

We are designed to hear God’s Voice and to be in communication with Him. Holy Spirit was sent to us to bear witness about Jesus, remind us of His words, and leads us into all truth.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.’’ (John 16:13, ESV).

It’s clear that the guiding process takes place by speaking and not by circumstances, events, or signs. In the book of Acts disciples of Jesus were time after time led by the Holy Spirit. The circumstances were more stopping than guiding. Holy Spirit spoke to them about what to do and was guiding them into cities to preach the Good News.

Hearing God is supposed to be normal

I will never forget my friend’s reaction once when I told her that God “said to me that…’’ She couldn’t calmly take my excitement anymore as I was sharing what God personally taught me. Her words, “how can you quote God!?” are echoing in my heart to this day.

I felt very surprised and just thought:

“How can I not hear God?”

Unfortunately, many Christians like my friend are not experiencing the blessing of communication with the Father. The Father is the One who wants to speak and be heard, to lead, and let us know how much He loves us.

“The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” (John 10:3–4, ESV).

Our belonging to Jesus starts with our faith in the Gospel. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we hear and believe the Good News of undeserved salvation through Jesus. We are sealed with the promise of the Father to never leave us nor forsake us.

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13, ESV).

If you believe that Jesus died for you and resurrected, you have His Spirit within you. If you have the Spirit, you can hear His Voice.

Why do we seem to struggle to hear God sometimes?

Although it’s God’s desire and will to speak to us, we don’t hear Him all the time. I believe there are distractions and misconceptions that block our ears. The problem is not in the sending part but in the receiving.

Distractions

The primary reason nowadays is an abundance of distractions. Our phones, computers are giving us much information to think about and our minds are constantly buzzing with it.

We are busy thinking about the next episode on Netflix, an email we just read, or a game strategy that will propel us to the next level. There is no time or even excitement to wonder what God wants me to do today, what’s in His heart, or what He tries to tell me through the verse I read this morning.

There is too much background noise that overwhelms the small, still Voice of God. He speaks but there are many other things that are shouting louder.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10a, ESV).

The best solution is to go for a walk in nature. Jesus Himself did it, therefore it should be healthy for us as well. Nature helps us to become still and experience slowing down of our mind. As the noise of other things is reduced, we start to hear God louder.

Rightly tuned ears

Another barrier can be a lack of faith in the fact that God speaks. As we start to believe in something as a fact we start to expect to witness it.

Expectation makes us more aware and attention helps us notice things happening around us we never saw before.

Nevertheless, expectations can also be too strong and hinder us more than helping. God is not shouting to us nor does He make a spectacular show when He needs our attention. He is meek and gentle. Most of the time, it’s a very calm and quiet voice that is hard to distinguish from other thoughts.

The secret of discernment of thoughts

There is no chaos in our thinking process. Every time you’re purposefully thinking about something you can see a line of thought. It consistently flows until things from the outside break the line by a thought out of context. There can be at least three sources: our flesh, Satan and God.

Yes, our bodies speak! They usually let us know about its desires, for example, hunger, pleasure, comfort, etc. When you’re fasting, your flesh starts to protest, beg, or scare you just to get you to eat some food. You sit down to read the Bible in the time of having lunch and out of nowhere comes a thought, “I’m so hungry!” That’s the voice of the flesh.

The voice of Satan is closely related to the voice of the flesh. The devil uses the same method of invitation by the temptation to make a compromise, commit a sin, or give in to anger. It’s based on selfishness and never on love and selflessness.

The Voice of God is hard to describe or put into a box. Basically, He cannot go against the Bible. God’s words lead to love, sacrifice, peace, joy, and kindness. Like I mentioned before it also guides, directs, reminds, and even corrects.

Any of these voices come without us purposefully bringing a particular thought in our mind. They are random sentences that appear as if someone else is interrupting our personal conversation with ourselves. It can be on the topic, or out of it.

To put all this information into perspective I’ll give this example. Let’s say you’re reading 1 Corinthians 6:18:

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18, ESV).

As you’re in the process of thinking that “This is a direction of life that Paul emphasizes and it is connected to the way I relate to God…” you’re interrupted by a thought from your flesh, “I wonder, if I got a message,” or thought of Satan “maybe pornography wouldn’t be considered as immoral” while God’s Spirit in you declares “I called you to holiness.”

It’s a game-changer as you start to notice different voices in your mind and know which is which. It helps not only to resist the wrong pulls but also to distinguish God’s Voice.

The wrap-up

We are designed to hear God speaking to us. He speaks to us continually. Unfortunately, the busyness of life and technology drowns out the Voice of God. There are different voices constantly drawing our attention, but we are able to distinguish and listen to the ones we want.

The promise is for us today:

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” (Jeremiah 33:3, ESV).

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