Hey Friends,
In my last blog post, I shared about how God has been teaching me to listen to His voice.
But how did I start? By taking time to pray and to listen. At the beginning of all of this, I was inspired by stories of Christians, now and in ages past, who would spend hours in prayer. So I began to intentionally wake up earlier in the morning to spend more time in prayer. A fellow teammate also inspired me to LISTEN to God more. Not just to talk to him, but to blank my mind and just listen. So I began to spend time doing that, asking God “what do you have for me to do today? What do you want to say to me today?”. And then I would listen and write down whatever I felt Him saying. He is speaking to us all the time, we just fail to listen. We have deceived ourselves into believing that God does not want to be involved in the actions of our day-to-day life. We expect Him to speak for major life decisions, but exclude Him from the everyday. But friend, if you do not ask God about the daily things, how will you know how to listen to Him for the major things? How will you know the sound of His voice?
You know when you have known a friend for a really long time, if you hear their voice, you recognize it. You know it’s them. Even if you don’t see them, if you hear the voice, you recognize “oh that’s my friend Sarah”. Friends, how much more important is it to recognize the voice of God? And how to we do that? By spending time with Him. So if you want to begin, just spend time, sitting in stillness, listening and praying and asking. He will speak.
And really, He will speak very quickly! I think for most of us, or at least for me, I have lived my whole life thinking it is hard to listen to the voice of God, so I have conditioned myself to not expect a response from Him right away. So when He speaks immediately, I convince myself it is not Him! I brush it off as myself talking or my conscience. But first, I think God uses our conscience a lot to speak to us, and second, God WANTS to talk to you. He is not some angry God in the sky, withholding answers until you have prayed enough. He WANTS to show you. We just have to want to listen.
Really and truly, I noticed that some times the reason I do not hear the voice of God is because I do not want to. I come to Him asking for advice or what He wants me to do, but really I have already decided what I want to do. I am only asking Him for permission. As I was praying about a decision one night last fall, God convicted me of this. He said, “Do you really want my answer? My will? Or just my approval of your decision? Because until you really WANT my answer, you aren’t gonna get it.” oooofff. As soon as I laid down my desires and let the decision completely up to God, I immediately felt Him give me an answer.
I think in American culture, we like to ignore Him on a daily basis so we can comfortably pursue our own desires. But if you really and truly want to hear the voice of God, you have to surrender yourself and your desires. You have to actually desire HIS will and not your own.
And then once He speaks, do. That is the most difficult part! This is the part where the enemy fights us. This is the part where I fail miserably many times a day (seriously I almost feel like a hypocrite writing this). And yet when I began to say yes and actually do the things I felt God speaking to me, that is when I began to actually hear God more. And I started simple.
It started with God just asking me to change my plans for a day and walk around, following Him wherever He told me to go (I tell this story in a previous blog). After that, I really felt God telling to walk around my neighborhood and just pray for people and share with them. I would walk out my door and just ask Jesus which way to walk, right or left. And as I was walking I would ask God who I should pray for. I think everyone hears God’s voice a little bit differently, but for me, I hear it, or rather feel it very directionally. I will feel God directly left or right, front or back. And then I just go. And the more I did this, the more sensitive I became to His leading. Jamie Winship says the closer you are to God, the more you can hear His voice. It’s a basic principle really, the closer you are to something, the louder it is. The closer you are to God, the more you listen to Him, the more you hear him.
During this time, I also listened to video on YouTube that had a huge influence on me. I would love to share it with you all! The speaker talks a little bit about how to listen, but mostly shares stories from the mission field of how He began to listen and obey.
https://youtu.be/ZuJB4sJ6PVE
Last thing I want to say: You have the power to do this! This is not something only for mature Christians or for crazy missionaries on the field. Every Christian, whether you are a new believer or believed your whole life, has the ability to hear the voice of God. Why? Because we have been given the Holy Spirit! Guys think about this. We have been given the very Spirit of God within our hearts. We have been given the ability to talk with Him and hear from Him, something the ancient Israelites longed for but only certain select people experienced. But because of Jesus, we have ALL been given the gift of God’s spirit. Which means all of us have the ability to hear from God. I think American culture, even within the church, likes to put God in a box, saying that He will only speak about this or that or at these times. But this is GOD we are talking about, the creator of the universe! He cannot be contained in any box. He wants to punch through all the boxes you have put Him in and speak into your daily life. He wants to take you on this crazy adventure and give you ABUNDANT LIFE. You can do this! You just need to take the first step.