I want to go through some basics about how God communicates and take the mystery out of it. It should be as natural for us!
The most frequent way God speaks to people is by Holy Spirit inside of you. From John 10:27 we can see that, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." So we should all be able to hear God's voice if we've made Jesus our Lord and Savior. If you have not yet asked Jesus into your heart, it is not too late. Just ask Jesus/Holy Spirit in your own words to come into your heart and reveal Himself to you.
Okay then, so how I started hearing God/Holy Spirit was recognizing that"Yes" is a peace deep inside and "No" is a queasy, something is not right feeling in your gut area. Many people identify with this long before they openly acknowledge God. Isn't that amazing? (more on that in another blog article)
Discerning God's voice gets easier with practice. Yes that's the big key, we have to practice every day. Sometimes we are so busy that it's hard to still ourselves enough to hear His quiet voice. I try and ask at least 20 questions a day of the Lord. Be a question box for the Lord.
Some people have heard God's voice audibly but that is not the norm for most of us. Holy Spirit has only yelled at me once in twenty five years and that was when I was going to make a horrible mistake and marry the wrong man. Trust me you never forget it!
I love hearing his voice. To me that's one of the biggest miracles of all, that I can hear his voice all the time. His voice sounds like your voice in your head and He's always encouraging, always hopeful, always the counselor. If this seems a bit far fetched I encourage you to start with the word of God because Holy Spirit will never disagree with the whole counsel of the word of God. You can learn to discern His voice by comparing it to the word of God (the Bible).
For example, we know that God will never condemn you because the Bible says that there is therefore no condemnation for them that follow Christ.(Rom.8:1) Now that is not to say that He won't correct you but He (Holy Spirit) will always leave you with hope and a solution. Condemnation does not do that. It leaves you in despair.
I want to mention how important it is to renew your mind with the word of God (Bible) because some traditional teaching is not backed up by the word of God. This is where 'the voice you know' comes in to effect. In John 10:6 it says that the voice of a stranger we will not listen to. That's good and I agree with that. Unfortunately some of the things I was told, I got used to, so they were not the voice of a stranger anymore and I did listen to them. Thus, I had a very unhappy life. As I started to speak who I was in Christ and root out all the garbage from my past I became a lot more peaceful and had much more victory in my life.
Also, it is easier to hear God's voice after you have died to your own will. That is the hard part. When we still have our own ideas or desires that we have not fully died to, that is when His voice gets skewed by our own voice/will. So I use Rom. 12:2 as a help and I "offer myself a living sacrifice to him" every day. Sacrifices are supposed to be dead, right? That is the interesting part. When you get to the point where you can honestly say that you do not care what the answer is, whether yes or no; you just want to hear His Voice, THEN you will hear Him clearly. After all the bible says "that you will seek Me and find Me when You seek me with all Your heart." (Jer 29:13)
Visions:
Another way that God speaks to you is in visions. In Habb. 2:2-3 we read, "Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make [it] plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision [is] yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry. "
There are different types of visions. Some of the different types of visions that I am familiar with include: visions in our mind as we think about God, visions that appear as pictures overlapping our regular vision, visions that happen as we soak in His presence with our eyes closed and visions that happen as we conduct our daily lives. Sometimes a deja vu can be a vision that we've had previously.
Dreams:
Other ways that God spoke to people include the use of dreams. God spoke to Joseph, the husband of Mary in dreams and thus kept Mary and Jesus safe Matt. 1:20 Matt. 2:13,19.. That is another cool way that God can talk to you. My daughters get these little dreams that are prophetic and it is so neat how the Lord is showing them that they are significant so they will start to write them down and pray into them.
This is not an exclusive list by the way, just a start.
I hope this helps you to dare to believe that God wants to talk to you. It is your right as a child of God to hear Him. So go have fun being a 'question box' to your Heavenly Father aka Daddy.
Bless you in Jesus' name!
