After reading Randall's comments on the "When We Should Ask God?" blog entry, I pondered his point on hearing God's voice. I had written on this briefly back in 2003 and I again post some thoughts/questions to you all.
I have never heard the audible voice of God. For that matter, I have never seen the Hand of God writing on a wall; speaking through an ass (Donkey, you guys) or a small still voice--a whisper. Nothing that noteworthy, or in such Biblical proportions.
Now, the Bible has those examples and others, but what I want to discuss is if anyone else "hears God's voice"....
If you "hear from God" how do you know?
What are some things to look for, as evidence it is God?
How do you hear Him?
What does He say?
Is there a difference between hearing God's voice and the Holy Spirit's urgings and promptings?
How do you separate your own inner voice and His?
I know we are to seek the Lord and we are to pray/ask for guidance....so what if we don't/can't hear a response? Do we just freeze up and not move forward? Do we forgo trying to hear and just blunder ahead....how can we "check-in" as we move?
Hmm, inquiring minds want to know...
10 comments:
How do you separate your own inner voice and His?
I think God is interested in relationship. Our relationship with him and with others deeply concerns him. Patience is a scarce comodity these days and some people are convinced that praying for it is a curse. Being still, another rarity. 'Freezing up' seems to denote bewilderment. We should probably replace it with active waiting and relating (with God). Maybe then can we hear. What does active mean? Probably a combination of counsel, prayer, guidance from the word.
For me personally, I have never heard the audible voice of God. I think that Hearing God's voice, an d the Holy Spirit's prompting are one the same.
This is just a personal experience, but when I am seeking God for directions... It is always confirmed by His word, and also confirmed by others. Alot of times we are too anxious to hear from God and in our anxiousness, we make our mistakes...
In God's word it says...
Proverbs 3:5-8 NLT
5Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths. 7Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn your back on evil. 8Then you will gain renewed health and vitality.
Philippians 4:6,7 NKJV
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Psalms 27:13-14
13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
Practice is sometimes underrated. I think there is a lot to learn from simply listening for God's voice and taking a chance when you think you hear it. Sometimes you will be right and sometimes you will be wrong. Hopefully, as time goes on, you will be able to distinguish what is coming from God and what is coming from you.
I agree that memorizing scripture is an awesome tool in learning to hear from God. It helps offer confirmation (or not) immediately if we know what scripture has to say regarding what we think we "heard."
Okay, maybe this will get me banned from posting but I'd like to vent a bit, if I may...
jeannie wrote:
"Practice is sometimes underrated. I think there is a lot to learn from simply listening for God's voice and taking a chance when you think you hear it. Sometimes you will be right and sometimes you will be wrong. Hopefully, as time goes on, you will be able to distinguish what is coming from God and what is coming from you."
I agree with this because it's what's been true in my life - especially the sometimes right and sometimes wrong bit.
(let the ranting begin)
Problem is, I've been wrong with some very big decisions and they bore consequences that lasted for YEARS. (In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't super huge - it didn't lead to financial ruin or jail time or anything that dramatic. It had to do with matters of the heart)
Because of that, I've only recently come to the place where I'm even trying to put my trust in God again. Because of that mistake, I had the mistaken belief that God played shooting gallery with my dreams.
Now I've realized the error of my seeing God that way. That isn't the God that's in the Bible and so I'm trying, everyday, to right my formerly wrong perception of God and it's made a huge difference.
BUT...
But why did God allow me to be wrong in the first place? If God wants us to be within his will, then why make it such a hit or miss proposition? The decision that started it all? It was something that I didn't want to believe (because it was too good to be true) and so I asked God to make it unmistakable and I thought he did and so I trusted and obeyed and I got burned.
So many Christians (and sermons) talk about hearing from God as if it's an effortless, foolproof process...but (at least in my experience) it's not. Keiger's blog asked for examples and that's what I think we all need to hear - specific examples of HOW someone heard from God or how, in lieu of hearing an audible voice, they arrived at the decision they did.
See, testimonies about hearing from God usualy go like this. "I had problem A to deal with and so I prayed about it and God told me to do B and once I did, miracles happened and now everything's great." I'm not so much interested in the miracle part of such a testimony, I want to hear more about how God communicated to that person...and I don't just want to hear, "I went to the Word and I prayed." That's what you did - I want to hear about what God did to tell you what to do.
I suppose I'm asking for the impossible. Hearing from God is a spiritual process and matters of the spirit do not always translate well into words...but really, I'm tired of hearing people just throw around that phrase, "God told me" or "God led me to..." I want to know how he told you/how he led you.
Why is the voice of God so still and so small? Why make it so open to interpretation, so subjective?
...okay, I gotta get back to work, lunch break over....maybe I'll write more when I get home.
randall
http://blog.myspace.com/lonetomato
It is not so much why God allowed us to make wrong decisions, but more so our "free will". If God kept us from making wrong decisions, what would that make us? Spoiled Christians who don't have a testimony because everything in life is fine for us. God's word says:
1 Peter 1:6-8
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen[a] you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
1 Corinthians 10:12-14
12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
I am so sorry that you had such a negative experience. And I can't begin to eplain what happened or why. There are some things I just do not understand - yet. But I do believe that God is good. And my guess is that, in some way, you have learned about yourself and about God through this painful experience.
I have always been told that I have an overactive imagination, so I have tried to be extra cautious in what I attribute to God. :-) But I am slowly learning what God's prompting looks like for me.
You asked for examples, so I will try to give you a couple.
Things will sometimes come into my head that have nothing to do with what I am thinking or talking about. Often those things are from God. (I try to test these thoughts with scripture, as I don't think God will go against His Word.) Then, if it is something I am to act on, I feel as if something is growing inside of me. And that I might burst if I don't do it.
For example, last Saturday night I went to a campmeeting service. I got there a little early and sat down. I was quite content to just sit and worship to the music that was playing. Then a thought entered my mind. "You need to go talk to the woman over there." (When my thoughts come in 3rd person, it is also a good indicator that God may be speaking to me.)
I shrugged it off, thinking, "I will just worship and pray here in my seat."
The second time the thought came to me, it was a bit more forceful. (How do I explain a forceful thought? Not sure.) I figured that at the least, I would be extending friendship to someone, so I went over and talked to her. We only had a few moments to talk before people started coming in and church started.
During the service, the thought entered my mind, "You need to pray with her." I tried to shake the thought and pay attention to the speaker, but it kept repeating. By the time church was over, I not only knew that I had better pray with that woman, but I also had a pretty good idea of what to pray for.
It was loud after the service with lots of people talking and laughing, music playing, etc. But I made my way over to her and asked if I could pray with her. She nodded. I took her hand and prayed for 2 minutes - if that long. I basically repeated the things that had been running around in my head all service. The response was immediate and, to me, overwhelming. The woman had tears flowing freely down her face as she hugged me and told me that I didn't know how much she needed that prayer. I assured her that I didn't, but God did.
All of that reinforced that, most likely, I was hearing from God.
I know that I have talked a lot in this entry, but I wanted to give one more example.
I have noticed that the bigger the "task" that God asks me to do, the more obvious His prompting is. When I visited Hawaii back in 1996, I had a vision while walking in Waikiki. At the time I felt that God was calling me to come and minister in Hawaii. But as soon as I told other people, they laughed and said things like, "Sure, everyone who visits Hawaii feels a call to live there." So I decided that I must have been mistaken and threw any thoughts of ministry in Hawaii into the back of my brain. Then I had a couple of dreams that showed me ministering in Hawaii. And a few people confirmed that they felt this was a legitimate possibility. By then, one would think that I would acknowledge a clear calling, but it was not until I was offered a job and a place to live (all via email and phone conversations) that I truly believed that God had called me here.
When the call was life changing, God graciously made it very clear. Repeatedly. :-)
I don't know if this helps, but those are a couple of the ways that I hear from God.
the still small voice of God can get pretty loud sometimes.
I feel that this one time God was speaking and I know all those out there that don't ride motorcycles won't understand but what the heck here goes.
I had been riding motorcycle for about 5 years almost everyday and one day I heard God telling me to sell it. You have to understand, I loved my bike, it rocked the known world.
I was sitting in the church office volunteering my services on the computer as a graphic artist when I heard the voice.
I ended up fighting the voice for almost two weeks. God has a way of making you submit. Didn't want to. every logical circuit in my brain got fried that week. I ended up taking it back to the place that I bought it from and didn't even try to find a good price for it. Over the ensuing months I got withdrawals. I even went back to the place and did the charlie brown look in the window deal..duh. It was gone. Years later, looking back, I can see that He wanted me to play guitar instead. He even moved someone in the church to give me a car to transport it in. It was the slowest noisiest thing I have ever driven..a gas eater, in fact it was everything my bike wasn't... until it went to the car graveyard in the sky...two years later.
The point is this..seek after God, stay in fellowship, meditate on Gods word then act accordingly. Sometimes we don't see the whole picture until much later.
We can read Job and see that from our earthly/close-to-the-ground perspective we just might not understand all that God is doing as we seek after His voice.
I think sometimes what WE see as goals are only lessons in God's eyes...it is the PROCESS that is perhaps more important to God as it DOES build and/or define our relationship/closeness to God.
As we hear God or learn what is NOT His voice, we move to the next test/level of faith....
The Bewildering Call of God
’. . . and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.’ . . . But they understood none of these things . . .
—Luke 18:31, 34
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed absolute disaster. And Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death, leading every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. His life was an absolute failure from every standpoint except God’s. But what seemed to be failure from man’s standpoint was a triumph from God’s standpoint, because God’s purpose is never the same as man’s purpose.
This bewildering call of God comes into our lives as well. The call of God can never be understood absolutely or explained externally; it is a call that can only be perceived and understood internally by our true inner-nature. The call of God is like the call of the sea— no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him. What God calls us to cannot be definitely stated, because His call is simply to be His friend to accomplish His own purposes. Our real test is in truly believing that God knows what He desires. The things that happen do not happen by chance— they happen entirely by the decree of God. God is sovereignly working out His own purposes.
If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God.
Hi. I just wanted to write...actually, I was asked to write some of my story. Here it is:
I have heard the audible voice of God. It was very unmistakably God--and it was in a man's voice. I was lying on the living room floor of my parents' house during the time between college graduation (May 1002) and my job start date (Aug 1992, I think. I was starting after my trip to Italy and England.) I was just talking with God about what was ahead and my career (Mechanical Engineering), when He said, "You should be teaching math in public high school." Those were the exact words. I still remember them to this day--you just don't forget stuff like that.
Anyway, the whole story is a really long story. But, what I've learned about hearing God (from reading what others have said and seeing how things measure up with my life) is, the more dramatic the encounter, the harder the assignment is. I have heard that sometimes when we hear from God and things don't work out well (according to our definition of well), we still have heard from God. Sometimes the obedience tests what we treasure, especially if it costs us monetarily, elationally (though I am not condoning the lone-ranger-type renegade behavior that cuts everyone off), or some other way that brings to light things/people whom we value more than the Lord. Sometimes those times serve to expose our false idols.
Of course, there are other times that we are just wrong. Or maybe hasty. Timing is important, too sometimes we like to rush ahead. I have a tendency to wait too long, and I am working on that part. But, I say what Job said--"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Those who know my life can testify that this is true for me.
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