Are You Hearing God Speak to You?

Do you wish you could hear from God more often?  

I do.  

There have been a few occasions when I know, that I know, that I know, that I actually heard Him. But why not more often and why not with absolute certainty that it was God speaking?

In the Bible we see a number of accounts of God speaking to individuals.

For example, in 1 Samuel 3:1-10 we read about God calling out, “Samuel, Samuel!”  After realizing it was God speaking, the young Samuel responds with, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”  

God spoke. Samuel listened.

From that day forward, Samuel was appointed as Israel’s judge. He could be trusted because He learned to listen to God’s voice. And I believe he lived with an expectation that he would hear from God often. 

How about us? Are we hearing from God? Perhaps God is actually speaking to us more than we realize?              

Do you wish you could hear from God more often?  
I do.

Could it be that we’re not really listening because we are too used to telling God what we want instead of asking Him what He wants and it becomes a one-sided dialogue? Or perhaps we don’t have the expectation that He wants to speak to us and be heard.  

Recently a friend of mine. Carl Wesley Anderson, gave me a copy of His book, Love Speaks: 21 Ways to Recognize God’s Multi-Faceted Voice. 

Several of the chapters are about learning to hear the voice of God through His Word, His Spirit and His creation around us. Even the circumstances He engineers within our daily lives are ways that God speaks.

He shares theologically compelling evidence of how and why God speaks. But it was the illustrations he used that really stirred me. There’s just something about someone else’s story of their personal interaction with God that can build a sense of anticipation that He might do the same for us. 

After all, hearing from God allows us to: 

• Learn more about His thoughts, ways and actions toward us. (Psalm 139)
• Become more intimate in our relationship with Him. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  James 4:12 (NKJV)

• Make decisions aligned with God’s purposes. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”  Prov 3:5-6 (NIV)
• Receive His guidance when we need specific direction. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Is: 30:21 (NIV)
• Minister to others based on what God wants to do through us. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12 (NIV)
• Have certainty that when we pray, He hears and will answer. “Call unto me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” Jeremiah 33:3 (NIV)

So why is it we can forget so easily that God is not just willing but eager to speak to us?

Maybe we are just not sure God is like that or we don’t really expect that He wants to speak to us in a way that we can hear. Or perhaps we under estimate how much God likes us and that He takes great pleasure in us and wants to enjoy a relationship with us. 

The Westminster Catechism states “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” (1)  

When we read John 14-17 we can see what Jesus says about His love for us. If we really believed that, wouldn’t we expect that God would want to speak with us, every day, and in such an intimate way that it could alter our perspective and even the course of our circumstances? 

Believe it is so. Expect it. The day I read my friend’s book I decided I would start to live that way. And that day I did hear God speak and He lovingly rearranged my thoughts, my heart and some incredible circumstances. May we live believing we are going to hear from God because He loves us … “Speak Lord, your servant is listening!”

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1. Westminster Assembly (1643-1652). The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, with the Scripture Proofs in Reference : with an Appendix on the Systematick Attention of the Young to Scriptural Knowledge, by Hervey Wilbur. Newburyport [Mass?] :Wm. B. Allen & Co., 1816.