Five Tips To Hearing God With Certainty
Far too often I hear women say they rarely hear God speak and they don’t know how to hear God’s voice. A few have said they have never heard God speak to them. I’m not talking audibly. I’m referring to that inner voice when you know without question God has spoken to you, Spirit to spirit. It’s a moment between you and God when you’ve been hit at the core, and without question, that still small voice is without question God and you know you just received a personal message from your Creator, God. These are women who have been Christians for decades, who read their Bible, attend church, and Bible studies, and are still questioning when God speaks.
My heart breaks when I hear people say they struggle to hear God's voice. This should not be! It does not have to be this way for me, for you, or for any of those who have accepted Christ as their Savior. If you have invited Christ into your heart, you have the right, the privilege to a personal relationship with Christ, a friendship like any other. We all hear from God differently, but we all will hear from him nonetheless.
I get this question often: “How do I know if God is speaking to me?” The Bible says in John 10:27 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” The first step is knowing the Word and believing what it says. Are you one of his sheep? If so, then believe that you WILL hear his voice. You can only follow who and what you know.
If you believe you are one of his sheep, you will hear his voice with certainty. The rest is up to you. Here are FIVE EASY TIPS TO HEARING GOD WITH CERTAINTY:
1. TIME: If you read Submerged Into the Presence of God, I shared some of my intimate times with God so that people could see how TIME with God is an essential, yet natural, easy, and organic way to immerse yourself into God’s presence where time alone with him is where you can begin to tune your ears to his still small voice. I say “into God’s presence and not “in” because we are always in God’s presence, but we don’t always step into knowing him. You can’t bypass time in God’s presence if you want to hear from God personally and regularly. The more time you are with God, the less you will question his voice. Our spiritual senses are awakened when we shut off the noise around us and tune in regularly to the voice of God.
Know God to know his voice!
2. BIBLE: When I read the Bible I read it as though I know I’m “hearing” the voice of God. John 1:1 states “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” I read it with an expectation to hear God’s voice. You may not hear God audibly or have a rhema moment where a specific verse pops off the pages, but you can read the Word and know that without question God has spoken. Every day is not a Moses mountain moment, but a day will come when you are desperate for a Word from the Lord and he will help you retrieve past verses from your memory. It may only be enough to trigger a word or two to do a Google or Bible Gateway search from a past study or morning devotional, but enough to find the verse. When you read your Bible, read it and expect God to speak and breathe life through the scriptures every single time.
a. Mobile phone apps have a plethora of Bible plans included in them. They are wonderful for on-the-go, but personally, if that’s all I rely on for my daily devotion and time with God, I feel that my time with God is shallow, rushed, and honestly, I don’t feel like I’m giving God the best of me. A five-minute devotional may be a reason you are struggling to hear God’s voice. There’s depth in some five-minute devotionals, but if you want depth in a relationship, then you need to have your devotional AND time with God. I don’t think when your five-minute devotional is done you should call it good for the day. Take a walk and continue talking with God and take time to listen. Communicate. If you want to truly hear God speak, more time with God is richer.
3. PRAY: The more you pray, the more you will become attuned to his voice and the nudging from the Holy Spirit. A nudge in your spirit is often how the Holy Spirit works. Too often we dismiss hunches, but in actuality, a hunch is most often the Holy Spirit. When I don’t have a specific Word from the Lord, I determine if it is a “hunch” from the Lord (or not) in three ways:
Did it pop into my head out of nowhere? If I wasn’t thinking of it at that moment, and possibly not even for weeks or months or years, it is more than likely the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
God vs. enemy? Is the thought from God or the enemy? If the thought is to go and do something good, I can be certain it wasn’t the enemy. The enemy would never want me to do something to help another person. End of story! If it’s the enemy, “take every thought captive” and move on. 2 Corinthians 10:5 End of story.
Obey and go! If the thought is to go and help someone, it is more than likely from the Lord. Can I go wrong helping someone and doing good? No! Everybody benefits. I can be certain the Lord has been speaking. One – I hadn’t been thinking of it and two the devil would not have wanted me to do good. Thank Jesus for giving you an assignment to care for another. Keep it simple.
Hunches and a nudge are often ways the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
4. FRIENDSHIP: Learning to hear God’s voice with certainty and even more clearly and regularly comes from having an intimate relationship with him. Think of your best friend. I pray you have at least one. Every great friendship is built on spending time together. We talk on the phone, we text, email, sit across from one another for hours and connect. We get to know all about them and their families. We want to know all about the people we care about. God knows all about us, but he wants to hear it from us. The one-on-one time with God is where I gain the clarity in spirit to understand the spiritual things of God. Friends who know one another intimately learn how they think, and how they tick. You become comfortable with one another. We tend to over-spiritualize things with God. The more comfortable you are talking to him, conveying to him your every need, thought, and conversation, the more you will trust his voice. You cannot begin to learn the things of God if you don’t take the time to know God more and more. It’s that simple. You can read your Word and go to church, but you cannot bypass time in prayer. Prayer is just you and the Lord. Others can pray for you, but YOU NEED TO HEAR FROM GOD.
I encourage you to read I Corinthians 2. “We have the mind of Christ” I Corinthians 2:16. The more we know Christ, the more we will understand the things of Christ. The more time you spend with your spouse or a friend, the more you know them, and things begin to click when you are together. Friendship with God is similar.
5. EXPECTATION: Live with an expectation to hear the voice of God. God created each of us differently, but when it comes to hearing his voice, we have all been given the same promise. We have been given the comforter, the Holy Spirit. “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” I never doubt that I will hear from my God, my friend. Never. I may not hear the day I ask, but I know in time he will answer.
The Word “is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:115. Read it and believe it. Do you believe the Word? If you read it, believe it. Don’t complicate these verses.
Jesus told his disciples it was better that he go. John 16:7 Jesus had to go for us to live in his presence and to be available for each of us 24/7. We can’t live without him and we surely can’t live without hearing his voice.
What do you do and think that may prevent you from hearing the Lord?
Photo by Aaron Owens on Unsplash
