How Can I Hear God's Voice?

The surest way to hear God is to read what He has already said. You never have to wonder whether the Bible is God's voice. Christians believe it was given by God Himself:

Hebrews says God spoke in many ways in the past, but now finally and fully in Jesus: He “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2, KJV). The Gospels are where you hear Jesus most directly. And Scripture is not just information. It is “quick, and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12, KJV), able to search your heart as you read.

Read slowly, and ask three questions of any passage: what does this show me about God, what does it show me about myself, and what is God asking me to do? Often a verse you have read many times will suddenly speak to the very thing you are facing. That is one of the most common ways Christians say they have heard God. In Faithero you can tap any verse to have it explained in plain words, or have a whole chapter read aloud while you listen.

Prayer is not only talking to God. It is also making room to listen: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10, KJV). When old Eli realized that it was the LORD calling the boy Samuel in the night, he taught him what to say, and Samuel answered, “Speak; for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:10, KJV). That is a good prayer to borrow.

In practice this usually means a few minutes of quiet after you have read and prayed. Thoughts may come to mind: a person to call, a sin to confess, a verse, a sense of peace about a choice. Write them down and hold them loosely until you have tested them. The prophet Habakkuk describes the posture well: “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me” (Habakkuk 2:1, KJV).

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would teach His followers and “bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26, KJV). The Spirit's voice is rarely loud. More often it is a conviction that something is wrong (John 16:8), a nudge toward kindness, a verse that comes back to you at the right moment, or the quiet assurance that you belong to God: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16, KJV).

When Elijah was worn out and afraid, God was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but came to him in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12, KJV). Expect God's guidance to be gentle more often than dramatic.

Where Christians differ. Pentecostal and charismatic churches expect the Spirit to speak today also through gifts such as prophecy, which Paul tells the church neither to despise nor to accept untested: “Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, KJV). Many Reformed and Presbyterian churches hold that God's earlier ways of revealing new truth ended with the apostles. The Westminster Confession speaks of “those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased” (1.1) and says nothing is to be added to Scripture, “whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men” (1.6), while still teaching that the Spirit enlightens believers as they read. The Catholic Church teaches that no new public revelation is to be expected before Christ returns, and that private revelations, even those the Church recognizes, do not add to the faith but can help people live it more fully (Catechism of the Catholic Church 66-67). All agree on the most important point: God will never say anything that contradicts what He has said in Scripture.

God often speaks through other believers. The early church made one of its hardest decisions together, then wrote to the churches, “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us” (Acts 15:28, KJV). Notice the order: the Spirit led, and the church listened together.

Choose your counselors well. Look for people who know the Bible, who know you, who will tell you a hard truth kindly, and who gain nothing from your decision. A pastor, a mature friend or a small group can often see what you cannot see from inside your own situation.

God also guides by opening and closing doors. On one journey Paul and his companions were “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia”, tried to go into Bithynia, “but the Spirit suffered them not”, and then Paul saw a vision of a man pleading, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us” (Acts 16:6-9, KJV). The closed doors were part of the guidance.

But circumstances are the easiest kind of guidance to misread. When Jonah ran from God, he “found a ship going to Tarshish” (Jonah 1:3, KJV): a convenient open door in exactly the wrong direction. So weigh circumstances last, after Scripture, prayer and counsel, and never treat an open door as permission to do something the Bible forbids.