23 June – Surprised by God’s voice!

God has something to say, and some things to show us. Through the ages people have heard God speak in a variety of ways. He spoke through an audible voice, through dreams, visions, circumstances, fleeces, inner impressions, prophets, angels and others ways, as well as through scripture.

God is still speaking, but we can fail to hear Him because He says things we don’t want to hear, or we are ignorant of the ways that He speaks.

When people say I can’t hear God, and I don’t know what He is saying I ask, “What was the last thing you felt God prompt or tell you to do?” Did you do it, or push it aside. God speaks, but we can ignore Him, and in doing so lose our sensitivity to His voice.

Sometimes we fail to hear him because His voice is drowned out by competing voices that throw us into confusion.

Jack Deere who wrote “Surprised by the voice of God” wrote that there are three voices besides the voice of God that can speak to us. They are:

The voice of our emotions

The voice of darkness

The voice that comes through the pressure we feel from family, friends and others.

We can easily get into confusion if we listen to these “voices,” rather than seeking to hear God’s voice speaking to us. Sometimes we can even go from person to person, and place to place looking for what we want to hear, rather than truly seeking God. There is always someone who will tell you what you want to hear when you look hard enough. We have to watch that our hearts are right and uncluttered with our own motives, issues, unforgiveness or fears, so that they don’t deceive us into hearing, doing and acting outside of what is God’s best for us.

God speaks in many ways; through the bible, through miracles, supernatural means, natural means, through our experiences, trials, visions, dreams, trances, by invading our minds with a part of a sentence or just a single word that we may not even understand at the time. He speaks to us by impressions, which often communicate knowledge, and by preachers, teachers, prophets, and others. It’s just whether we have ears and hearts to hear.

Today, ask God to speak to you in whatever way He wants to. It could be in reading the bible, and a verse just keeps on “jumping” out at you, or you are reminded of it later. It could be through an experience, another person, a vision or dream, or an impression or sense that God is saying something.

Write what you are “hearing” and seeing down. I practice in the little things as well as the big.  When you start to actively choose to listen you suddenly come to realise just how much God has been speaking all the time.

God calls and speaks to each one of us whether we know Him already, or have never even had a conversation with Him.

The bible says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me whenyou search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD”.(Jeremiah 29:12-13)

I can guarantee that if you take the time to listen and to seek to hear God’s voice you will. Maybe the question then is, “What will you do when you do hear Him speak”?

Prayer: Lord please give me ears to hear, and eyes to see the things you want to reveal to me. Forgive me when I have pushed you aside, or have listen to other voices rather than yours. I don’t want to do that anymore. In Jesus Name Amen.