Discerning God’s Voice

Discerning God's Voice

What does God’s voice sound like? As a young Christian, I have often pondered on this question, particularly when I hear people saying “God spoke to me” or “God told me”And when I have asked them, “How do you know He told you?” The answers have varied. Some people have given vague explanations while others have described specific signposts and feelings that identified God’s voice to them.
In the Bible itself, God’s voice travelled a range of volumes and intensities, depending on the situation. He thundered when defending His people (Ps.18:13). After a windstorm, earthquake, and fire, He whispered to Elijah at the mouth of the isolated cave(1 kings 19:11-13). But what would be the nature of His voice if He spoke to me personally, in the recess of my heart? I believe that our ability to discern and hear His voice depends on three fundamental issues about which we must be clear.

Why does God speak?

One of the distinctive truths about God of the biblical revelation is that He is a speaking God. Unlike idols which, being dead, are dumb, the living God has spoken and continues to speak. In Isa. 45:19 God says “I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.”
Since God is the true and living God, He can speak to us, but the question we need to ask ourselves is why does God speak to us in the first place?
The answer is found in Deut 4:33-37, where God challenges the Israelites to consider all that He had done for them. He reminds them how He brought them out of Egypt into the Promised Land and because they where His chosen people, He also spoke to them out of fire (vs. 33). And then in vs. 35 God clarifies why He spoke to them. He says “You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; beside him there is no other”. The primary reason why God spoke to the Israelites was to reveal Himself. God speaks to us to make Himself known. So often, we seek to hear God’s voice only while searching for a direction in a particular area of our life. The tragedy today is that Christians too often treat God as some heavenly consultant who is only interested in providing answers to our questions. In our quest to know God’s will we have somehow missed out the aspect of knowing God. The fact of the matter is, until and unless we know God we can never truly know or do His will.

Jesus in His high priestly prayer, in John 17:3 says “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” Jesus equates eternal life, not with doing something, but in knowing someone; that is God Himself. It is only in knowing God that we can know His will. God’s will is not a code that needs to be decoded or some puzzle that needs to be solved, rather knowing God’s will is the result of an intimate and close relationship with Him. The prerequisite for hearing God’s voice is to have a relationship with Him. If that is missing we can never be in tune with God. Jesus, in John 10, used the example of a shepherd and the sheep to demonstrate how important it is to have a relationship with Him before we can discern His voice. In John 10: 4-5 Jesus says “… his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Now, the sheep are not born with an innate ability to differentiate between the shepherd’s voice and a stranger’s voice. It is only as they grow in their relationship with the shepherd, and listen to his voice everyday, that they are able to make the distinction between the shepherd’s voice and the stranger’s voice. Similarly, our ability to listen to God’s voice is the result of a personal relationship with God. Without knowing who God is, we can never know what He is saying?

How does God Speak?

God speaks to make Himself known, but that raises a second question: how does God speak? All around us we hear people who claim that they have seen a vision or a dream, or have had some supernatural experience through which they have heard God speak to them. Does God use supernatural means to speak to us? I believe He does, but that is more of an exception rather than a rule of how He communicates with us. Experience is subjective; it is difficult to critically analyze one’s experience. Therefore experience alone cannot be the norm by which God communicates with us. He has given us something that is more sure and reliable. And that is His Word; the surest way in which God speaks to us is through His written Word.

In 2 Peter 1:16-18, Peter describes his mountain top experience when he witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration, an experience that any Jew would die to have - to see Moses, Elijah and Jesus in His heavenly glory. But then in verse 19 Peter goes on to say, “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain and you will do well to pay attention to it…” What Peter is saying here is that, as exhilarating as it was to be present at the transfiguration, that experience, must ultimately be seen as temporary. Only the Word of God exceeds the message of the moment and transcends all time. Human experience is subjective but the Word of God is certain and absolute. Christians live precariously when experience is the final authority. In Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:28, when the rich man after his death finds himself in hell, requests Abraham to send Lazarus, (who is also dead and has gone to heaven) back to his five brothers so that they can be warned about their life style, he is told that they have Moses and the prophets; meaning that they have the Word of God with them. But the rich man argues saying “…if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.” To this he is told “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” The point that Jesus was making in this parable was that experience can be explained away, but the Word of God cannot be explained away.

When we’re seeking guidance or making a decision, nothing can supersede the authority of God’s Word. A simple principle that we need to follow is this: if a message runs contrary to the scriptures, it’s not God’s voice. The scriptures reveal God’s character, and God’s voice will always correspond to His character. This is the acid test to authenticate, whether what we perceive as God’s voice is really God’s voice or our imagination, or even the voice of the devil. For example, if I receive a phone call from my father asking me to rob a bank, I would immediately know that, that call is not from him, even if the voice on the other side sounds exactly like his. My first though would be that some one is imitating my father’s voice, for the message that I am now hearing simply does not match his character. Similarly, the more familiar we are with God’s character as revealed in the scriptures the more in tune we are with God’s voice.

When does God speak?

If the Bible is God’s surest way of communicating with His people, why is it then that some would read the Bible from cover to cover and yet walk away with an indifferent attitude? One of the major hindrances for not being able to listen to God’s voice is our approach. So often we try to justify our own ways rather than seek God’s way.

Charles L. Allen, the author of 'Prayer Changes Things' once said “How can I know the will of God for my life? Many will never know because God does not reveal Himself to triflers. No one can walk into His holy presence on hurrying feet. If you merely pray, “Lord, this is my will, I hope you will approve,” you are wasting your breath. Only those who sincerely want God’s will, and have faith enough in Him to dedicate themselves to His will, can ever know it. To pray, “Lord, show me thy will, and if I like it I will accept it,” is a futile prayer. You must accept it before you know it. Whether or not you can do that depends on what opinion you have of God.” This is in line with what Jesus taught in John 7:16 where he says “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” Follow the progression: first comes the choice to do God’s will, and the assurance follows later. Jesus presents the journey of faith as a personal pilgrimage, begun with the will to believe and to act on what we believe.

Thomas Merton in one of his books wrote “We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act; we act, then see…And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey.”

The Bible is full of examples where people have often failed to listen to God’s voice, primarily because they did not intend to obey it. The story of the High priest Eli is one such example. In 1 Samuel 2: 17 we are told that Eli’s sons were wicked men, who had no regard for the Lord. They misused their authority in taking from the sacrifices, that which did not belong to them; they also abused the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. In Chapter 3 of 1 Samuel, we are told that Lord spoke to Samuel and told him that Eli’s house is going to be destroyed because of his children. Now why did God tell all this to Samuel who was Eli’s disciple and not to Eli? The reason is simple, Eli was aware of this evil, (1 Sam 2:22.), but he refused to take any action against it, he simply warned his sons but let them go their own way. Even when a man of God came to Eli and warned him of God’s anger against his family (1 Sam 2:27), Eli refused to do anything. The reason why Eli could not hear God’s voice was because of his own hard heartedness. When we have made up our mind not to submit to God then no matter how many time we read the Bible we will never hear His voice speak to us through His Word.

Keep a Tender Heart

To discern God voice in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, we need to hide away with Him periodically, filling up with His presence and emptying out our sin, stress and cluttered-up souls. The more time we spend in His presence, the more God softens our heart and makes it sensitive to His guidance. To keep a tender heart and open ears, we must learn to pray like the Methodist minister John Wesley prayed

Open, Lord, my inward ear;
And bid my heart rejoice!
Bid my quite spirit hear
Thy comfortable voice.
Never in the whirlwind found,
Or where the earthquakes rock the place;
Still and silent is the sound,
The whisper of thy grace.
From the world of sin, and noise,
And hurry, I withdraw;
For the small and inward voice
I wait with humble awe.

With this prayer in our hearts and on our lips, we ready ourselves to hear God’s voice.

Rev. Paras Tayade