How to hear God's voice and figure out what he's saying, by a total amateur

Arianna said: 

I want to ask God what He wants me to do, but here's where I get stuck: I don't know what his answer is. I mean, how do you know when God says, "Nope, don't do that" or "Hold off, young lady" or "Go ahead, this is where you need to be" ?? This is something I've always struggled with- I haven't ever felt or heard the will of God clearly in my life so I'm always stuck wondering if it's just my own inner voice I'm hearing in the back of my head. What are your thoughts?

YOU AND ME BOTH, SISTER!

Okay, okay, I'll tackle this. flexes My initial thoughts are a quick list: 

1. EXPECT God to speak to you
2. Start paying attention
3. Be in community
4. Keep practicing (This is called Growing In Discernment!)
5. Move forward

So the first one is super important and it's something I'm trying to instill in my kids right now, so it's not a new concept to them when they grow up. I think this is where you Protestants are so right on. You are all about that Personal Relationship With Jesus an, idea that is really foreign to so many Catholics. I grew up knowing Jesus loved me and what kind of person I should be, but God in every aspect of your life? CARING about every aspect of your life? Wanting you to ask him about your own self - who you are, what he made you to be? A plan for your LIFE? NEW INFORMATION. I caught on gradually, but I know lots of awesome amazing people, many of whom even go to church!, for whom this would be, like, crazy talk. NOPE! I tell my kids: you might not recognize God's voice yet, but he IS talking to you and he's going to KEEP talking to you and your wackadoodle mom is going to keep pestering you, "Do you think God is saying anything to you?" while she's driving the car and you just want to stare out the window and eat your snack. 

He speaks to all of us, all the time. EXPECT TO HEAR IT! This will open you up for better hearing. 

Okay, the second thing. Start paying attention. So here is where you just have to be around and alive in the world, your eyes and ears open, and being aware. That quote you read on Pinterest that really resonated? Probably God. Your friend offering encouraging words when you're down? Totally God. The thing you watched on TV that you had to talk about with your husband later because it really burrowed into your brain and wouldn't leave? A lot of times: God. 

I think the easiest way for God to speak to us is through our good, solid relationships. We've built trust and history with certain people and when they speak into our lives we don't question whether we heard them or not. God is ABUNDANTLY GOOD and MERCIFUL! He is not waiting around for us to be perfect Christians before we can hear his voice. He uses our relationships to be in relationship with us. 

But God can speak through anything. For me, just super recently, God used the TV show Stranger Things and the movie Arrival to say absolutely enormous things to me. Like WHOA, GOOSE BUMPS kind of stuff. God knows us so well! And he'll use the things we like and the things we like to do to speak to us. God knows I love pop culture. He might even have MADE me that way, right? So I am constantly picking up on God Words through fiction, movies, and TV. 

I have a good friend who loves rock climbing. One day, while hanging off a rock face, he had this amazing thought come into his head, where what he was doing at that moment was an analogy for where he was in his life.

(God will never speak to me through rock climbing.) 

Music? HUGE. 

Your kids? WHOA.

Your very own daydreams? Start paying attention to those. When your mind wanders, say, "Hey God, is there something you want to say about this?" And then see what pops into your head. 

I suppose I should put The Bible here. Seems pretty obvious, though I've heard God speak to me more through television than I ever have the Bible, but that's because I am a terrible churchy person who rarely sits down to read it and God is what? ABUNDANTLY GOOD AND MERCIFUL.

Pretty much any time your heart latches onto something. A written or spoken word makes your brain pause. Those aren't ALL God things, but I would bet they are more often than we think. 

Phillip and I got in a terrible fight on Monday. I begged God for answers and heard absolutely nothing. I spent some time with a good friend Wednesday morning. I didn't tell her much about our argument, but in the stories she spontaneously shared about her own marriage, I heard God responding to my own questions. 

Third thing: Be in community. SO IMPORTANT. You guys, so so important. So important that when we have engaged couples come to our house to go over their FOCCUS results, we sort of fly through the questions, then grill them about the support they have in their lives. You can't do marriage alone. Ideally you've got some solid family, and barring that, or even if you do, get yourself COMMUNITY. Find your PEOPLE. Be in RELATIONSHIP. Because these are the folks who God will use to speak to you AAAAAND

Number Four: help you Grow In Discernment. Basically that means that the longer you keep yourself open to hearing God, the better you'll get at figuring out how he speaks to YOU. It is a billion times easier to do this if you have a group of people you can talk to about these things. Or just one, even! Find the person to whom you can say, "So I think God might be saying THIS to me... what do YOU think?" "I have NO idea what God is saying about this one, can you help me?" Even the most seasoned prophetic crazy people out there have a crew of folks for this very purpose, I guarantee you. This is basically all I talk about with my two best girls and it is THE MOST FUN. 

I have been practicing hearing God's voice since I was a teenager. I am still terrible at it. BUT I AM BETTER! I will tell you some stories: 

In college I had this huuuuuuuuuuuuge crush on this guy named Phillip who was friends with my friends, but never paid me any special attention, like ever, and I was so so disgusted with my own self for all the PINING. I can't be someone who PINES! That's goes against my entire LIFE PHILOSPHY! (at age 19. Ahem.) So I would go on these long determined walks where I would talk to God out loud and swear up and down that I would get over this stupid oblivious college boy. Stop visiting him in the dorm. Stop trying to get in on outings where I knew he'd be going. Just STOP EMBARRASSING MYSELF. I can't tell you how many times I came home from these walks and Phillip Cheung would be sitting in my dorm room, hanging out with my roommate, and playing my guitar, waiting for me to get back. 

WHAT WAS GOD SAYING TO ME?

A year into our marriage I had a dream where Phillip was flat on the ground and I was straddling him, beating his face in with my fists, and he just laid there, not fighting back. When I woke up I had this weird sense, or maybe it was a full thought: this is what I do to Phillip when we argue. GAH. I started to work verrrrry hard on curbing the harsh, acidic, devastating words that came out of my mouth when we fought. 

WAS THAT GOD?

One year I learned that I could invite God into my memories and ask him what was UP. In prayer I went back to a time in high school and shouted, "GOD! WHERE ARE YOU?!" After a while I saw Jesus in my imagination, showing me how he had ministered to me in that moment and how I wasn't alone. Why do I think that was God and not just my imagination? Because when I go back to that place in my memories, it no longer has power over me. 

PRETTY SURE THAT WAS GOD. 

And just yesterday I was telling the woman I consider my mentor this batshit crazy story of MAYBE God speaking to me, but I don't know, I mean, who knows, this is just weird, whatevs. And she tells me God has been saying the SAME THING TO HER. 

BOOM. GOD. 

(Confirmation that you ARE hearing God correctly is my favorite, and is why I love intercessory prayer so much. It's basically just a group of people hearing different parts of what God wants to tell us, putting the pieces together, and feeling like amazing badasses because we get to DO this.) 

I am offtrack. What's the last thing. SCROLLLLLL.... Oh okay! MOVE FORWARD! Yes. Not sure what you're hearing from God? Do not be paralyzed! Do not stand still! Do not spend six months or a year hemming and hawing over what God might or might not be telling you to do about, say, grad school or moving or a new job or what have you. (Spend SOME time discerning! This is what grown ups do. But when your life is stuck, when it's been a while, when people are nudging you and asking you what you're going to do next - that's when you just pick a thing. Decide to move.) God doesn't move us - WE have to move us. We choose to take the first step. But if we're going in the wrong direction he will happily change our course. God doesn't need you to be perfect and have it figured out. He just needs your YES. Say yes, take a step, and if you went west when you should have gone east, God will gently pick you up and turn you around. 

I decided to go be an English teacher missionary in China when God was speaking to me about "settling down" and being FROM somewhere, finally, after growing up not really having a place to call home. Be FROM Seattle! he was telling me. Be HERE! YOU LOVE IT! and I was not paying attention AT ALL. Not to friends and family, not to my own husband, not my body that was crumbling into a massive anxiety attack. My continual rejections of God's gentle nudges set me up for that anxiety episode, but I finally caught on and I didn't go and I am GRATEFUL for his ABUNDANT GRACE AND MERCY that it worked out the way it did. I didn't see that for years. And now it is so humiliatingly obvious. AH WELL. See #4. 

Sorry, I wrote way too much, I'm sure you didn't need or want all that, but again, editing is for the birds. It's my bedtime. I should be praying into how God wants me to handle a certain situation tomorrow, but instead I'm going to crash in bed and wing it like I usually do. 

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS I CAN ANSWER POORLY?

(Did that help Arianna?! Sorry, I can probably point you to a good book once I ask someone else what their recommendations are, ha) 

 

Related articles

Sharjah Doctors Help Deaf Indian Girl Hear

Comments

[Steph]

This helped me! :)

[el-e-e]

i love this. will keep coming back to it.

[Arianna]

I love this, Maggie, and I haven’t responded until now because I’ve been chewing on it for days. So many thoughts swirling in my head. You will regret asking me if I have any more questions.

1. I grew up much like you did in terms of faith being this thing you did on Sundays and during Lent but it wasn’t intermingled with my daily life. Combined with being SUPER introverted and socially anxious, I find it very hard to be open about my faith with others. Heck, I find it uncomfortable to worship with my arms outstretched, much less talk to Jesus as if he’s sitting next to me. Maybe I’m too much of a cynic? IT’s embarrassing to me, if I admit it, to be so open and vulnerable. I’m a scientist and usually like Proofs. God doesn’t speak in Proofs, does he? (sigh)

2. You said you are trying to instill in your kids the idea that they (we) should EXPECT God to talk to us. Can you give me an example of how you do this in practice? I’m guessing that when my kid is refusing to study for his upcoming math test it’s not the best time to say, “Hey, what do you think Jesus wants you to do here?” Because I know my sour kids and that seems like asking for them to give me a smart-ass answer. What do you say to them? When? How do you let them know when you’re trying to listen to God’s word? Big stuff or looking-for-a-parking space-please-God-don’t –let-me-get-a-ticket stuff? How do you pray with Phillip? With your kids? Extemporaneously? Rote prayers? Talk about the day? I NEED A SCRIPT. Blergh.

3. Re: start paying attention: maybe this is where I get stuck, because I seem to be able to make anything (or nothing) appear like it’s from God. A while back I had what felt like God reaching His hand directly out to me: a perfect, unexpected job offer with great pay, great hours, husband’s surprise enthusiasm about the project- one of the few times I DID feel like God was speaking to me. So we prayed about it and I took the job even though I hadn’t been looking for one. After about a year, it became very clear (I THINK, OR MAYBE NOT) that this was a terrible idea. Family life was more stressful, I was more isolated, longer hours than I ever expected, kids unhappy… I quit but we’re still feeling some of the repercussions in our family. It damaged some relationships and changed things financially and I’m not sure that I can draw much good out of the experience. So was I wrong when I thought I heard God’s voice the first time? Or was I wrong the second time (and I should have stuck with the job)? Or am I just being short-sighted and this will all be seen as a part of His Masterful Plan later? (You can sense my cynicism about the latter explanation, as this always seems to be the response when something you THINK was God’s will seems to have a very bad outcome.)

4. I want the kind of faith that is attractive to others because of its joyfulness. The kind that is so intimately a part of myself that it’s hard to separate and that draws others closer to God- but instead I feel like it’s tucked away in this corner of my life. My faith is weak which is why it’s scary to pull it out of that corner.I want to be you when I grow up even though I am 5 years older than you, ha ha! I love the Eucharist, I believe in the Catholic Church as the one true Church, but there is nothing that irritates me more than hearing the picayune arguments of Catholics who find the sound of drums at Mass so distracting that it somehow prevents them from finding Jesus. Some of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have had have occurred at charismatic prayer meetings. Protestants and charismatic Catholics have taught me so much about a fully trusting, believing in the power of, exuding joy, loving Jesus kind of Christianity. *I want more of that in my life.*

wow. that was long.

[Arianna]

Also: Pray for me?

[Rahim mia]

Thanks for your Good Post

[Rahul amin]

Thanks for good Article Share and Resources