Hearing the voice of God is the most wonderful thing that can ever happen to a believer in Christ. However, it takes us time to learn how to hear his voice. I wish that I could tell you learning how to hear God and recognizing His voice is going to be super easy and I could give you a step-by-step guide on how to do it, but this subject is not easy.

When I was still young in my faith, my husband asked me what God was saying to me. I probably made something up, but honestly, I wasn’t hearing anything from God because I didn’t know how to hear His voice. This is not something that is going to come naturally to you at first and it’s probably something you are going to have to learn on your own. I can, however, give you some tips on how I learned to hear God and how others have learned to hear God.

The first thing to remember is God never changes (Malachi 3:6). God saved during Bible times, God healed during Bible times, and He spoke during Bible times. God still does each of these things today. He just does them a little differently.

Many years ago, I thought my conscience was the voice of God. It seemed to guide me morally and spiritually and kept me on the right path most of the time. But if my conscience were God’s voice, it would keep me on the right path all the time, not just some of the time. Just to be clear, our conscience is not the voice of God. Our conscience is shaped by things we get from the outside world, family values, our preferences, and our moral values that we choose to follow.

Over time, our conscience becomes an avenue that the Holy Spirit can use to guide and confirm what He is saying. Our conscience will reflect and confirm the Holy Spirit’s directives. In her book Discerning the Voice of God, Priscilla Shirer tells us a bit more about how the conscience and the Holy Spirit work together. She writes, “Your conscience is being actively transformed by the Holy Spirit and becomes the mechanism He uses to relay the direction of God to you as it steers you toward decisions that reflect His perspective.” As believers in Christ, we can use our consciences as a tool of guidance because it is being reshaped in the likeness of Christ.

In our modern times, God primarily uses the Holy Spirit that resides inside of us to relay messages. Since early Bible times, God has primarily used the following ways to speak to us and still uses most of these avenues today:

Audible voice. This is not as common today as it was during Bible times. I won’t say that you will never hear an audible voice, we should never say God will never do something, but He doesn’t need to audibly speak to us today. God speaks to our very being, our Spirit.

Angelic visitations. I’ve read stories online of people seeing angels or who were saved by angels. Mary received a visit from the angel Gabriel when she was told she would have a baby named Jesus. I don’t personally know anyone who has received a word from God from an angel, but again, it is still possible. Hebrews 13:2 tells us “do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

Visions and dreams. As we are living in the last days before the coming of Jesus to set up His earthly Kingdom, I believe God is mightily using visions and dreams right now. I have seen so many people talking about a vision or a dream that God has given them that has come to pass. I have had some interesting visions and dreams that line up exactly with a stranger’s vision or dream. Acts 2:17 says, “in the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” I 100% believe this is one of the primary ways God is speaking right now.

His word. God’s word is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If we want to know what God wants and expects from us, all we need to do is stay immersed in His Holy word. God’s word is alive and active! The Bible is the only book on earth that is alive and speaks to us. We have to open our Bible every day and meditate on His word. How else will we recognize when Satan is trying to deceive us with God’s words? Remember Eve? Satan easily tricked her with God’s words because she didn’t listen closely to what God had said. Read and study every day so you aren’t tricked by Satan to believe something God has not said.

Through people. I have been the receiver and the deliverer of messages from God. This is exactly how I found out that God was going to bless me with a child. A woman spoke an unexpected word of God to me at church. Recently, I was used to give a word of encouragement to a young man that I didn’t even know—totally outside of my comfort zone again. My husband is often used to encourage others and given information that he would not otherwise know if God did not give it to him.

Through our conscience. We have already discussed this previously, so we won’t spend much time on it. Just remember that the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with our conscience to guide us and tell us what God wants us to do.

This is not an all-inclusive list, just some of the ways I wanted to highlight. God speaks to us through signs and miracles, nature, and a whole host of other ways to get our attention.

We just need to learn to shut our mouths and listen.

Did I step on some toes here? Don’t worry my toes are sore also. We cannot hear from God if we never allow Him time to speak to us. How many times have you sat in prayer listing your requests, telling Him what you are thankful for, and asking for all of this in Jesus’ name and then signing off with God, moving on to the next task on your to-do list? Guilty here. It’s so important that we don’t look at prayer as something we need to check off our to-do list each day. We can’t allow what we are saying to keep us from listening to what He wants to say to us. Don’t talk through your entire prayers. Stop and listen. Give God time to answer you or give you the peace you may be seeking. Be quiet!

I often get some of my best advice from God in the middle of the night. He tends to give me a 3 am wake up call periodically when He wants to relay something to me. One time I asked why He always spoke to me in the middle of the night while I was trying to sleep, and His answer bothered me. God told me that the middle of the night was the only time I was still enough for Him to speak to me. During the day I’m always moving from one task to the next and I don’t give Him time to speak to me. Ouch! I had to learn to stop throughout my day and ask if there was anything that I needed to hear from God right now that I wasn’t taking the time to hear.

Don’t be that person that God needs to reprimand because you won’t stay still long enough to hear Him. Carve out some time for Him every day. It can be as simple as driving home in silence from work instead of listening to the radio. Ask God to speak to you and spend time with Him. God is ready to spend time with you.

Next week, we will discuss recognizing God’s voice.

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Discerning the Voice of God. Priscilla Shirer, 2007, 2012. Moody Publishers, pg. 44