Recognizing God's Voice

The most important thing to know about God's speaking to you, is how to recognize His voice. Depending on the person and their background, people often either don't believe God can speak to us at all, or that He wouldn't bother to speak to us insignificant sinners, or they put limits on how He can speak to us. This does not actually limit Him, but it diminishes our ability to discern His voice. God speaks to all of us, and quite often. However, most of us have also not been taught how to recognize it.

People who are looking to hear from God tend to ask what He sounds like. I cannot tell you exactly what He sounds like, simply because He is God and has no limits (other than the self-limitations of what He will not do.) If He chooses to use a burning bush, or a booming voice, or a strong feeling, then He does. There's no way I could know how He chooses to talk to everyone else. I can only say how He speaks to me. Though I can also say that others hear Him the same way.

God speaks to me, mostly, as an inner voice. I can all too easily drown Him out with music (of any sort), television, other people, my own thoughts, et cetera. Other times, he speaks to me as a strong feeling of "this is right", or "this is wrong". I often pray at such times, just to be sure that it is His guidance, and not my own desires that compel me. Many times He uses other people. On very rare occasions, He will speak to me in a dream (only once) or in a vision (only twice).

But, one might ask, how do you know that it was God that spoke?

The best way to answer that, first requires me to remind you that, God is not the only one who speaks to us. We all know we have our own inner voices, which are eager to selfishly put forward our own interests. More importantly, we must realize that Satan speaks to us. He speaks to us just as often as, if not more often than, God does (depending on whether or not we give him a willing audience.) One time we can count on him to show up is immediately after God speaks to us. He wants to convince us not to follow God, so Satan, being a liar, pretends that he doesn't speak to us, but pretends to be our own voice or pretends to be God Himself.

Therefore, it becomes a question, not of whether or not anyone spoke, but who. As with every other question we have, the answer is readily found in scripture. Whenever someone speaks to us, they are, in one fashion or another, imparting wisdom. We must determine, therefore, from where is the wisdom derived?

James 3: 17 - But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

That verse alone will cover anything you ever hear from anyone. God will never do or say anything that runs contrary to scripture. If what you hear doesn't fit with James 3:17, then it didn't come from God. It really is that simple.