It always felt weird to me growing up to hear people say, “I heard from God,” “God told me,” or any phrasing similar to that. God seemed distant to me, and even though I loved him and have always followed him, It seemed either they were making it up, or I wasn’t as close to God as them because I never felt like God talked to me. And don’t even talk about if I heard someone mention prophecies. That felt too miraculous to consider happening in modern days, let alone with people I knew.
I know now prophecy is simply proclaiming God’s truth, and hearing from God comes in many different ways. If you’re like me and want to hear from God, here are the ways I’ve found he talks to me, and the more I grow in my relationship with him, the easier it is for me to recognize God’s voice from all the other noise around me.
Listen to the Bible
My favorite Bible app is YouVersion Bible, and many translations have an audio component. I don’t use the audio often. Usually, if I’m thinking through a lesson or devotional and it’s less about quiet time with God, I’ll listen. And many times, God makes different scriptures fresh and new and obvious, as though I’ve never read that part of the Bible before. So, if you prefer listening over reading, this could be a great way for you to hear from God.
Read the Bible
Reading the Bible for yourself, I think, is the best way to hear from God. If you’re an auditory learner, read it out loud yourself, but this keeps there from being interpretation or someone else’s learning about God influencing what God wants to point out to you. I love devotionals, but if you’re like me, sometimes I’ll breeze past the scriptures just to get to the nuggets someone else discovered about God. They’re like little pieces of candy. Good every now and then, but not substantial for my personal relationship with God.
The other downside to only using devotionals for your quiet time is it leaves me wondering why God isn’t speaking to me like he is to others. “Well, shannan, it’s because you’re not listening to him through reading the Bible; I’m listening to other people by reading their devotionals.” If you want to hear from God, you have to go to God before you go to others’ interpretations of God.
Write Down Scriptures
I did this a lot more when I was using paper for my study time. And talking about this makes me want to go back to writing the verses myself. But my focus increases when I write the scriptures down myself. It also allows you to write different versions next to each other and see what stands out in different interpretations. If you want to do this, I recommend ESV, NLT, and Message.
Study What God’s Saying
Sometimes, the Bible just doesn’t make sense to modern Christians, especially in America. It was a different culture, point in history and way of life. Sometimes, God speaks to us when we learn what it meant in the time and place it was said. I think there is value in learning about what God was saying to the people he was talking to in their living context because God doesn’t change, so his truth is still true. It just might take some digging to understand how it translates to modern times.
Other Christians
There have been times when God has spoken to me through other Christians, whether they knew it or not. These were moments where I needed affirmation I was going in the right direction or just a reminder that I am seen and a child of God. This doesn’t replace my time with God to hear from him directly, but it can open up new areas that I need to focus on understanding him or places I need to work on myself to continue being more like Jesus.
The Holy Spirit
If you’re like me and grew up in a restoration church or “the brotherhood,” as some call it, the Holy Spirit always seemed like a distant cousin. We know he’s there, but we never talk to him. However, the Holy Spirit is constantly guiding and prompting me to take steps of faith or giving me words to say that I am by no means smart enough to come up with on my own. The Holy Spirit always seemed so mystical and far off. It took a lot of time with people who understood the Spirit better to start recognizing his working in my life. Your relationship with God through his Spirit is a muscle that takes time to develop, but after a while, you realize that God is with you and helping you through his Spirit.
Dreams
This took a while for me to realize, but I do believe God talks to us through dreams. This used to be more common for me. For a while, it stopped, and I think it was because I stopped paying attention. Recently, I asked God to start giving me dreams again, and I need to get back into the habit of writing them down, but they are there for me if I pay attention. I think it was the OT Joseph that prompted me to realize this. It took me a while to figure out the difference between “I watched too much TV” and “God’s voice.” And like many people in the Bible, you might have a vision and know what it means but have no idea what it actually looks like in your life or when it will happen. If you find yourself having dreams, my recommendation is to write them down and evaluate them from two different lenses. One is how does this reflect my life right now, and the other is to go to a dream dictionary and see what some of the imagery represents. Sometimes I know what a dream means, and sometimes I don’t until everything clicks into place. But practice will help you start figuring out if it’s subconscious or The Spirit.
So these are the ways I’ve found God talks to me. In what ways do you feel like God commonly uses to talk to you?
Stay Weird,
