How Does God Speak?
God is always speaking! You may not hear him with your physical ears (or you may!), but he is always speaking.
So, how does God speak?
He speaks through parables played out in everyday life, through songs, through impressions, through family and friends, and even through perfect strangers in the grocery store or on the street.
The issue is not the inability to believe that God speaks but the failure to recognize it when he does.
So, the question should not be how does God speak but instead how do you hear?
I think back to when I first began my walk with Christ. I am not talking about the one where I knew he died for my sins, and I acknowledged him as my Lord and Savior, but I still lived life according to my sinful ways.
No, I am talking about the walk where I finally decided to stop riding the fence in lukewarmness and align every aspect of my life to his will.
I remember hearing all the preachers and YouTube teachers speak about how they heard God say this or that.
It frustrated me for months because I could not understand for the life of me why I was not hearing God!
Hello, Are You There?
I vividly recall sitting in the center of my bed (my designated prayer closet) in tears because I felt like I was not doing it right. By it, I mean Christianity as a whole.
How come God was talking to them but not to me?
Granted, I was very green in my walk. But I had known God my whole life. Plus, I had read in his word that those who seek him would find him. I was spending my days seeking constantly.
I prayed, fasted, and read the Bible daily for hours.
So why could I not hear him? He must have favorites!
The devil had me believing that – since they could hear him, but I could not – maybe I was just not meant to hear him.
Maybe the promises I read in the Bible were only for certain special people!
The enemy knew that if he could trick me into believing this lie – there was no way that I could also believe that Jesus died for me personally because God wanted a personal relationship with me.
This mind trickery was part of Satan’s sinister plan to deceive me and keep me in bondage.
More Than One Way To Hear
Months later, after much frustration, The Holy Spirit revealed to me that I was missing God because, subconsciously, I had been expecting to hear him audibly.
I am not limiting God’s ability to speak with audible words (I have heard him this way twice in my life!).
I am just saying that the most common way we will hear him, the way those YouTube preachers and teachers meant when they talked about hearing him, is not through an audible voice.
When The Holy Spirit revealed this to me, it changed the way I listened for God.
Since I knew it was likely I would not hear him with natural ears – I understood the importance of discerning how he spoke to me personally.
By studying scripture and seeking God through prayer, I learned I was already hearing him!
He spoke through songs on the radio or the short encouraging words I saw across my Facebook news feed.
He spoke to my heart with words of knowledge and strong impressions.
God had already been speaking to me!
It was just that I was too frustrated to realize it because it looked nothing like I thought it should look.
You can imagine my excitement when I finally realized that I was an adopted heir to Jesus Christ and not the outcast child the enemy wanted me to believe I was.
He was speaking to me!
We are his children, and God desires to speak to us!
The Parables of Everyday Life
One day at work, I decided to have a late snack before heading home.
It was close to dinner time, So I didn’t want to have a big lunch.
I decided to grab a quick hold-over meal from the vending machine but realized I was $0.10 short of enough for the cup noodles I wanted.
I rummaged through my desk drawers in desperate search of a dime.
After failed attempts and depletion of hope – I thought a quick Come on, God!
I flipped through some Manila files at the back of the drawer and found a shiny quarter stuck between them! You would have thought I was a kid in a candy store!
The God of More Than Enough
It was not about the quarter or even lunch. I was excited to see God answer a prayer I had barely thought of.
I bought the snack and left the $0.15 change on the lunch table for anyone who might come behind me and find themself in the same situation.
As I ate the cup noodles, I asked God why he had me find a whole quarter. I only needed a dime. A dime would have been enough for me to get what I wanted. God answered – I am The God of more than enough!
I did not hear this by words in my ear, but I heard it in my heart. God blew my mind at that moment! He was speaking to me!
He spoke to me through that quick example of late afternoon hunger.
I knew it was God speaking because it aligned with his word!
Through this parable, God had also possibly blessed me to be a blessing to someone else.
I never found out if a co-worker came in later and used that $0.15 to cover a late, unexpected lunch.
It did not matter.
What mattered was that God spoke to me. And after he taught me the lesson – I like to think that he also used the change, or leftovers, to teach someone else a lesson too!
Incidents like these are the kind of way God speaks!
Matthew 13:10-11 explains why parables were one of the main ways Jesus communicated information in biblical times. It was for revelation to his disciples but concealment to those who did not have ears to hear nor a heart to understand. Why would we think that God does not speak this way still today?
Around the time I first started to realize I was hearing God, I was elated.
One day, he told me that the more I hearkened (unto his voice), the more I would hear him.
If you notice – he did not say the more he would speak. He said the more I would hear!
There was action that I had to take.
God was putting some of the responsibility to hear him more clearly on me.
If I could understand how he spoke to me personally, I would realize how often he was undoubtedly speaking.
How Does God Speak to You?
We think of the word – word and automatically associate it with audibility. Limiting God like that is why I was missing him all that time and working myself into a self-pitying frenzy.
You may not hear an audible voice, but you will know it’s him speaking because of the leap your heart will make when you hear or feel the word.
Have you ever had a thought and then spoke with a friend, and they followed up the topic of that thought, having no idea about what you had been thinking? Or maybe you have gotten repetitive messages from multiple different sources back-to-back? The messages could have come through a social media post or even a song on the radio.
If you have experienced any of these coincidences (there are no coincidences) – God has likely been speaking to you!
Are you listening?
When trying to discern How God speaks to you, you should align everything you hear with his word.
God will never contradict his word.
If you cannot back up what you believe you are hearing with scripture or his character, then you better sit on what you heard and wait for his confirmation.
Take everything you hear back to God in prayer and ask him to authenticate it. I find that a quick – Lord, is this you? Please confirm if it is you – to be sufficient to keep you out of dangerous territory.
Engaging God this way shows him that you are not looking to take what you think he is saying and run with it, but you want to be sure you have heard him clearly and correctly. Please do not be deceived. The enemy knows scripture just like we do.
It is not beyond his moral standard to try and misguide you with a false word. So, verification that the word is from The Lord is imperative.
God Speaks in Various Ways
God speaks in many other ways, including dreams, thoughts, numbers, and even through nature.
Pray for discernment to recognize when and how he is talking to you.
Be vigilant – don’t be held back from progressing in your spiritual walk just because things don’t look how you expect them to.
Contrary to popular opinion – God can and will speak to you through the least likely channel you would expect. This channel could also include that unsaved person whose lifestyle you might not necessarily align with the idea of Godly.
I am not advocating taking spiritual advice from someone who does not have a relationship with The Lord.
However, we understand God will use anybody or anything to get his point across (remember the donkey who spoke to Balaam).
For this reason, I cannot stress enough the importance that you take every word back to The Lord for confirmation.
The Bible says that we perish for lack of knowledge.
Let us ensure that the knowledge we get is from The Holy Spirit.
God can speak at any time, through anything, in any way. He is the creator of the universe.
There is no limit to how he speaks. However, the most common way God engages with his people is through his written word – The Bible.
The scriptures contain encouragement, solutions, and instructions to guide us through everyday life. You can check out the post on the Bible and how to use it to hear God more clearly here.
Sit at his feet and find out how he speaks to you, then study his word to show yourself approved.
Be Blessed, and Be a Blessing!
– Tamaya
