Prayer is communication with God. It is more than talking to God; it is talking with God. Communication and conversation are the basis of any healthy relationship, including our relationship with God. This means that much of our prayer life should be listening to and hearing God’s voice. Many questions I have received over the years from people are related to the struggle to hear God’s voice and discern His will.
Let me start by saying that I do believe God speaks directly to people. I think Jesus made that very clear in John 10:27 when He said “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
God wants to lead you in a personal way, like the Good Shepherd that He is. If God is speaking to His people, then the true struggle is not with hearing God’s voice, per se. I think the struggle is with discerning God’s voice. He is speaking to us. I believe that we are hearing Him, we just may not realize it sometimes.
Today I want to share four ways God speaks to us. My hope is that this will strengthen your two-way communication (prayer) with God and help you enter into deeper intimacy with your heavenly Father.
The Bible
The Bible is vital in learning to cultivate a relationship with God. The Bible is God’s word. Every verse is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is divine, and it provides us a bedrock of truth to build our lives upon. God will never speak in a way that contradicts Himself, which means He will never speak in a way that contradicts His written word in Scripture.
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16
As we read the Bible, we can hear God’s voice. Have you ever had a certain verse or passage jump out at you as you read? That is the voice of God. That is the Holy Spirit illuminating specific truth to you. All of the Bible is God’s word and is valuable. However, there are times when the “spirit of revelation” “opens the eyes of our heart” (Ephesians 1:17-18) to see and understand like never before.
I also like to think of reading the Bible as learning the tone of God’s voice. The more I know of the God of the Bible, the more I am able to recognize Him when He’s interacting with me or speaking to me. From studying God’s written word, I grow in understanding His nature and ways, so discerning His voice becomes more natural.
Also, many times the Holy Spirit will randomly bring a Bible verse to mind throughout our day. This is another way He speaks to us. How can He do that if we have not regularly filled our hearts and minds with Scripture?
Impressions
God’s voice is usually not audible. It is not usually a sound we hear from outside of us that comes into our ears. For the believer, God is inside of us through the indwelling Spirit of God, so many times God’s voice feels or sounds “internal”.
(I do believe God can speak audibly, thought I have not had that experience. Those that have heard audibly say that it is relatively rare and quite a jolting experience. I was with a man once as he heard God’s audible voice, and he immediately began weeping uncontrollably.)
I believe that the most common way God speaks to us is through impressions. Impressions or knowings are simply thoughts that come to our mind from God. This is God’s voice to us through the Holy Spirit.
Mark Virkler’s book Four Keys to Hearing God’s Voice is probably the best book I have ever read on hearing God’s voice. The key #1 from his book is:
“Recognize God’s voice as spontaneous thoughts which light upon your mind.“ – Mark Virkler
I have found this to be about the most accurate definition I can find for the way God has spoken to me over the last 20+ years of having a relationship with Him.
Sometimes impressions are more like feelings. Sometimes impressions are specific words or phrases that come to mind. Sometimes impressions come as vague or specific ideas. Sometimes impressions come as still or moving images in our imaginations.
The word spontaneous is important. I find that the spontaneity of God’s voice is what helps me discern the difference between my own thoughts and God speaking to me. If you have a random thought that might be God, and it does not contradict the Bible, then it is probably God speaking to you – especially if the thought came while you were praying, worshiping or focused on Jesus!
Counsel
I love the story of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. The church leaders are discussing a massively important topic regarding the Gentiles coming to the faith. While seeking God’s will on this issue, they did not receive a prophetic vision (which is how God led them in Acts 11:28). They did not hear an audible voice from God (which seems to be how God led them in Acts 13:2).
No, they simply gathered Spirit-filled Church leaders together, had a lengthy discussion, observed what the Holy Spirit was doing, reflected on Scripture and made a decision. When they recounted their decision they said this:
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us….” Acts 15:28
I love this. In the midst of wise counsel, it seemed good, so they went with it.
I have discovered so much grace throughout my life when I base my life decisions on the wise counsel of spiritual leaders around me. When I do not have a prophetic word or vision, or even a clear impression from the Holy Spirit, I have found counsel from mature, spirit-filled believers to be a clear way God speaks to me. It does not always feel super spiritual when God speaks this way. However, I have learned to recognize that God speaks very clearly through the wisdom of wise counsel.
Maybe God is already speaking to you through mature leaders and wise voices in your life. Are you listening?
Dreams and Visions
God spoke to people throughout the Old and New Testament visually. The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. Receiving dreams and visions from God is a powerful way to hear from Him. Many people see things all the time and do not realize that God could be speaking to them through visual imagination.
Visions from God may be still pictures or be animated like movies. They may or may not include sounds. Visions may appear while your eyes are closed in prayer or it may feel like you “black out” as you receive a vision. Or your eyes may remain open while the vision is superimposed upon what your eyes are already seeing. Dreams are similar to visions, but they obviously happen while one is asleep.
Just like impressions, many visions from God could be wrongly construed as one’s own thoughts or ideas. Again, growing in the Bible and recognizing the spontaneity of God’s voice helps bring discernment on what is inspired by the Holy Spirit. If you are in a time of prayer or worship and you have spontaneous images float through your imagination that do not contradict the Bible, they probably are from God!
It seems that for some people, depending on their particular spiritual gifts, God speaks to them visually much more frequently. Also, in my experience, there are certain seasons where God seems to ramp up the activity of dreams and visions in one’s life for various reasons.
Conclusion
So there you go! Those are four ways God is probably already speaking to you. I hope this help your prayer life develop from a monologue to a dialogue so that your relationship with God grows closer and closer as you discover the joy of hearing God’s voice.
If you would like to delve deeper into this topic, especially the idea of hearing from God through dreams and vision, I wanted to again recommend Mark Virkler’s book Four Keys to Hearing God’s Voice.