Having Heard

Isaiah 30: 21

Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

God means that you should hear his voice. He wants to talk with you. He also guides you with his voice. It seems that hearing from God has been relegated to a few people but that is not God’s intention. It is our tradition that has developed that idea. 

The big secret about hearing the voice of God, if you are not already, is that it takes practice. You begin to recognize the voice of God and it becomes easier and easier to hear him. One time I went on a trip and took a suit with me for the occasion. Then I had this idea occur to me to take an additional suit. I thought about it and said to myself, “But I don’t need two suits.” The thought persisted though so I packed the second one. As it turned out, I did end up needing two different suits. That was when I realized that it had been God telling me to grab the second suit. I learned a lot from that. First of all, I began to learn how God’s voice sounds in my ear. Sometimes it is just a thought that occurs to me from out of nowhere. I may be thinking of something totally different and a thought comes to me. Recently I left my house to go to an appointment. I got to the end of the street and the thought came to me that I had left the garage door open. I thought about that for a minute and in my own thinking I did not think that I had left the door open. The thought persisted though so I turned around and drove back to the house. Guess what? Sure enough the door was open. 

That is the way God communicates with us. In the example about the suit, it would not have been the end of the world if I had not listened to Him and packed only the one suit. Even with the garage door, I am sure that He would have protected my house in my absence but it sure is nice that He does tell me these things because my life is much better for all of the things He tells me. 

And that brings up the second lesson I learned about hearing from God. He often starts out teaching you to hear his voice by talking with you about small things. It did not take much faith for me to turn my car around and go check the garage door. He has built my faith in Him and in my hearing Him in these small things. Now when He says something big to me, I am better able to recognize that it is His voice speaking to me and I have more faith in hearing Him so that I do what I hear without arguing it away.

The thing you really have to do to start hearing God’s voice is to turn off some of the noise around you. If you are like I was you always have some noise machine on. In my case I had the TV or stereo on every minute of my life. There was no quiet time in my life for Him to speak in. The other thing that I had to do was to quiet my mind. My mind was so busy and so loud that there was little chance of me hearing Him. Quiet your mind. And lastly, I absolutely prayed about hearing the voice of God. I knew that other people heard God’s voice and I absolutely insisted on hearing also. If anyone is receiving a blessing from God, you are entitled to that same blessing because it is one and the same Jesus that has bought that blessing for each of us. Don’t let any of God’s blessings evade you.

Hear What God is Speaking

Psalm 85: 8

I will hear what God the Lord will say; for He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; but let them not turn back to folly.

God is speaking to His people. He is speaking peace and love. He is constantly conveying His thoughts and plans to you. He is a God of revelation and glory so those are necessarily some of the things that He is speaking to your heart. If we will stop and listen for that still, quiet voice within us we will find that He is speaking life and unfailing devotion to our hearts.

When I read this passage yesterday, I was particularly arrested by the phrase, “I will hear what God the Lord will say.” God is speaking but just as important is that we are hearing. This is a strong and declarative statement from the writers of this Psalm that they had predetermined in their own hearts that they would hear what the voice of the Lord was saying. We too should have this same bold confidence. God is not talking to Himself. All of His declarations are for our benefit so we must tune our hearts and ears to listening to Him and we must make up our minds that we will hear His voice speaking to us.

Set your mind today to hearing the voice of the Lord. Take some quiet time to be alone with the Lord and allow Him to speak His wonders and mysteries to you. God has sent a spirit of revelation into the world. For all who will listen this is a time when you can receive the unfolding mystery of God. He has stored up knowledge and wisdom for today. Let your heart receive this blessing of revealed knowledge.