How Do We Hear God's Voice?

Making room to hear God's voice can be tough. We are always needed and there are so many things to do. But hearing God's voice is a way we can connect with God, receive direction, and more. This episode starts by going over what God's voice is and is not. Then, I give ways we can make room to hear God's voice in our lives. Finally, I'll go over some of the ways God can speak to us. 

Here's the transcript for this weeks episode. The points are in bold. 

Denea (00:01)
Hello, hello, it's Denea, your host of the Faith Fills Mom podcast. I hope that wherever you are today, I hope you know that I'm thankful that you're listening. I really am. I so appreciate the fact that you are listening to this podcast. And I hope that you're able to do just one nice thing for yourself today. I'm not talking about going on a shopping spree. I'm not talking about going to a spa or anything like that. I'm talking about, can you drink some water? Can you take three deep breaths? Can you maybe go for a walk, move your body, sit outside? Can you nourish your body with a piece of fruit, with a vegetable? Can you say something nice to yourself, about yourself? What is one nice thing? Minimum -That you can do for yourself today because you are so deserving of it. Today's episode, we are going to be talking about God's voice, what it's not, what it is, how can we make room to hear God's voice? What are some ways that God speaks to us?

I'm gonna open us up in prayer. Father, thank you that you are always speaking to us. You don't sleep or slumber. You are mighty. You are always present. You are always attentive to us, Father. When we talk to you, you listen. You are always speaking to us and we want to hear more of your voice. We want to make room for more of your voice, Holy Spirit. Help us as we're studying how to hear more of God's voice, what it might sound like, what it doesn't sound like. Remind us of God's character, help us learn more about who God is. We love you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.

Examples of What God's Voice Is Not

I thought it was good to start with what God's voice is not. God's voice is not harsh. It is not shameful. It is not critical. It is not mean. It is not judgmental. God's voice will not go against His word. I think it is really important to know that so that we can distinguish that like we can distinguish some of the thoughts that we have. Personally speaking, I know that I sometimes have like a negative thought track will just play on repeat all day. And then I will have to practice self-awareness and be like, ooh, God would not speak to me like that. So why am I speaking to myself like that? Like, why am I being so harsh talking to myself right now?

Examples of What God's Voice Is

It is good for us to know what God's voice is not. Now, what God's voice is. I think it's important to know that God's voice will sound like you. How you talk. That is how God's voice is going to sound. It's going to sound familiar. Now, God's voice is loving. It is compassionate. It is just. It convicts out of love. Peaceful and quiet.

Now to go back to that convicts out of love. Conviction is out of love. The Holy Spirit draws us in. He alerts us to and he convicts us of something that we need to ask forgiveness for and we need to repent from because he knows that sin tends to make us separate ourselves from God. God has not moved.

Right, like as his child, God is close. But sin tends to make us kind of like hide and separate ourselves from God. And of course we're not really hidden from God, right? But we start to have this mentality of hiding, trying to hide certain things from God. And that very quickly turns to shame. And sin also is destructive, we know this. And so the Holy Spirit,

It's like, hey, whoa, kind of acting as that like alert, like that light, right? Like, whoa, hey, hey, hey, there's something going on here. You need to pay attention. Bring it to God. That is the beautiful thing about conviction. God is not like, girl, you need to go ahead and figure that out. And then when you do come back, no, he's like, OK, my daughter, my beautiful daughter, bring this to me. I want to help you navigate this. He convicts out of love.

Ways You and I Can Make Room to Hear God's Voice

What are some ways that you and I can make room to hear God's voice? I think reading the Bible is a great start. Reading the Bible is a great way for us to become familiar with God's character. When we read the Bible for context, we can start to identify like certain themes about his character.

And we can start to become more familiar with who he is. God's voice will always go along with his character. So becoming familiar with his character helps us become familiar with his voice. We can also ask him to help make us sensitive to his voice. You and I can create small pockets of quiet time. I say small because sometimes that's all I can do. Because life be life in, grocery trips be grocery tripping, like stuff laundry be laundering. We know laundry never stops. Like small pockets of quiet time. I think the enemy would love for us to be like I only have like 30 seconds. What is that really gonna do if I sit in quiet time and seek God's voice? 30 seconds y'all can be a lot. If you have 30 seconds, use it. If you have 20 seconds, use it. I think it's important to say here that when we go and just sit in silence or in a quiet-ish atmosphere, I say quiet-ish because you know, kids be kidsin'.

It's a quiet-ish atmosphere. I think it's important to say it is okay if at first it feels kind of awkward. You're not doing it wrong. I think our brains are wired to just always be thinking. Like I think that's just kind of become the norm for us. And so that's what they're used to. Our brains are used to taking in some type of sensory, some type of information.

When Sitting in Silence Feels Awkward 

I also think it's really important to say here, you have not failed. If you go sit in silence and you immediately start thinking about your grocery list, or you immediately start thinking about your kid or your spouse or your friend or something that you're worried about, you have not failed. Again, that's what our brains do. Like God gives us grace to be human. He knows that we are human. Practice awareness and then...Get back to silence. It is okay if it feels awkward. It's okay if your mind wanders. Just get back to it. And I say pockets of quiet because I think myself included, I am so used to having, taking in information.

Ways for Us to Make Room to Hear God's Voice

And I think it is okay sometimes to say, you know what? I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna hold off on watching that video or that sermon that I wanted to watch. Right? not even like, it doesn't have to be a bad thing. I just think that we are so accustomed to noise because noise is so easily accessible to us now on our phones. Maybe you have a podcast that you want to catch up on or a show or a movie or a sermon. And I think sometimes it's okay to be like, you know what? Nope. I'm going to do 30 seconds. I'm going to do my 30 seconds today. And I think that's okay. Get out in nature.

Now this one, have a very, ooh, I really love this one, but let me tell you, around this time of year, like I just miss sitting out in nature so much. And I do have, like I have ear muffs, I have a scarf, I have gloves, I have a heavy coat, I have all of that, I have beanies. But I'll tell y'all, like if it's below 40 degrees, which it has been all January, all February with the exception of today on the day of recording. This is in February. And I have not been going for walks. Like I haven't been sitting. We have a screened in porch. Haven't been sitting out there with the blanket. Absolutely not me. I have not been in our hammock. I do have in my office in this recording room, I have a lot of plants. There are like 90 plants around our house in total. Most of them are in this room.

And this does kind of give me a taste of nature and I'm really thankful for it. I do miss sitting outside. When we're out in nature, there's something that just connects us to, I don't know, God. it just reminds us of how big He is and how small we are. I think sitting out in nature also reminds us of God's provision and all of the beautiful things that He's created. And there's just something about taking in that fresh air that is good for us in spending time with God. Another way to hear, make room to hear God's voice is prayer. Express, of course, your petitions, express your gratitudes. And I think in prayer and in quiet time, it is a good practice for us to say every now and then, like, God, I'm listening. What do you want to speak to me today? And just wait.

And just wait and see if you get a response. This again, you have not failed if this feels weird. You have not failed if you don't hear anything or if you don't feel anything. It's just, it's a practice, right? We do it. We practice it. We practice that muscle. We build it up. Fasting is a great way for us to make room to hear from God. Now, yes, we can fast from things like social media.

I think that's a great fast. Also, I'm talking about fasting from things like meat or fast food. Whenever we're fasting, heard our pastor say this a few weeks back, whenever we're fasting, gives us an opportunity to press into God's grace, right? To lean on Him a little bit harder, a little bit more than we usually do in our day-to-day lives. And I think that is a really good way to hear from God.

And I think submitting to the Holy Spirit is a great way to make room to hear from God. Now, when I say submitting to the Holy Spirit, asking the Holy Spirit, there's a situation as a person that you're dealing with. And you're asking, you're gonna ask the Holy Spirit, how do you want me to deal with this? What do you want me to do? How do you want me to deal with this person? And then submitting and obeying to what the Holy Spirit says.

Now, when we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, what's happening is that He's doing that work within us when we obey, that only the Holy Spirit can do, that is transforming us to become more like Jesus. So in that process, when we obey Him and submit to Him, we are becoming more like Jesus. And we're also opening a pathway to hear, to make room, to hear more of God's voice.

How Does God Speak to Me if I'm Autistic or Neurodivergent?

I get asked this a lot from my neurodivergent friends. Well, I'm autistic. How does God speak to me? I have ADHD. I don't even know if I can focus on God's voice. Let me tell you this. There's grace for that. God knows you. God created you.

He knows how to talk to you. He knows you. He loves you. You have the same line of connection, of communication to God as someone who is neurotypical has. Do not compare how you talk to God, how you hear God to what you think it's supposed to sound like or to what someone else says it sounds or feels like.

Some of the Ways God Can Speak to Us

How does God speak to us? I think this also kind of depends on the person. Some people, I personally have felt more of like an impression, like a gut feeling. Or sometimes I will hear like thoughts, but I know like it's not a thought like from me that I'm thinking. I think some people have also said they've heard it audibly out loud. I think this is something that only you can answer because our God is personal.

Right? Like, praise God for that. Our God is personal. He speaks to all of us differently. I think our job, our responsibility is to know that He's always speaking to us. And I think our responsibility is to be open and make that room. I think sometimes God can be specific and say, hey, don't do that. Or hey, text so-and-so today. Has that ever happened to you?

You've text someone or maybe somebody has been on your mind all day and you were like, forgot to text her. I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and you cannot get this person off of your mind. You're like, my goodness, let me go ahead and reach out to her. And that person is like, you know, it was just really nice to hear from you today. You know, they just, they just needed that in their spirit. They just, they just need that pep. That is one way that God is speaking. God can use us to speak to other people. God can use other people to speak to us and confirm things. God speaks through the Bible. God speaks through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will always point us back to God and Jesus and helping us learn more about them. Helping us do that transformation work, right, that only the Holy Spirit can do and helping us become more like Jesus.

The Holy Spirit can help us understand God's character, can help us understand God's voice. God speaks to us through dreams.

I think that is something that I forgot her name. Her first name is Stephanie. I'm going to try to put it in the show notes. But she often talks about that. She actually just wrote a book about this and how God speaks to us through dreams. I think if you are ever wondering and she can put this, first of all, more eloquently, more detailed than I can. But I will say that if you are ever wondering if God is speaking to you through a dream, I think you should ask yourself, like, how did you feel when you woke up? You know, like, did you feel panicked? Did you feel judged? Did you feel ashamed? I think answering questions like those can kind of help you. And again, we we have the blessing, y'all, of asking God to give us confirmation like, God, I'm not sure if that was you or that was me. Can you please give me confirmation? Like we, yeah, we can do that. We can go boldly to our father and ask him for confirmation. I just think that is absolutely beautiful. I think that whenever you have noticed something happening to somebody that is unjust and you have had this feeling within you like, hey, that's not fair. Y'all, that's God. Our God is just. Have you ever had a feeling that you just have, that you want to extend kindness to this person? Maybe you know them, maybe you don't, but you just feel this, I don't know, this prompting that you need to be kind to them and that you need to smile towards them or you need to give them a compliment or like we were talking about earlier, that you need to reach out to them. You need to text them or you need to call them. Y'all, that is our compassionate God speaking through you. God is compassionate. Think about those moments when that has happened to you.

And see if you can notice how you felt. Was it like a gut feeling? Was it like a thought? Try to practice some self-awareness. And if you're like, well, I don't know, was so long ago, I'm not really sure, that's fine. The next time it happens, see if you can practice self-awareness and see what that looks like. You can also ask.

God to help you become more aware, remember more sensitive to his voice and what that sounds like and what that might feel like. God wants to help you in hearing more of his voice. I think I've said this before on another episode, but sometimes I forget like, it's okay to ask God for help with being a Christian. You know, like it is okay to ask God for help in like obeying his word.

We can ask God for help in hearing His voice. You and I, have the opportunity, the blessing of asking God to help us hear more of His voice, make room for His presence, make more room for Him in our lives. We can ask God to help us read the Bible. We can ask God to help us want to read the Bible. God loves to help us become more like Christ. We can absolutely do that.

When You Think You've Heard God Tell You to do Something, But You're Afraid to Take Action

And I think that if you were ever unsure, I'm gonna close with this, if you're ever unsure of whether or not you've heard God's voice and you're like, oh, just don't wanna make a mistake, right? Like, I'm not sure if I've heard God's voice. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't wanna do the wrong thing. Let me encourage you with this. There is never a mistake that you or I, that we can make.

that is bigger than our God. God can cover, He can more than cover any mistake, every mistake that you and I will make. There is grace. He has more than enough grace, more than enough mercy, more than enough forgiveness, more than enough guidance for us whenever we make a mistake. Don't let the fear of making a mistake

keep you from trying to act out and respond to God's voice. It is a practice. I really believe that seeking God's voice, becoming familiar with what it might sound like or feel like, it is a practice. And the only way to practice is to put some action behind it. God can cover it. Father, thank you for your voice.

Thank you that you are always speaking to us. We are hungry to hear more of you. We want to hear more of you. Father, if we're being honest in this world, that is tough. There seems to be always something that needs, that is begging for our attention. Somebody always seems to need us. Something is always there to distract us. Please help us make room.

more room to hear your voice, please help us become familiar and sensitive to the ways that you were speaking to us and what you were saying. And please help us obey you. Holy Spirit, please help us become more like Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank y'all for listening so much to this episode. I do ask that you rate it. Rate it wherever you are listening to this episode.

It just pushes it out for more people and I did not say it in case you are not hands-free. Why do I always get that confused? Can somebody please message me on Instagram at Denea Marable. I'll put it in the show notes. Is it in case you are not hands-free or in case you are hands-free? It's in case you're not hands-free, right? In case you are not able to write any of what I said.

In case you're not able to write it down, I'm going to put it in the show notes for you. And this transcript is there for you, too. I love you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time.

Contact Information:

Instagram, Threads and TikTok: @deneamarable

Email: deneamarable@gmail.com

Website: https://www.deneamarable.com/

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