Flip to the Spiritual H.G.T.V. Channel and Hear God’s True Voice

 

In a daily devotional by Carter Conlon entitled GOD HAS NOT WRITTEN YOU OFF, the author writes:

“Remember, Christians do make mistakes. One such mistake is substituting human reasoning for divine counsel. When you and I pray, ideas will come into our hearts. However, we must remember that they are not always from God even though we are praying.”

My Buddy-in-Christ, Dave S used this teaching to challenge my personal conviction that God speaks to us when we pray. Knowing Dave S like I do, He was having a little fun, poking at me and saying, “What do you have to say about that, Tucker? You can’t trust what comes into your head! After all, Conlon is Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in NYC! Who are you?”

My initial response is, “Yeah, but he’s Canadian! Who trusts Canadians, Eh?”

My next response to Dave S is targeted to totally deflate him – “I completely agree!”

When Conlon says that while we pray ideas come into our “hearts” (I understand what he is saying but I choose to identify it as our “minds”) they may not always be from God. I’d say, from my experience, that more often what comes into my mind/heart is likely not from God. Even while I’m praying. What swirls in my mind is more likely what’s next on my schedule for the day, or feelings about current issues in my life, or what’s next on my prayer list, or what I’m going to have for breakfast, or a host of personal desires, hopes and plans that continue to pop into my head.

If we are looking for God to respond to our questions, concerns or wishes why should we trust that what we hear isn’t being polluted by our own desires?

Can we push aside our own desires, interests and imaginations to actually hear God speak the truth?

I don’t believe Conlon is saying that we can’t ever trust what comes into our minds is from God even while praying. If he is then I don’t agree. For myself, what I have come to understand is that there is a lot to overcome in order to hear God’s voice.

On the popular HGTV Channel there are a myriad of shows all about home reclamation, renovation and restoration. We enjoy watching how in 45 minutes’ time living spaces are completely transformed. It looks so easy. The truth is that it isn’t really that easy. As a part of connecting with God in true relationship for Him to do the reclamation, renovation and restoration work in our lives we need to hear His voice. But, it’s not that easy. Building a healthy relationship of any kind is not easy.

I don’t doubt there are some Christ-Followers who are uniquely skilled or adept or maybe even ‘gifted’ at hearing God’s voice. It comes almost ‘naturally’ to them. But, for most of us spiritual poor schleps, hearing God’s voice is ‘unnatural.’ It actually requires intentionally exercising things like desire, discipline, belief, humility and faith. If all those things sound like work – it is. it’s real exercise.

Growing as a Disciple of Christ requires exercise. As for hearing God’s voice, it only ceases to be work when you’re actually realizing you are hearing God’s voice – engaging with the living God!

For those who truly want to hear God’s voice you will likely have to exercise:

1. Desire to engage God more deeply
2. Dedicating time to quiet the world around you
3. Belief that God is big enough and real enough to be able to speak to you
4. Cleansing ourselves of sin and the selfish desires of our heart and
5. Faith that it is God, in fact, who is speaking while testing it with scripture

But wait. Still, how do we know it is God’s voice? Is it a certain sound or timber or accent? No, it’s simply thoughts that come into my mind forming into images and words. Rarely, have I heard an audible voice.

If you want to make sure what you are hearing is God’s voice the best test of all is to compare what you hear to God’s written word (The Bible) and most importantly compare it to the Character of Christ as detailed in the Bible. There are a number of key verses to rely upon but here are 2 I consider most foundational:

1. 1 Corinthians 14:3 – “But he who prophesies (to declare a thing known by divine revelation) speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” Under the New Covenant, God’s voice is about building us up, encouraging us to move out and assuring us that He is with us. (Anything that sounds like condemnation and judgement is not from God)
2. Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” God cannot fail to live up to the standard He sets for us.

If what someone hears does not line up with both of those scriptures then best to throw it out.

Can we ever absolutely KNOW that what comes into our mind is from God?

After we have put ourselves in a quiet place, acknowledged our own desires and feelings, cleared away the obstacle of admitted sin and received His forgiveness, resolved to only hear what God has to say, trusting that what you are going to hear is from God & tested by scripture, and then finally, by faith, accept what you are hearing is actually God speaking – can we then Know with certainty what we are hearing is from God?

By its very definition, that last part of exorcising faith means that we don’t “Know” with absolute certainty that it is God’s words we are hearing. God requires that we act on faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Can we ever KNOW? Of course. We know when, in faith, we act on what God has spoken and it bears out to be Good, Righteous and True. Furthermore, in my humble opinion, the more you exercise this communication activity, the more you grow in your ability to hear God more clearly and more often. As with most exercise, things that were difficult become less “work”.

What if we fail to hear God correctly?

Oh no! I listened and humbly shared with someone else what I believed I heard from God. But, I got it wrong!!! How terrible? Let me just crawl up into the fetal position and suck my thumb!

I have to tell myself to, Get over it! Making mistakes is part of any growth cycle.

Even when we practice the process I outlined above, can we still get it wrong? Absolutely! If we are honest about all this then we have to humbly acknowledge that we are flawed human beings with poor spiritual communication skills. Even when we are totally sincere we can get it wrong. But, getting it wrong or failing while acting with the heart of Christ still demonstrates to God and ourselves that we are willing to step out in faith. God will reward us even when we get it wrong. When we press on through our failures, God uses our failures to grow us even stronger in Him.

Hebrews 11:6 does not say that God is a rewarder of those who get it perfectly right all the time. It says, “that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

I know that there are many Christian leaders who are fearful about the idea of whole congregations of people running around claiming that they hear God’s voice resulting in all kinds of craziness.

Ultimately, we don’t trust people, we trust God. But, we can also trust that God speaks to those people who have proven to be trustworthy in exorcising genuine desire, discipline, belief, humility and faith when seeking to hear God’s voice.

Back to the words of Carter Conlon, “When you and I pray, ideas will come into our hearts. However, we must remember that they are not always from God even though we are praying.” We should not trust that everything that comes into our minds even while praying is from God. We trust God but should have very little trust in ourselves. It should always be tested.

However, if we choose to believe that God never really speaks to us for fear of getting it wrong – that we can’t trust God is speaking, then we risk being in a relationship with God that will never be as vibrant as God intended for it to be. Imagine the kind of relationship where one person never speaks and/or the other person never listens.

Jesus repeatedly cried out, “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!” Give it a try. Tune in to the spiritual H.G.T.V. channel – God’s Reclamation, Renovation and Restoration Channel and Hear God’s True Voice.