Hearing God's Voice

God is all around us, working in and through our lives. Yet some many of us are unaware that He is wanting to communicate with us or that He is even there. If you are wanting to know Him and how He is actively working in your life, being aware is the key. So you ask, how do we become aware? The Lord has given us the ability to know, experience Him and communicate with Him. Unfortunately, we live in a world with many distractions and many things that pull at us for our attention. If you truly want to hear His Voice then we must be willing to listen and to still our minds and all the thoughts that race through them and focus on Him.

Much of our prayer life is filling with our requests for ourselves, our families and friends. Although there is nothing wrong with this, it becomes a one way conversation in which we are speaking to God and not receiving from Him. This is why so many of us leave our prayer time feeling unfulfilled and satisfied. Think about it in these terms, if you were to have a friend and you meet for coffee and all you did was talk yourself and your needs and the other person did not have an opportunity to respond or speak, it would be pretty unfulfilling. The key is when we pray to acknowledge the Lord first and His Presence in our lives. Tell Him you desire to hear Him and see Him working in your life. Offer up your prayers with pauses, giving Him the opportunity to respond to you through encouragement, peace, reassurance or drawing you read the right words. You would be very surprised to see how God wants to show you that He is every present around you.

Now you may wonder, can I hear God' s voice? The answer is "Yes". This is true and for two very reasons. The first one is because the Lord has created you to hear and know His voice and to know Him. He designed us with this very ability. You ask, "How do I know this?" God's word, the Bible tells us in the book of Genesis that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and it was without form and darkness was all around. Then the Lord God spoke forth and said, "Let there be light." and there was light. So we know that the God used His voice and He spoke forth creation into existence and it was so. Thus, we see that God has created everything to hear and to respond to His Voice.

Here is an example of this, the television was created to be able to watch programs. The TV receives audio and video signals and pictures and sound is played because it was designed to that. This is the same principle with us, we were created by God to communicate with Him; therefore, we have the ability to hear Him because He created us to do so. In order to be more in tune with what He is saying or how He is guiding us, we need to focus or eyes and attention on Him and not ourselves. When we give God an opening to hear Him, He will make His voice and purposes clear.

Now the second reason that we can hear God's voice is because we are called His sheep and He is our Good Shepherd. John 10, verse 27 tells us that, "My sheep hear My voice." These words tell us that we hear His voice and that He is speaking to us. Now, this verse does not tell us that we hear His voice sometime or occasionally, no it says we hear His voice. So you can be certain of this fact. This is the first step to hearing His voice, believing that He desires to communicate with you and that He has created you to hear Him. The next step is to listen and to follow what He is saying to you.