When I say “God’s Voice” I don’t mean an audible voice thundering down from the sky. It is an inward voice. I sometimes think of it as a thought that I know I sure didn’t think of myself.

People often want to know how to learn to hear God’s voice better. Simple. Spend more time in His Word (the Bible) and more time just praying in the Spirit, talking (and listening) to Him, and obeying when He tells you to do something. The faster you obey, the better you get at discerning His voice.

Not to mention that the Bible states “My sheep know MY voice; they won’t follow a stranger because they don’t know him or his voice. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” (John 10:4-5; 27)

Of utmost importance is that you need to know what the Bible says. Why? Because it is how you know which voice is speaking to you. You know the scriptures so you know when someone says something contrary to those scriptures.

If you have the thought, “Go cuss out that person who jumped in line in front of you” then you can be very sure that is not God’s voice. He expects us to walk in love toward everyone so you can’t go cuss someone out.

An example:  Leland has been spending more time with God in the mornings. He has his prayer time, makes his daily confessions (more in another post), and then spends time just “listening” – then writing down what God says to him.

So the other morning, he was headed into the living room to spend his time with God and he felt the prompting (another form of “hearing” his voice; it’s like you have the thought to do something) – to take my duster and clean off the ceiling fan blades in the laundry room and kitchen area. Since he is more tuned into God than ever, he knew it was God so went to obey even though he didn’t want to. He wanted to go spend time with God first.

We are in the process of getting the house ready to be sold so we knew one fan was going to need to be replaced. The motor had burned out on it. When he reached up the duster to clean a blade the entire ceiling fan fell down from the ceiling. Thanks to God he was able to catch it in his hands. There was no harm to the fan or him.

Apparently God knew it was just a short matter of time before the ceiling fan fell down. The wiring box was plastic and had broken into pieces from the vibration of the fan blades. He had to go to town (40 minutes away) to buy a new fan and metal wiring boxes. He was prompted to get two metal boxes so the other one in the kitchen could be replaced, too. He didn’t want to take the other fan down because it appeared to be okay.

He came back, put in one new ceiling fan and realized he couldn’t use the three light fixture on the new fan so the two fans didn’t match. He took the other fan down and discovered that its plastic wiring box was also destroyed, so he replaced it with the second one he’d been prompted to buy.

He did have to go back to town to get another ceiling fan because he wanted them both to match.

Why didn’t God prompt him to buy two fans so he wouldn’t have to make two trips to town? Because our son, Josh, who lived in that town, needed his dad to come over and help him get his big television out of storage to put into his apartment. Leland didn’t know that and Josh didn’t know he was coming to town. If he hadn’t needed to go back to town, Josh wouldn’t have been able to get his TV set up.

Details. God love little details like that. Sure, He could have done it another way – like have Josh call and say, “I need help” and Leland only have to make one trip. It doesn’t matter.

By obeying His voice – well, I can’t even imagine it if we’d sold the house and the ceiling fan fell down on the buyer’s head (or my own head before a sale). Or the ceiling fan fell down, shattered everywhere and destroyed the fan, light fixtures, and light bulbs, or some other issue.

Listen. Ask God to help you hear His voice better. He’s talking all the time – it’s just us; we’re not always listening!

♥