How to Discern God's Voice - Part 2
In the previous episode on discerning God's voice, I shared how the Holy-Spirit is eager to start talking to you and telling you amazing things about your new husband to be, your new home and your new life.
As a child of God, it is natural to hear your Father’s voice. Because you’re not an orphan, and the price paid to buy you back wasn’t cheap, you need to understand how crucial it is to discern God's voice.
It is only when we can discern God’s voice that we begin to discover His will and learn to do it.
If we don’t hear his voice, we cannot become like Christ.
We will end up living an unfulfilled life on earth when we return to our Creator and He assesses us on how much of Christ we became at the end of our earthly journey.
Because where there’s no will, there won’t be a way. Without a light, we will remain blind and clueless. Even as the supposed bride of Christ we are to be. We will live in this life and die without achieving our purpose.
Do not be unwise, but know the Will of God for your life -Ephesians 5:17
So how can you discern God's voice?
Your spirit is your antenna connected to God's satellite.
The human spirit is the lamp of the LORD that sheds light on one's inmost being.-Proverbs 20:27
You have a new Spirit sealed with the Holy-Spirit.
This means you belong to God now and you’re connected to Him because you’ve been grafted into His family. Yay! Now the part of you that can connect to God easily is your Spirit, and because God is Spirit, the true worshippers worship Him in Spirit and Truth. This is the part that can respond to God and with time, you’ll translate the information to your soul for your body to carry it out.
It could be a nudge within or a still small voice. His voice is so negligible and this is why you need to pay great attention to it.
Because the Holy Spirit is a gentleman, He won’t speak with a loud voice, but he’s there, tugging at your heart through your spirit. God will not lead you through your soul but your Spirit. Because your Spirit is New and this is where the Holy Spirit can reside. He will often come through your spirit.
Not your mind, or your body, or your emotions.
But your Spirit.
There is an inward witness that often feels like an inkling, a green light (positive), and a check or uncomfortable feeling within (negative). Hold on to it.
Personally, there are times when something is about to happen and I’ll just have that notification inside me before it happens. A warning sort of. That’s the inward witness; A gentle tug from the Spirit.
There was a time I was about to apply for a volunteering program but I heard His gentle voice within me and I knew I had to wait. Thank God I waited because something else came up that would have complicated issues for me.
Sometimes God's voice comes as a knowing, an understanding that cannot be fully expressed. But deep within your heart, you just know He’s the One cautioning you, speaking to you.
This is why you must learn how to train yourself to hear His Spirit.
So how do you train your Spirit?
By Engaging in the Word
The Bible is your manual. So if any voice is coming to you outside the region of God’s word, discard it. God will never ask you to do things contrary to His word. I've witnessed scenarios where people misinterpret the word to justify their imperfections. Yes God has given us grace, but Jesus didn’t come all the way for us to start living messed up lives.
He came to make us live like Him and For Him.
Yes, we will miss it a few times, but we need to own our failures, instead of blaming God.
The more we read God’s word, the more we learn his Heart. We learn about the God we are worshipping. We begin to learn interesting facts about the Father who brought us from the dump into his mansion. From the New Testament to the Old, we explore His life and His ways.
And with the help of the Holy Spirit, He makes those words come alive in our hearts.
Oftentimes, this is how God speaks. He reminds us of a scripture we read some time ago and it suddenly makes sense in whatever situation we may be going through.
If you feel you’re not really hearing God’s voice, then how are you feeding your soul with His word? You can’t neglect scripture and complain about not hearing God.
Immerse yourself in and he will pour forth at the right time.
Let the word of God dwell in you richly - Colossians 3:16
Weed out the distractions around you
Days when I hardly hear God are the days when I’m highly distracted. Because my mind is clogged up with the affairs of the world or I'm becoming too self-absorbed, I find it hard to hear God breathe through.
This made me cut down things in my life.
Besides, you begin to lose your taste for some things as you grow spiritually. From the movies and series, I used to binge on to some of the toxic books I indulged in. I’m learning to take caution with the things I allow inside my heart no matter how good it looks on the outside.
Because the heart is like a sponge and absorbs things easily.
The soul is like a garden, and the soil takes up all kinds of seeds so we must guard it jealously while we weed out the tares.-Matthew 13:25-30.
When we master this with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will become better. The fewer distractions we have, the more clarity of God’s will we get.
There is so much to learn about hearing God but I’ll continue in the next chapter