God doesn’t usually talk out-loud (that is, with a physical sound) to people. I’ve heard of one woman who, when she first got saved, could actually hear a voice for a while. But she was a very young new believer and God often gives new believers extra goodies just to get them going real well. Later He backs off, but not because He wants to deny us fun things like miracles: he backs off because eventually it’s time to take off the training wheels. You learn a lot more, and grow a lot stronger, if you are relying on faith rather than on what you can see and hear with your physical senses.
Why is this? Because if you relied all the time on what you could hear with your physical ears, or see with your physical eyes, it would be a lot easier to fool you. The enemy can produce voices and visions too. Also, if you are always seeing and hearing things, your spirit will grow very weak; you won’t be using it. If you are just using your physical body to communicate, you will become a spiritual wuss in no time that the enemy can beat up with doubt, fears, and guilt constantly. Finally, seeing and hearing things is very limited communication. Spiritual communication (which is silent) has shades of meaning and tones of interpretation that are billions of times more accurate and diverse than any tone of voice, and often God can get across entire volumes worth of information with just two well-chosen words and a spiritual inflection.
So because it’s better to hear God by faith, most people won’t hear a voice. God has a better way for you.
We hear God with our spirit. If you don’t know the difference between the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, you’d better brush up on your basics with the Spirit, Soul, Body post. Then come back and read the rest of this.
The spirit is shaped just like the physical body, and it has ‘organs’ like the physical body does. The only difference is that these organs function in the spiritual, instead of the physical, world.
Your spirit has ears. It can hear sounds in the spiritual world just like your body can hear sounds in the physical world; but unless you are submerged entirely in the spiritual world (which sometimes people can be in that state halfway between waking and sleeping, when they can consciously see over into both realms at once… or if you have the gift of the discerning of spirits…) you usually won’t be hearing those spiritual sounds as sounds.
We do hear and react to things in the spiritual world all the time, though. It’s part of your natural functioning. Since so much in the spiritual world makes sound (in fact everything makes sound), listening to the spiritual world is one of your body’s natural defenses. Evil things make terrible, nasty, discordant, broken sounds and good things make beautiful, harmonic, delightful, lovely sounds.
Nearly everyone who has been in love has felt like singing; in fact, they feel a kind of music around them all the time. That is because in the spiritual world, love has a sound and it’s a kind of music. On the other hand, when one walks into a really severely haunted house, one can almost hear screaming and weird screeches and snarls as if they are there, but too quiet to hear. That’s because they really are there, but they are happening in a dimension you can’t pick up with physical ears.
In ‘neutral’ places you can often hear sounds too; sounds that represent the spiritual state of the place you are in. Every place and everything has a ‘spirit’ kind of energy, and every kind of energy has a theme; these often come across as sounds.
On a side note about spiritual sounds: Physical sounds are given their power and force by spiritual sounds. A really beautiful singer is not just beautiful because they have a good voice; it is because they are putting spiritual force and energy into the physical sound. On the other hand, a person can hear a physical sound that literally freezes them cold with terror, not because the sound is so bad, but because the spiritual energy carried within the physical sound is so evil. Physical sound carries spiritual energy like wires carry electricity.
You can learn to use your spiritual ears just like you learn to use your physical ones. Most people never bother learning to use their spiritual ears, because we are all taught that the spiritual world doesn’t exist. Mommies usually spend the first ten years of their children’s life teaching them this. The thing you saw in your closet isn’t really there; the sound you heard in the garage isn’t there either. You’re just imagining things.
Actually, you’re not. You were picking things up with your spiritual senses, learning to use them as children just like you were learning to use the rest of your body. But by the time you are an adult, you have become well-trained: you can use your physical senses very well, but you really suck at using anything else. In fact, you are purposefully trained NOT to hear with your ‘inner ear’ or see with your ‘spiritual eye’.
Breaking this anti-hearing training takes some effort. Some people are more sensitive than others, and hear better than others, whether that hearing is physical or spiritual. But everyone can do it, given enough effort and patience. How well you will be able to do it depends on how determined you are to get it right; like anything else you will mess up a lot, and “tune in” to the wrong thing, but keep trying. It is possible to get a ‘clear station’ on that radio in your chest.
Tuning In
The simplest way to learn to begin to hear God is to do a little exercise. Everyone has a “silent voice” that they use when they ‘think’ to themselves in their head. You know the voice; the one that sounds just like your voice that you chatter away with in the privacy of your own mind, the one you make sarcastic comments with about your boss when you’re looking right at him. That voice.
That voice seems to ‘live’ in the region of your head. This is because the soul — your mind, specifically — is there. Spiritual bodies have organs, remember? Your thinking organ in your spirit is in the same place your thinking organ is in your physical body. So when your little ‘me voice’ is babbling away in your head, it’s just your soul, your own personal on-board computer.
When we hear (or speak) in the spirit, we don’t do it out of the head or mind. You are going to have to move your ‘inner voice’ out of your head, down your neck, down through your collar, down to the center of your chest. With some concentration and focus, you can do this by just imagining it, feeling it, ‘move’ down from the head to the chest.
Once you have your ‘inner voice’ in the area of your chest, you can speak out of your chest like it’s a radar dish. Pretend your chest is a drum, or the soundbox of an instrument, or some kind of satellite dish sending a signal; now speaking from your chest, say something like, “God, I love you.” That will always get a response, because He really loves hearing that.
Now the thing is to actually catch the answer. You can ask God to speak very loudly so you can hear; most people have “turned down” the volume on their radio so low, they can’t hear anything with their spirit anymore. But if you really pay attention to the center of your chest, you can get a response, because your “inner ear” is in the same place that your “spiritual voice” speaks from: the middle of the chest to the right of the heart.
When God answers, He doesn’t shout. Elijah called Him the whisper on the wind, the still, small voice. He is very low-key. Mostly He just sounds relaxed, calm, and in-control. When you’re calm, you don’t yell.
When you first begin to talk to God, take your time. Don’t just shoot off a question and snap back a response; you won’t be able to discern sometimes if you’re in a rush who it was that was actually speaking. Only those who are really good at hearing, and who have learned to identify God’s voice and are very practiced at hearing Him, can do things that quickly. You may have to go to a quiet, peaceful, relaxing place to really get into ‘listening mode’ before you are able to accurately hear God.
As soon as the enemy figures out that you are learning to hear spiritually, he will immediately start making noise and trying to jump in there pretending to be God. Don’t listen to him. Demons are pretty easy to catch, if you know what to look for.
God will always say what the Bible says, that’s your best defense. In fact sometimes He will just quote you some verses. If a voice ever says anything that goes against what is written in the Bible, it’s not God, it’s an impersonator.
Another defense against being fooled is to stay humble. Don’t start getting a big head, and don’t listen to flattery, and you’ll be far more able to catch the stinker. God can and will tell you great things about yourself, but when He says it, it is a fact and doesn’t puff us up in pride because He also teaches the responsibility that will come with it too. Flattery is obvious; it is just designed to make you feel better than everyone else and above people, even above God.
The Bible also says that whomever desires above all with a sincere hear to do God’s will, they will know if the teaching is from God or not. Don’t ask God a question just to ask it and “see” what He says: if you are going to ask, make sure you are willing to do ANYTHING He tells you, before you even ask. You are coming before a King, not some kind of paid advisor. If the King says jump, you jump.
Here are some other tips:
“You know it’s really Yeshua when…”
- He teaches. Yeshua always has something to teach that is constructive, enlightening, useful. He can take just about anything going on, and turn it into a really amazing lesson. He is Mr. Parables, and uses parables a lot. Sometimes God will send you a dream that is really remarkably ‘real’ and feels very significant and profound, and in prayer God will explain it. Every time Yeshua teaches, you will come out of it having learned, grown, and improved in some way, He never breaks down or condemns.
- He knows what you are thinking, and answers you before you finish thinking it. Tip: Satan isn’t all-knowing. He says he is, but he can’t hear your inmost thoughts. He can only whisper to you in your “top of the head” public thoughts, but not in your secret heart. God always knows what is deep down, and will often talk to you about deep down things that really matter to you, especially things you haven’t even put into words yet.
- God is unafraid and never uses the bully-club of fear. He is often curious or interested, but not afraid, and his words are perfectly disciplined, calm, centered, focused. He never gets panicky or yells or gets all riled up in anxiety or anger, that is opposite his personality. He is wise, and wisdom stems from kindness.
- His voice comes from inside us, and often sounds a lot like our own “inner voice.” You would think that God would sound different from you, but actually God speaks to us through our OWN spirit. He often uses our own spirit like a radio speaker: he talks, our own spirit picks it up and “echoes” it, so it almost sounds like we are saying it to ourselves. When He wants to make a real point, the Holy Spirit Himself can speak, and that’s a lot more authoritative and impressive than him ‘echoing’ through our own inner-voice.
- He’s bold but always kind. States facts firmly, but is always on our side and never accuses. God is sure, never wavering, never hesitant. He knows what He is talking about.
- There is no tension. God will back off when a person starts getting upset or tense. When He is around, He wants us to relax in His presence and be ourselves. Laugh, goof off, have fun, chill out. Be at peace. No pressure. Sometimes, God even tells jokes. I’m serious.
- God never forces. When we obey, it has to be God leading, but us getting up and following by choice. He will never push, force, or exert pressure to make anyone do anything. Guilt is a form of pressure that God never uses.
- He is exact. He never forgets a “jot or a tiddle” as the Bible puts it. He will be precise to the smallest detail, and is interested in doing it right now matter how small or insignificant it seems.
- God is unyielding. He never changes. He is persistent, unwavering, and constant. He will never give up or go away. If He says one thing about a matter, He will never change His mind but will year after year continue to say the same thing about it. Demons are notorious for never being able to keep their stories straight, and often flip flop and contradict themselves. This is a major giveaway as to whether a spirit is from God or not.
- He is also flexible. God will do it your way, with a smile! He doesn’t mind. He is so much smarter than us, He can do it the way we want to do it, and still figure out a way to make it work every time.
- God always stubbornly thinks the best of us, no matter what evidence He is presented. He refuses to think of us as anything less than perfect, because He sees us the way He made us… not the way Satan made us. God also has great faith that we will change and mature into the Sons of God He intended us to be, and end up just like Yeshua. He knows we will, and God is very patient. He will keep calling us perfect until he sees us as perfect in truth before his eyes. In fact He will often call us wonderful, glorious things that we don’t seem to be right now. This is because He is looking at our future-selves as well as our now-selves.
- God is never rude. He won’t barge in on you. He will only come, or talk, when He is invited. This is a very strict rule with Him. If you want God to barge in on you, you have to TELL God to barge in on you.
- God keeps bargains. If you get Him to agree to something, even if you change your mind later, God will still do it. He will NEVER go back on something He said, period, not for you or anyone else. If He said okay, no begging will get Him to shift. Of course… he never says “okay” unless He is agreeing to do something good and righteous, so I don’t know why anyone would beg God not to do something they asked Him to.
Other Information:
In rare cases, God may send an actual angel or a physical voice to speak to a person, but this is very unusual and on the level of miracles. I haven’t heard of anyone, not even Yeshua himself, hearing the physical voice of God or angels more than two or so times in their entire lives (Jesus heard it twice, Paul heard it once). So don’t expect it. Most people never hear anything, and do just fine.
Everyone who follows Yeshua has the right to hear God in their spirit. In fact, we need to, because we have to be able to get our orders and present our needs. Prayer is the most vital part of a believer’s spiritual life. But to hear God, the believer has to be ready to take Him seriously and give Him honor. Taking God lightly or looking down your nose at His communication won’t get you anywhere.
If you are afraid of God, tell Him that. The most important thing is to be honest. Believe me, God watches you all day and all night; putting on any kind of ‘nice face’ for God is just like giving Him the finger. It’s insulting. Don’t mock His intelligence. Be yourself, and if you are a rude crude nasty person, be a rude crude nasty person and tell God you don’t like being that way and you would really like His help to stop. He will help you, and He will really appreciate your honesty. Honesty honors God.
Ignoring God is no option either. If you don’t know what to say to God, just ask God to tell you what He wants you to know and shut up and listen. You’ll probably learn something. In fact, spending your entire time in prayer just yacking away without letting God get a word in edgewise is really stupid; since God is a gentleman He won’t interrupt you, and you won’t learn anything. Take some time each time you come to God to just pay attention, and let Him speak as He will. You’ll probably get your problems all solved before you even need to present your requests.
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