What does
God’s voice sound like? 

That’s a great
question, and I’m going to answer it fairly clearly throughout the next twelve
pages. I wish I could just say, “You’ll know it when you hear it,” but I can’t,
because people hear God speaking all the time and don’t clue in. If I could
show you a computer log that recorded how many times God spoke to you – and how
– and when – I’m absolutely positive that your jaw would hit the floor. 

But what does
God’s voice sound like? That’s easy! 

Like God, of
course!

What, am I
kidding? Not at all! What does your sister’s voice sound like? Just like your
sister. What does your boss’ voice sound like? Just like your boss! Where am I
going with this? To know God’s voice well, you’re going to have to get to know
God, because he sounds a whole lot like himself. What is God like? Don’t take
my word for it, find out for yourself. You’ve got some homework to do –
starting with Genesis and ending with the book of Revelation. The Bible is full
of stories about God speaking and performing miracles. Stories about God being
himself. Acting like himself. Sounding like himself. 

If you already
know God personally, you know what I mean. You’re nodding excitedly thinking,
“Yes, that’s it exactly!” Because I know God deeply, I really do know his voice
when I hear it. “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me”
(John 10:27). But if you don’t know what I mean, I can’t explain it any better
than this. Give your life to Jesus and get to know him, and then we’ll
talk. 

But secondly,
God doesn’t just speak. He communicates, and there’s a big difference.
Communication isn’t just about someone’s voice. It’s about the message, and any
package that can safely deliver the message, communicates. A hug communicates
love or sympathy. A smile shows pleasure. A handshake signals respect. A kiss
says, “I find you attractive and really yummy” better than words ever could.
You get the idea.

Well, God’s
communication comes in a million forms too. But don’t get discouraged, because
every one of those million forms come in one of four packages. It’s true! There
are verbal packages (words to hear), visual packages (images to see), intuitive
packages (impressions to sense), and cognitive packages (ideas to realize).
Once you clue in to all four kinds of packages God’s voice will make much more
sense to you.

VERBAL
PACKAGES

I’m not sure
if you’ve noticed, but the Bible is a really thick book – which should tell you
that God likes using words to package his messages. And its no wonder! We
humans put a pretty high premium our words too. 

The Bible is
called the word of God, and for good reason – he wrote the book, using
prophets, sages, kings, shepherds, leaders, doctors, disciples, and even a few
weirdos to get the job done over the years. But all that stuff happened a long,
long time ago. If that’s all the Bible is – a record of what God said to people
who lived so far back that it’s hard to remember why it matters – then it may
have been God’s word to them, but I’m not sure it’s for us today. But the Bible
is more than that. One biblical writer said, “The word of God is living an
active” (Hebrews 4:12). That’s why James, a disciple of Jesus, gives kudos to
“the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom (ie, the
Bible), and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing
it…” (James 1:25).

Did you catch
that? James says that if we look intently into scripture, we’ll see words and
sentences and all that good stuff, but even better, we’re going to hear
something. God is going to talk to us through the words on the page. Something in what God said to them then will
become what God is saying to us now. 

Like I’ve said
in other places, God’s words in scripture are the most important ones you’ll
ever hear. They’re the foundation, guide, and ultimate measuring stick for your
entire life. Trust me on that one. 

But Bible
verses aren’t the only words God will ever speak to you. His words can come from all kinds of sources.
His words could come through pastors preaching their hearts out, for example. A
word or phrase will jump out at you and grab you by the throat, or you’ll just
get the sense that you need to chew on a concept for awhile. Or it can come
through lyrics in a song. That happens to me a lot, actually! Believe it or
not, God can even speak through lines in a movie. I just watched “Night At the
Museum” with my kids – and through all the juvenile comedy, God struck me with
a one liner from Robin Williams’ character. He also speaks through
conversations, perhaps with a friend or family member. And maybe, just maybe,
he’s speaking right now through an internet dude with a website designed to
help you hear God’s voice for yourself!

Sometimes
God’s words bypass the outward channels and just pop into our heads directly.
It’s true! Usually these kinds of words emerge when I’m having a conversation
with God. I speak, he answers. He speaks, I answer. And most often, they aren’t
complicated. Usually they’re one liners, or even single words. “I love you.”
“Be careful.” “Let it go.” “Turn here.” “Persevere.” And they’re never anything
terribly new. In fact, they always illuminate or apply what God has already
said to us in the Bible. 

What do words
sound like in our minds and hearts? Well, imagine having a pretend conversation
with someone in your head. You’ve done that before, right? Your boss overlooked
you for that raise, and you practice telling him off right there in the office.
Your arguments are brilliant! You can “hear” his feeble replies. You can “hear”
his sheepish apology. Words in your head! 

God’s words
are a lot like that, with one crucial difference: Your brilliant inner repartee
is make believe and God’s words aren’t. 

How can you
tell which is which? Simple: The bad boss scenario is being scripted by me and
I know it. It always turns out exactly as I want it to because I take it there
on purpose. In contrast, the better half of a true “God scenario” is being
scripted by Him and goes where he wants it to go. When God is speaking I
genuinely don’t know what he’s going to say next. The words coming from him
aren’t the first thing on my tongue. They may surprise me, provoke me,
challenge me, even offend me. And they have a certain ring to them. A weight.
They’re from God, after all.

What about
audible words? Does God ever speak out loud, so we can hear him with our
physical ears? Sure! It happened to Saul, Moses, Joshua, Peter, John, Mary, and
too many other people to count. And it happened to me!

Yes, I’m
serious. And while I have to admit it was pretty cool, I need to tell you
something catastrophically important about that experience: That audible voice
in my ears was exactly the same as the one he uses in my mind & heart. What
did it sound like? Like God! Like he always sounds when he talks to me with
that inner voice. I’ve only heard God’s voice audibly once in my life, and from
comparing notes with other friends of God I’ve found that hearing God audibly
is pretty rare. But I’m OK with that because his inner voice is the same at the
outer one anyway. 

To get started
on hearing God’s words, try starting conversations with him (yes, you can do
that). I often journal my conversations with God in a special book. You can
also do it in your head, but when you’re just learning to listen it can seem a
bit too trippy if it’s only bouncing around in your cranium. Writing it down
somehow lends it a certain credibility, at least for me. 

But here’s the
thought: If you’re having a bad day, ask “God, what would you like me to know
about this?” If you’re confused about something, ask “Lord Jesus, what do you
need me to understand or see about this situation?” If you’re doing it without
paper, speak it out loud. If you’re using pen and ink, write down your
question. And then simply listen. When words come, write them down. When I do
that I often hear things like “let it go,” or “forgive him, Brad.” 

For a really
cool experience, try this one sometime: “God, what do you see when you look at
me?” And then listen, or write down what you hear. And don’t forget to keep
going! You might be so thrilled that God even spoke to you that you’ll miss the
rest of the conversation!

So you ask, “God, what do you see when you
look at me?”

And he might
say, I see a flower just beginning to bloom.

“You do? But
I’m just a nobody.”

Not to me
you’re not. I have a special plan for you.

God and I
speak like this quite often. Just try it.

VISUAL
PACKAGES

Words are
amazing packages for God’s verbal messages, but that’s not all they are. They’re
also powerful gateway to seeing. So watch this:

“Succulent red
apple.” 

I just pushed
a button in your mind. When you read the word “apple” you also saw one in your
mind’s eye. And because I said, “red apple,” you saw a red apple. A succulent
one, in fact. If I had said, “rotten green apple,” the apple picture would have
been green and rotten. And if I say, “Don’t think of pink elephants,”… well,
you get the idea.

Where am I
going with this? Well, when Jesus says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches,”
in John 15, he knows that merely speaking those words will paint a picture in
our minds. In fact, he’s counting on it. Words are continuously transcribed
into pictures in our brains, and because a picture is worth a thousand words,
each picture can unleash great power in our lives. 

Scripture is
full of stunning word pictures that God can and will use to communicate with
you. Every story can be entered into. Every image is designed to be seen. When
you read about Jesus dying on the cross, you’re supposed to see him dying in
your mind’s eye. And you’re supposed to think, “I wonder what it would have
been like to be there?” And to take it a step further, I think you’re even
supposed to imagine walking up to the cross. I’ve helped too many people to
count encounter God that way. When you visualize scripture like that, you’re
letting it take you where it’s designed to take you. God records words that
paint a picture in our minds, and what began with us imagining something often
leaps to life as God commandeers the script and communicates with us.

And so, what
begins as an exercise in meditating on the cross can actually take us to the
cross. In fact, try it right now. Quiet your soul a bit, and then, as vividly
as you know how, visualize the crucifixion scene in your mind: see the blood,
the soldiers, the gathering darkness, the jeering crowd. Smell the sweat. Sense
the sweltering heat. How do you feel? Step closer. Even closer. Now look into
his eyes. What do you see? What’s he doing? What’s he saying to you? What do
you feel? If you need some help, ask him: “Lord Jesus, what would you like me
to know right now?” Park there for a few minutes. I love doing that. 

But as amazing
as word pictures are, not everyone is verbal. Not everyone can use words as the
springboard. Some people are highly visual. The good news is that God is too.
One of my friends told me that unless he can see something in his head, he’s in
trouble. Well, God absolutely loves to package his messages visually! When he
first tapped a young prophet named Jeremiah on the shoulder, for example, the
story went like this; 

“The word of
the Lord came to me: 

“What do you
see, Jeremiah?” 

“I see the
branch of an almond tree,” I replied. 

“The Lord said
to me, “You have seen correctly…” 

The word of
the Lord came to me again. 

“What do you
see?” 

“I see a
boiling pot, tilting away from the North,” I answered.

Are you
getting the picture? The message came in the form of something Jeremiah could
see. In this case, he was seeing pictures planted by God in his mind. A
vision. 

Some visions
are pretty intense – so all encompassing that a person stops seeing the world
around them and a “movie screen” of images fills their view. But other times
they are less vivid, more like pictures in your mind. Sometimes I “see” things
in my mind’s eye while I’m praying or driving. Often these are from God.
Sometimes I see what it is I’m supposed to be praying for. Once we were praying
for a sick missionary in church and I “saw” mental picture. There was a huge
tumor in his stomach, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see him
healed. Weeks later the missionary died. They had opened him up to do surgery,
saw the tumor, and closed him back up. God took him home, and showed me why he
wasn’t going to answer that prayer.

A couple of
years ago I was praying with a woman over the phone and I a vivid mental
picture formed in my mind. I “saw” her lying on her side in her bed as a
fifteen or sixteen year old, very thin and pale, clenching her fists and crying
in the dark. My immediate thought was that the picture was symbolic. What did
it mean? Was she feeling alone? Was she angry inside? I contemplated saying
something like, “I’m sensing that you’re struggling with loneliness.” But I
didn’t. 

I just shared
the picture instead – with no embellishment or interpretation – to see if it
meant anything to her. It did. She began to cry quietly on the other end. I
waited patiently until she said something like,

“When I was in
high school I struggled with anorexia. I would lie on my bed on my side in the
dark, clenching my fists as I cried, wondering if anyone cared. Now I know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was there with me, watching me the whole
time.”

Awesome!

Another common
package God uses for his messages are dreams. A dream from God is pretty much
just a vision you get when you’re asleep. Lots of dreams are just “pizza
dreams” – things our mind conjures up because we ate spicy food before bed. But
other times, we wake up “knowing” that the dream we just had was different. It
seemed highly symbolic. We remembered every detail. We felt drawn to reflect on
its meaning. At those times I write down my dream so I can go through a proper
discernment process or bounce it off someone I trust in the morning.

But visual
packages don’t have to be mental pictures. They can be a real person, place, or
thing. In Jeremiah’s case, God could just as easily have pointed to a real
almond tree, or an actual boiling pot. Jesus was probably pointing to a real
flower when he said, “Consider how the lilies grow.” God has communicated to me
through mountain peaks, sunsets, rain, wildlife, and a thousand other ways. As
the Psalmist raved, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim
the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech… there is no
speech or language where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3). I totally
agree!

We live in an
image-based culture and God is happy to use many of them to get our attention.
He’s often spoken profound messages of hope or challenge to my heart through
movies, TV, photographs, artwork, or even sculptures. He’s relayed important
messages to me through billboards, ladybugs, magazines, or on the internet. Almost
everything you see can be a package for God’s communication.

One word of
warning: Our minds are bombarded with images all day long, and not all of them
contain messages from God. Don’t go crazy trying to figure it all out – just
pay attention to the images you see and ask God to open your spiritual eyes to
what you need to see. Every once and awhile you’ll get a distinct impression: This
is significant. Sometimes God will even say to me, “Did you catch that?”
Take the time to pause and ask God, “What’s this about? Is there a message for
me in this?” Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. If you’re not sure, write it
down, file it, and see if it comes into play sometime in the future.

INTUITIVE
PACKAGES

Some people
will probably roll their eyes reading over this section because its so
subjective, but the simple fact is that God communicates with us on an
intuitive level all the time. By intuitive I mean something different than
thoughts, ideas, or even emotions. You might call it a “gut feeling,” a strong
impression, or a hunch. More spiritual words and phrases for it are “a nudge
from the Holy Spirit,” an “inner impression,” or “God’s leading.” You don’t
know how you know something, you just know it. It could well be that a full
third of all God’s messages to me come packaged this way.

Jesus was God,
but he was also human and listened to his Heavenly Father. As Jesus listened to
God, he wasn’t just getting words. Sometimes his Father helped him “know
things” intuitively that no human being could possibly discover on their own,
like what was going on in people’s thoughts, or what would happen in the future
(Matt. 9:4, 22:18, Luke 9:47, John 18:4, 19:28). God didn’t “tell” him, per se
– he just knew.

Was that only
for Jesus? Not at all! Jesus said that, “his sheep follow him because they know
his voice” (John 10:4). They know. There are Greek words that mean, “to know
through study,” or, “to know by experience.” The word Jesus uses here means “to
intuitively know.” It’s a fairly common experience for a spiritually sensitive
person to say, “I think God wants me to do so-and-so.” If you asked them how
they came to that conclusion, they might say, “I’m not sure. It just feels
right.” They intuitively know God is in it.

A good friend
of mine got saved one Easter Sunday when he and his wife stayed behind after
the service. There was a large wooden cross mounted onstage. As he was standing
there, reflecting on what Jesus had done for him, he changed. There were no
words, no formal prayer – and as far as I know, God spoke no words to him in
return – but as he tells it, “As I looked at the cross, I felt myself die. And
suddenly, I was reborn.” How does he know that? He just does. His spirit bears
witness to the truth, just as “the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit
that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16). Remember that God isn’t looking for words, he’s looking for faith. It’s
faith that saves us, not a sinner’s prayer. Faith is mostly intuitive, a
function of the heart (Romans 10:10). It has a cognitive or mental component,
as we will see next, but it begins deeper than that.

I don’t think
I can count how many times I’ve been confronted with a situation or a mistake
I’ve made and I have a strong gut feeling that I need to do something in
particular to make things right or to choose the right path. Just yesterday I
sent an email clarifying something to a team I’m working with because a little
nagging hunch was sitting like lead in my gut. The feeling lifted as soon as I
sent the email. When these kinds of burdens come from God, they lift as soon as
we’ve given God what he’s looking for.

As you can
tell from some of my stories, God’s intuitive communication often produces
certain emotions – guilt, anxiety, sometimes even nausea if we resist them –
but the emotion isn’t the message or even the package per se – it’s the ripple
effect the message is causing. God isn’t “making” you anxious. That just
happens to be how you’re reacting to what he’s saying.

And
ironically, even though this kind of package seems so subjective, the purpose
of God’s intuitive communication with us is usually to make things crystal
clear! Most of the time, God sends a package that answers a yes or no question
related to guidance, or gives us a gut reaction to whether something is good or
bad. Intuitive messages tend to be bottom line messages: Should I call Bob for
lunch today? Yes, comes the impression – not in words, but in the form
of a gut feeling. Or, I’m listening to someone trying to sell me on a new
business opportunity. Bad, comes the message – not in words, but in the
form of a kind of gut feeling. A check in my spirit, a stop sign in my heart.
I’m learning to trust those impressions.

How can I
trust something so open to interpretation? Technically I’m not trusting the
impression, I’m trusting God. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.” We’ve traditionally understood
this to mean that God will satisfy our desires if we make him our number one
passion. There might be some truth to that, but I take it to mean that if God
is my number one passion, God will make sure my heart is filled with his
desires, his will for my life. And so I trust him to anoint my intuition with
divine wisdom.

In one of my
pastorates, I met a young man who had gone through some deep moral doo-doo and
had apparently been restored to faith. The moment I shook his hand and looked
into his eyes I was struck with an uneasy conviction. Bad. No words,
just an impression that translated into, Don’t trust this guy. My wife had the
same experience with him, and she didn’t even know about the moral doo-doo! As
we found out a couple of heart- breaking months later, our gut feeling was bang
on. It often is.

Intuitive
messages are unspoken, which means you may have to look beneath the surface.
For example: one of the most precious gifts God gives us is his grace. And
grace says something. Underlying grace is a message that says, “I love you. I
treasure you.” When God fills you with peace, with joy, with strength or
courage, these are self-contained, precious gifts, true – but they also speak
volumes, just like bringing home flowers speaks volumes. Don’t miss the message
in the gift! God will send people to give hugs, smiles, compliments, you name it
– and each of these contains a deeper message. Once a bunch of youth and their
leader took the time to decorate the door of my office. There were
encouragement notes, a CD with worship songs burned onto it, candy, treats,
cards, the works. I stood there and wept, because I was going through a
difficult time. Yes, these wonderful youth blessed my heart – but the deeper,
more profound message was from my Father in heaven; See, Brad? I’m watching.
I care. I love you desperately, and I will tend your heart if you let me.
It didn’t come with words, but I sure got the message!

Another form
of intuitive communication can come in the form of passion for something. As
Jesus said, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love… I have told
you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John
15:10,11). Or as Paul put it, “Christ’s love compels us” (II Corinthians 5:14).
There are moments when God doesn’t tell us what to do, exactly – he just fills
us with his love or joy or peace and expects us to do what comes
naturally. So we’re walking down the
street and are suddenly overwhelmed with deep compassion for someone in need.
This wave of love and mercy may be from God, not just our own reservoir of
niceness. Often I have been filled with an inexplicable joy during worship and
feel compelled to dance or shout. This, too, can be from God.

But the
opposite can also be true. God may be communicating via a lack of
motivation for things you normally feel motivated for. Yes, I’m serious! This
one must be tested more carefully, but I’ve found that if I’m lacking “Umph!”
for a task, it might be because God is saying, “Wait” or “Don’t do this.” I’m a
do-er, so I tend to charge ahead without praying to see what God wants me to
do. I’m thinking of the one of many times I’ve worked at preparing a message
for a service or youth event. Usually the ideas just flow as I prepare, but
occasionally, it’s really hard work. On several occasions it’s been like
flogging a dead horse. Often I flog it for hours on end.

“But I’ve got
to prepare for this event,” I wail to God. And God “says” nothing. All I have
is this heavy, uninspired feeling. Could be spiritual warfare, right? Sure.

But then a
snowstorm hits and the event is cancelled. In the aftermath I realize that the
reason God didn’t inspire me to prepare a message was because I didn’t need one
and he didn’t want me to waste my time on it! Procrastinators need to be
careful not to hide behind this as an excuse, but people who work hard may want
to pay attention to a lack of inspiration.

I was thinking
about creating an exercise for you in this section… and realized that I can’t.
They tend to come when they come. Just pay attention the next time you feel a
check or an asterisk in your spirit.

COGNITIVE
PACKAGES

Cognitive
packages are a whole lot like intuitive packages but they take things a step
further. Intuitive packages tend to be about YES or NO, GOOD or BAD. Cognitive
packages are more concrete. They come as ideas, thoughts, conclusions about
what we’re experiencing. So you have an idea like, “I believe we ought to hire
Jim instead of Ralph.” (No offense, Ralph). It didn’t come with words – that
would be a verbal package. And it was more than a YES or NO, an intuitive
package. It was more specific, more like a fully formed idea. A cognitive
package.

Let me show
you what I mean by using scripture. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked his
disciples one day. Peter was jumping up and down like a school kid. “You are
the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” he answered enthusiastically.

“People didn’t
reveal this to you,” Jesus replied excitedly, “My Father in heaven did!”
(paraphrase of Matthew 16:13-19). In other words, Peter’s “good thought” was
actually from outside of himself. God gave it to him. Dropped it right into his
lap. And the fact that Jesus had to point it out – “Peter, that was God talking
to you!” – tells me that the very same thing probably happens to us all the
time. God speaks to us, drops ideas, thoughts, and conclusions into our minds,
and we assume we’re the ones who thunk ‘em. Just like Peter did.

In other
words, God doesn’t always speak to us in first person. Sometimes he just
inserts thoughts into our minds that fit right in with our train of thought.
Sometimes they’re so artfully nestled in there that we fail to distinguish them
from our own ideas.

A friend of
mine was working on his car out in the parking lot one day. I came and sat in
the front seat to keep him company. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He replied that
there was something wrong with the electrical system. The overhead light wasn’t
going on anymore or something like that.

First off,
you’ve got to realize that I know basically nothing about either electrical or
cars. Zippo. So sitting there with my buddy, I’m about as useful as a greasy
bag of onions smiling at him. I watched him fiddle for about twenty minutes,
getting sweaty and frustrated. So I started to pray. It was all I could do!

And then, out
of nowhere, an idea popped into my mind. “I think the problem is in here,” I
said, pointing to where the front passenger door hinged onto the frame. He cut
back the rubber joint, and sure enough, the wires had come apart at precisely
that spot! 

Ha! Believe
me, I can’t take any credit for that one.

But sometimes,
God’s thoughts aren’t just dropped into our minds. Sometimes they’re woven into
our thought processes, which is way more subtle. 

The most
common question I’m ever asked as a Pastor is, “How can I learn to hear the
voice of God?” The second one almost always comes on its heels: “How can I know
when it’s God talking to me and when it’s just my own thoughts?” It’s phrased
in an either or way. Either its God, OR its my own brain at work. How do I know
which is which?

Who says it
has to be either or?

Let me put it
this way: Who wrote the book of Ephesians in the Bible? “All scripture is
inspired by God,” Paul himself said in II Timothy 3:16. But who wrote the book
of Ephesians? 

Paul did.

Who’s grammar
is all over the writing? Who’s run-on-sentences are those? God’s, or
Paul’s? 

Paul wrote the
book of Ephesians. That’s his grammar, his vocabulary, his life experience, his
writing style. Even some of his bias. 

But every word
was also given by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So if you could somehow ask
Paul, “Were those your own thoughts, or were they from God?” he would have to
say…

“Yes.”

Yes? Yes. Both
are true. That’s God’s word, but those are Paul’s words. All God, all Paul.
Weird, huh? Yup. And incredibly instructive. It means, practically speaking,
that one of the ways God communicates with us is by guiding our thoughts. 

Think
about it: There must be times when you had an idea so good or an insight so
dead-on or stellar that you thought, “Where’d that come from?” 

Well, now you
know.

The next time
an idea drops in your lap, you may want to check in with God. He usually
doesn’t sign his name on things like this, so it’s way to easy to take the
credit for his inspiration. On the other hand, if God gave it to you and you
sign your name to it, that could be considered plagiarism. You’d better at
least give God the nod in your heart – or even give him credit for helping you.

NOW WHAT?

OK. I’ve just
given you the most practical teaching on hearing God’s voice I’ve ever heard
(and I’ve heard quite a bit of teaching on this topic). But it gets even
better! I’m not done yet! There are four more truths – concepts you’ll need to
apply this stuff well – that will help you in mind-blowing ways. Here they are.

1.
COMBINATIONS

As you might
have guessed by now, God’s messages rarely come solo in one package. The
packages tend to work together. So let’s say God gives you a dream. That’s visual,
right? Yes, but in the dream you hear words, you come to realizations, you get
distinct impressions. That’s a four-dimensional communiqué from God! Or you open the Bible and read a verbal
message, and the passage leaps to life. You are transported into the story
you’re reading – a visual package. As
the picture evolves, you get a gut feeling – an intuitive package. And then,
finally, a fresh way of looking at your life pops into your mind – a cognitive
package. You ask God about the idea forming in your mind and he speaks his
affirmation in a verbal package. Your gut tells you what you are hearing is
from the Lord. Another intuitive package. It goes on!

A whole flock
of messages, all in one encounter!

Now imagine,
if you will, reading that same scripture – the verbal package. But nothing
visual happens. Nothing intuitive either – you don’t feel strongly about
anything one way or another. And no fresh insight occurs to you. You close the
book and wonder if there is more to the Christian life than this.

As you can
tell by now, there sure is!

You could
experience the same rush of verbal, visual, intuitive and cognitive packages
watching a movie, reading the paper, spending time in prayer, walking the dog,
talking with a friend, or bowing in worship. Sometimes the message comes in two
of the four packages. Or three. The possibilities are practically endless!

2. TENDENCIES

While the
possibilities are endless, your particular personality and wiring influences
how you hear God. On a practical level, this means that you will tend to
experience one or two of the four packages more than the others.  

Some people
are highly visual. Others are intuitive. Others verbal. The point is, we’re all
unique, and shouldn’t expect to hear God just like the person next to us. We’ll
lean toward one or more packages from day to day. On the flipside, we’ll lean
away from others. Some people rarely receive visual packages. Or verbal
ones. And I’ve found lots and lots of people that are almost entirely cognitive
package people. 

I also find
that cognitive package people are the most likely to believe God doesn’t talk
to them. Why? Because they’re still obsessed with the false question, “Is it
God speaking, or just my own thoughts?” The right answer is often YES,
remember? These souls often think that unless a train of articulate words is
flowing through their head, God isn’t speaking. Once I point out the truth,
that God often speaks through their thoughts and even guides their thoughts
throughout the day, cognitive package people tend to come alive. They couldn’t
experience God’s voice for what it is because they didn’t have a “cognitive
package” box in their world view. Now that I’ve given you one, you should be
off and running too. 

“You mean
that’s God? Using my thoughts?” 

Yes. Could very well be!

And remember – you can also grow into a
deeper experience with packages that aren’t your forte right now. Keep your
mind and heart open!

3. HEALTHY
OBSESSION

The fact is,
the more you think about hearing God, the more of his messages you’ll clue in
to. It’s like adjusting the dial on your radio until you’re tuned into the
right station. It’s been there all along, but now you’re looking for it. “He
who seeks finds,” Jesus said. Absolutely. And he who listens, hears. Right!
Only the people looking into the sky see the clouds. And people looking into
the sky especially for clouds see the most clouds of all.

Is that going
overboard? Am I making too much of this listening thing? Not at all. Jesus
himself said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). That particular usage of the term “word”
is referring to words that are spoken. Jesus is saying that you need to hear
from God every single day – several times a day at least – because his words
are food for your soul.

So meditate on
scripture. Read this article over again. Digest Christian books about hearing
God. Take the time to really listen, both on the fly and in the quiet moments.
And one more thing: Start a prayer journal.

A prayer
journal? Yeah. A journal reserved entirely for recording your conversations
with God or tidbits you tune into here and there. A place to write down your
impressions, the things you’re learning in scripture, the images that seem
significant, the words God speaks to your mind. As Mark Virkler points out,
that’s what the entire book of Psalms is. And the book of Revelation. And large
parts of the book of Daniel. Prayer journals, all three of them. That’s a
pretty hefty precedent. 

Why is prayer
journaling an important discipline? Because sometimes God’s communication with
us comes in multiple packages, like puzzle pieces – and prayer journaling will
help you keep track of the pieces and put them together over time, without
having to remember them all at once. I use my prayer journal as a place to ask
questions and record answers, a place to write out my conversations with Jesus.
My prayer journal is full of great stuff God has laid on my heart, but
even better, it’s a place I can go back to if I want to check what God has told
me. Just the other day I re-read one of my prayer journals and was amazed at
how accurate God’s messages about my future were back then (now that I’ve lived
the season they foretold). And because I wrote them down, I can learn from each
experience. I can review what it felt like, sounded like, and looked like – so
I’m better prepared to receive packages in the future.

4. THE POINT

And finally,
remember that the package isn’t the point; it’s carrying the point inside it,
pointing to an experience with God. The words, the pictures, the impressions,
the ideas – they’re all important, but they’re just packaging. The point is
what kind of effect God is trying to produce by communicating with you. The
point isn’t that God said, “I love you.” It’s that he wants that fact to change
your life and draw you into a deeper intimacy with him. The point isn’t that
God helped you understand what to do in your job setting; it’s that he wants
you to do it.

Well, there
you go. The most practical teaching on How to Hear the Voice of God I can give
you. Be sure to check out the other resources on my website as well. There will be more and more offered as time
goes on.

God bless!

Brad Huebert