How Do You Hear God’s Voice?

jordonewrites

Uncategorized

Mar 31 2016

The following is an excerpt from my book, I Believe in God, Now What?

Order your own copy by clicking here.

Photo source: todaysfreshmanna.wordpress.com

I can recall the first time I stepped out in faith to obey God’s commands.

As I stood in a gas station, I could hear His voice telling me to approach and pray for a woman who was standing near me.

I was ready to walk away in fear.

After all, I had never even met this woman and I knew nothing about her. As I inched closer towards her, the fear inside of me began to lead my footsteps in the opposite direction.

Then, out of nowhere, a wave of courage came over me.

After casually introducing myself, I simply said, “I feel as though the Holy Spirit is telling me to pray with you. Do you want to pray together?”

In a grateful tone, she responded, “You heard right, I really need it.”

As we stood praying together, the Lord began to tell me details about this woman’s life that I could have never known on my own.

“Were you recently raped?” I asked her in a soft tone.

I guess she was speechless because, with a shocked face, she looked at me and responded yes by slowly nodding her head.

Having previously been raped myself, I knew that God would use my testimony to inspire her. I told her she could conquer what she was going through.

I let her know I was a living testimony that such a dreadful experience could bring her closer to God. A stream of tears began to roll down her face.

Then, God also began using me to encourage her to not commit suicide. I shared with her that my rape had also brought me to suicidal thoughts, and that killing herself would only eliminate the chance of seeing her situation improve.

If I hadn’t obeyed God’s command to pray with that woman, she might not be alive today.

Obedience to God is a requirement for every command because we never know His entire reasoning for telling us to do something.

The more we listen to Him in the small areas of our lives, the easier it becomes to understand His directions for larger matters.

My small step of obedience that day ended up saving someone’s life, but I never would have known that it was God speaking to me if I hadn’t been spending so much time with His Word.

Oftentimes, we ask God to answer questions about our lives. In many instances, He answers, but His words fall on deaf ears that don’t know His voice. He speaks, but we don’t recognize His voice because we don’t know Him.

If it were a friend speaking, we would have clearly heard the advice and adhered. Sadly, we know our friends better than we know God, which is why we run to them for advice when we think He doesn’t hear us.

But, He does hear us. It’s us that don’t hear Him. If we want to know what God is saying about our situations, all we have to do is….

So, what else do we need to do hear God’s voice? ….

The rest of the story is in my book, I Believe in God, Now What?