Have you ever noticed that whenever a person in the Bible hears from God, right away they know it's God speaking? This made me wonder, what in the world does God sound like? I mean, everyone in the Bible seems to know God's voice right away, yet in my experience most (if not all) Christians struggle to discern God's will and clearly hear God's voice. What are we missing, that those folks in the Bible seemed to know right away?
Well, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Of course when applied to my above observations of the Bible it seems plausible that when looking back on these stories they appear to be clearer than they might have been at the time. For example the story of Elijah on Mt. Horeb (here) finds the prophet contending with prophets of the false god Baal. In short Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal (and their god) to ignite a sacrifice with prayer alone. When they fail, Elijah ups the stakes by dousing the wood with water (3 times!) and then prays that God (the true God) would light the fire. Not only does the wood ignite, but the fire is so great that it consumes the wood, the sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal! Immediately after this story we find Elijah running away in fear and doubt (here). Even after such an amazing experience, and in spite of being a prophet of God, Elijah experienced doubt and uncertainty.
So what hope is there for us, just regular, ordinary people? Well the good news is that listening to God's voice is a skill and like any skill it requires practice. The more we listen for God's voice, the better we will get at hearing it. Also there are a few techniques that Christians throughout the ages have found to be helpful:
1. The Bible - reading the Bible is the first and best way to hear God's voice.
2. Prayer - simply means communicating with God (both speaking and listening).
3. Listening to Others - often in scripture God uses other people to communicate His will. The same is often true in our lives.
4. That "Still Small Voice" - Elijah heard God's voice as a "Still Small Voice" (here). We too can hear that small inner voice, if we are quite and listen.
These four simple techniques, when practiced regularly will allow us to not only begin to listen for God's voice in our daily lives, but will help us to better recognize God's voice from all the other clutter and noice that fills our lives. If you are serious about it, and you practice more than once in a while, you will find that that "Still Small Voice" will become clearer and clearer and grow until it is the loudest voice you hear...then the question will no longer be "What Does God Sound Like?" but rather "How could I have not known before!"
Grace & Peace,
Pastor John
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