Seeing the Voice of God: What God Is Telling You through Dreams and Visions (22 page)

Trials

Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with personal drama that our prayer sessions begin with an immediate grocery list. We have set aside 300 seconds to sit with God, and all of them are meticulously choreographed to ensure He remembers our bills, health and relationships. I tell my children all the time that they will get more out of Mama if they enter the kitchen and greet me each morning with love and gratitude, not a list of today’s to-dos. Same with God. “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name” (Psalm 100:4).

Because we treat prayer more like a Dictaphone and less like a telephone, we do all the talking and no listening. Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, “Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few.” Laura Harris Smith translation: “Shut up and listen.”

If only we could learn to wait on the Lord. If only we could sit there and not feel awkward about the silence (and could even hunger for it). Imagine the answers that await us there, anticipating that we will come find them. The cures to modern illnesses. The creative scripts that could be written. The simple solutions to unravel ailing marriages. If only we could be still and listen. Instead, we jump up and run. We rob ourselves of the best part.

I am reminded of mother’s milk and of how doctors say the longer an infant nurses, the sweeter the milk becomes. They call it hindmilk, and it is the richest and best. Most of us settle for the foremilk—if we come to feed at all. This brings to mind one of the most tender names of God, El Shaddai, which is taken from the Hebrew word
shad
or
shadayim
, meaning “breast.” The name implies that God
is
nourishment. It is not something He does; it is who He is.

Illiteracy

The Church has become illiterate. She does not know how to read the Word of God. Christians everywhere admit that finding time to study Scripture is as hard as finding time to pray—maybe harder. You have undoubtedly experienced it, too. You open your Bible, but nothing is illuminated to you. You read a few verses. Nothing. You flip randomly to another book and do the same. Nothing still. You take a deep breath, figure God sees that you tried, and you close your Bible and leave. You never got to the hindmilk at all, and had very little foremilk, either.

A good Christian devotional is a great way to linger in the Word. I have heard from people who say they will not read the Bible without one, and I have talked to others who treat devotionals like cop-outs. I go through seasons. At the time of this writing, I am using a devotional that has the dates marked out for me, because when I am writing a book and am in Scripture all day digging, I want to be spoon-fed. I want something simple that I can sit and breathe in. A truth. And as I wait there contemplating that one nugget of truth, I always hear God’s voice. “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (Jesus to Pilate in John 18:37).

Overall, though, if you feel that nothing you do makes the Word of God come alive, then you have a bigger issue. You may either need to be baptized in His Holy Spirit (something we will discuss further in chapter 10), or you may be battling demonic opposition. I have heard people say they can be lying in bed
and reading any other book and not feel tired, but when they open their Bible, it is as though a daze comes over them and they fall asleep. That is a spiritual force at work. The enemy does not want you to read God’s Word. In it are the answers to your fears and the keys to your living. Satan would love nothing more than for you never to know what is inside. After all, how can you stand on God’s promises if you do not know what they are?

In our quest to see and hear the voice of God, we must read God’s Word to authenticate that what we are seeing and hearing is even from Him. If anything we dream or hear contradicts the Bible, we must abandon it immediately. The Holy Spirit would never rebut Scripture. Think about it: Jesus
is
the Living Word. John 1:14 (
NIV
) says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” and for that matter, John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So there is no way that the Living Word is ever going to contradict the written Word. That is your litmus test.

Competing Voices

The final form of static actually comes in
many
forms that are the voices of people all around you—your influencers. You have one friend who seems to speak negativity constantly when around you, putting a pessimistic slant on your faith. You have a family member whom you love but dread contact with because his or her counsel crowds your head with doubt. You might be able to shake off these people’s words when they speak, but like seeds, their words are planted within your spirit. Then when trouble comes, out of nowhere you suddenly experience an uncontrollable pull toward doubt or fear. You hesitate, and your faith freezes. It is too late to make
the connection to where it all originated, but it often originated with unwise counsel from a voice competing with God’s.

It is not that you cannot hear God’s voice when you are in this place; it is that so many other voices are competing with His that you cannot decipher whose is whose. And what about the enemy’s voice? Heaven knows he tries to meddle and make static, too. In fact, the only thing in between God’s mouth and your ears is air, but Satan is the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). His influence there is great. You can learn to recognize the difference between God’s voice and his. More on that in a second.

How to Hear God

God speaks in many ways. Through the sermons at your local church. Through dreams and visions. Through a prophet. Through a whisper or audibly. Even through billboards, television and secular music. Think of that special person in your life who tells you he or she loves you. Sometimes it is through a phone call, sometimes a card, sometimes with a special song you share or even through a whisper in your ear. It is the same with God if you will live with your eyes wide open.

When most people ask how to hear God, what they really mean is, “How do I know if a voice I hear in my head is God or is just my own thoughts?” We have already discussed in the section just above that in prayer you have to drown out the external voices of those who wrongly influence your faith. But now we need to identify the internal voices.

You have thoughts all day long out of the blue. Sometimes they seem divine, other times immoral and other times downright harebrained. Are those all just your own voice? No, they are not. In fact, I believe five different opinions run through a person’s head on any given day. Five different voices—all bold and determined—and none of them have a problem expressing themselves. Here they are:

1. Your conscience’s voice

This voice has been in our heads since we were children. It is the moral voice of right and wrong. Everybody has one, but not always a good one. According to Scripture, there are five kinds of consciences, too:

• A pure conscience (1 Timothy 3:9)
  
• A good conscience (Hebrews 13:18)
  
• A weak conscience (1 Corinthians 8:7)
  
• A seared conscience (1 Timothy 4:2)
  
• An evil, defiled conscience (Titus 1:15)
  

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22).

2. Your reasoning’s voice

Consider Mark 2:6–8:

And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?”

These verses perfectly reveal the reasoning voice. The Temple teachers and Pharisees were so busy using their minds to rationalize who Jesus was that their hearts entirely missed their Messiah. Someone who relies too heavily on the voice of reason will immediately begin weighing facts and data without first stopping everything (and I do mean everything) and asking God for His view.

This reasoning voice causes you to painstakingly plan and gather facts and then make decisions, a process that is not
without merit, but only after you first have earnestly sought God. If this is the strongest voice in your head, when you are met with an opportunity that involves faith or risk, you will often say, “Well, but we must exercise wisdom,” when in truth, the wisdom you come up with is not from God at all. If you become offended when challenged that this voice ought not be the primary voice in your decision-making processes, just remember that the Pharisees made it their primary concern and missed marvelous opportunities for blessing.

3. Your flesh’s voice

This voice is often the most opinionated of the bunch. In fact, many people blame things on the devil that are entirely the fault of their undisciplined, sinful flesh. Many Christians abuse grace, stating that their sins are no worse than someone else’s, when in fact the Bible seems to give us some clear-cut transgressions that God singles out, perhaps because He knows they affect others and not just ourselves. “The Seven Deadly Sins” is a list King Solomon wrote in Proverbs to convey seven things that God “detests”: (1) a proud look, (2) a lying tongue, (3) hands that shed innocent blood, (4) a heart that devises wicked plots, (5) feet that are swift to run into mischief, (6) a deceitful witness that uttereth lies, (7) him that soweth discord among brethren. (See Proverbs 6:16–19.)

But since we are talking about the flesh’s voice, we must visit Galatians 5:16–21, which lists seventeen sins that are red flags to you. These indicate that you are acting upon your flesh’s counsel. Verse 21 ends with “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Here they are: (1) adultery—unlawful sexual relations, (2) fornication—pornography, prostitution, incest, (3) uncleanness—lust, sexual perversions, homosexuality, lesbianism, pedophilia, (4) lewdness—overeater, lazy, undisciplined, (5) idolatry—worship anything (possessions, money) or even people (sports stars, celebrities, preachers, one’s own children . . .), (6) sorcery—horoscopes, witchcraft, spells,
luck charms, zodiac signs, (7) hatred—bitterness, grudges, anger, (8) contentions—starting debates, stirring up division, quarreling, (9) jealousies—a rivalry, covetousness, (10) outburst of wrath—creating public or private turmoil, domestic abuse, (11) selfish ambition—vengeances, overly competitive spirit, (12) dissensions—creating strife in personal and corporate relationships, (13) heresies—atheism, agnosticism, rebellious nonconformity, (14) envy—discontentment that stops at nothing, (15) murder—to kill, destroy, (16) drunkenness—alcoholic, public or private intoxication, drug addictions, (17) revelings—wild parties, obscene media, bars or clubs, house parties and the like.

4. Satan’s voice

Sure, Satan’s voice can cause you to fulfill all seventeen sins of the flesh we just read about, but here I want to describe that voice that is less overtly evil and tries to trick you into thinking it is God. It usually mixes in a little bit of accuracy, tempting you to follow it. For instance, it will tell you, “Your past is sinful, so you shouldn’t even bother pursuing a relationship with this godly person.” Perhaps you did have a history of bad choices, but to keep you from pursuing better relationships, the enemy will mix that truth in with his bad counsel to get you to believe it is God’s voice. Do not be fooled.

Do you know the voice of your spouse or parents or best friend? Do you think you could be tricked by an imposter into thinking it is one of them on the phone? No, because you intimately know them, their inflections and their dispositions. I know God’s personality when He speaks to me. It is never condemning, although occasionally very assertive. But He knows I respond well to it and that my crowded mind often necessitates it. God leads His people. Satan pushes his. God is a Shepherd leading trusting sheep, while Satan spends his time rounding up stubborn goats. Which are you?

You can always—without fail—know it is Satan’s voice when the words you hear make you rationalize sin (Isaiah 5:20), feel
unforgiving (Matthew 6:15), feel fearful (Mark 4:40), feel bitter (Colossians 3:19), seek revenge (Ezekiel 25:15), feel rage and anger (Ephesians 4:31), doubt Scripture (Hebrews 3:12), feel discouraged (Numbers 32:6–10), feel hopeless (Job 7:1–15), experience confusion (Acts 19:32), want to lie (1 John 2:4), be ashamed of the Gospel (Mark 8:38), want to curse God (Job 2:9), want to disobey God’s Word (Joshua 5:6), be blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4), feel tormented (Matthew 8:6), feel oppressed (Acts 10:38), be deaf to God’s voice, (John 10:5), be deceived (Revelation 20:7–8) and be tempted to stir up divisions in your personal and business relationships (Mark 3:25).

What a list! Take a few minutes and read each of those powerful Scriptures so that the living Word can help you discern the enemy’s voice when it whispers.

5. God’s voice

Now that you know what God’s voice
does not
sound like, what
does
it sound like? I wish I could tell you that I hear God’s voice audibly every day of my life, but the truth is, it has happened to me very few times. Many other people I know have heard His audible voice, but even if they had not, many in Scripture did. We have the Ten Commandments because God dictated them to Moses audibly in Exodus 20. At the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17:5, God affirmed Jesus audibly. He did the same at Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:17. Second Peter 1:16–18 confirms this voice from heaven. God “is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), so He is still speaking audibly today.

I love Psalm 29:3–5 (
NASB
):

The voice of the L
ORD
is upon the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The L
ORD
is over many waters.

The voice of the L
ORD
is powerful,