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I heard God speak to me directly for the first time when I was discerning a call to become a priest. What God said to me was simple, to the point, and directive. “You will be my priest.” It shocked me at the time and changed my life.
I continue to hear God’s voice from time to time. I can’t predict when, why or about what. But over the years I have noticed some common features of how God speaks to me.
God’s voice is verbal, but not audible. I hear him in my head. His words are very clear, and, for lack of a better way to put it, originating outside of my thoughts. I can be thinking about one thing, and hear God talk to me about something else.
God voice is short and to the point. God doesn’t speak paragraphs to me. Instead, He speaks in short sentences that generally answer a question I have, give direction to me, or provide information about how God sees a person or situation in my life.
God’s voice is non-critical. God doesn’t waste time talking with me about where I have failed (an expansive subject). Even when He is telling me something that is hard to hear, it is said in a way that for lack of a better way to put it, doesn’t cut, but heals.
From time-to-time I have wondered if what I am hearing is really God, or just “voices in my head.” In some ways, I don’t know and can’t know. I must choose what to believe as we all must when we encounter things that don’t fit into our normal life experiences. I have chosen to believe I am hearing God, not because I can prove it, but because as I have come to hear Him, He sounds like the God I know in the Bible. I'll revise my thinking if that voice ever sounds like someone else.
How do you hear God? How do you know, or why do you believe it is God you are hearing?
God Bless,
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