**Hearing God’s Voice and Becoming His Friend - Part 3 **
God desires to speak to you more than you desire to hear His voice.
Jesus told us that “No one is able to come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me attracts and draws him and gives him the desire to come to Me” (John 6:44 AMPC).
If you have a desire to hear God’s voice, it is because God Himself put that desire in your heart because He wants to communicate with you.
God wants to communicate with you regularly and to have a growing, personal relationship with you.
From the very beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, we are told in Genesis 3:8 that they heard the voice of God walking in the garden where they lived.
When they didn’t respond to Him, He called out to them, “Where are you?”
He is asking the same question today. “Where are you?”
God pursued a relationship with Adam and Eve, and He is pursuing a relationship with you today.
God is Already Speaking to You
In fact, God is already speaking to you. We just need to learn how to hear Him better.
In Jeremiah 7:13, God says, “I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer.” (NIV)
This is not unusual. Everyone has to learn how to hear God’s voice more clearly. Those who learn to hear God’s voice and respond to Him in obedience can grow to become His chosen leaders impacting many, many people.
Take the story of Samuel for example.
When God first begin calling to Samuel, Samuel thought that his boss, Eli, was calling him. The Bible tells us that “Samuel did not yet know the Lord and had not yet had the word of the Lord revealed to him” (1 Samuel 3:7 ISV).
Samuel was clueless at first. He didn’t recognize God’s voice at all, but over time, Samuel pursued a close, personal relationship with God. He learned to hear God’s voice more clearly and respond with obedience. Eventually, Samuel became the greatest priest and prophet of his generation. God used him to turn around the moral decline in his nation and to usher in one of the most glorious eras in his nation’s history.
As Samuel was faithful and diligent, his ability to hear and to communicate the messages of God improved to the point where the Bible says that, “Samuel grew; and the Lord was with him and He let none of his words fail [to be fulfilled]” (1 Samuel 3:19 AMP). Samuel’s words were endorsed by the Lord Himself!
The Apostle Paul had to go through the same learning process to be able to hear God’s voice clearly and accurately.
To get Paul’s attention in the beginning, God appeared to him with such power that it knocked Paul off his feet!
That got Paul’s attention, but he still had no idea who was speaking to him.
“Who are you, lord?” Saul asked. And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!”—Acts 9:5 (NLT)
After this encounter, Paul spent very dedicated time seeking to know God and learning how to hear God’s voice more clearly. In the first chapter of Galatians, he tells us that he spent three years in Arabia during what seems to have been a focused time of seeking the Lord.
As he matured in his relationship with God, he became possibly the greatest leader in the early years of the Church. He was chosen by God to write half of the books in the New Testament.
He learned to hear God’s voice so well that he could finally say that ”the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel [it is not a human invention, patterned after any human concept]. For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a [direct] revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12 AMP).
You can learn to hear God just as clearly as Paul did and just as clearly as Samuel did. And as you do, you can be used by God to impact generations of people, just like Paul, and just like Samuel.
Ask, Seek, Knock
How do you start?
Ask God to help you to hear and understand His voice. James tells us that “you have not because you ask not” (James 4:2).
Jesus gave us this amazing promise in His Sermon on the Mount:
“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.** For everyone who keeps on asking receives,** and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, it will be opened.”—Matthew 7:7-8 (AMP)
Before you read, and as you read, ask God to speak to you through His word. He has hidden great treasures in His words. Ask him to reveal them to you.
In Jeremiah 33:3, God gives you this promise:
“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” (ESV)
Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God rewards those who diligently seek Him.
If you need wisdom or guidance for a situation at work, or a situation in your family, or problem with your finances, you are invited to ask God for solutions.
We are told in James 1:5 that “if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (NIV).
God’s wisdom is available to you. All you need to do is ask.
If you just have *any *questions that you would like God to answer, ask Him!
Ask God questions. You may be amazed at how willing He is to answer you!
How to Read the Bible
The most common way that God speaks to most of us is through His written Word—the Bible. But we can either help or hinder Him from speaking to us. If we want to hear more of what God wants to say to us in His written Word, we have to read the Bible in a certain way.
First of all, read with expectation. Expect God to speak to you. Read with anticipation that God may speak to you at any moment.
Don’t make it your goal to read a certain number of chapters in a day. When you do that, your focus is on accomplishing a task, or checking a box on your to-do list, rather than on hearing what God has to speak to you.
Read more slowly. This will help your Bible reading to be more meaningful.
Read until God speaks to you. You will know when this happens because, all of a sudden, a verse will impact you and hold your attention because it seems to be exactly what you need in this moment. That verse will seem to come alive to you. The written word suddenly becomes the living word to you! It is at this moment that God is speaking to you.
When this happens, don’t read any further. Stop. Capture what God has just spoken to you. You may want to write it down, or it may be better for you to just repeat the verse over and over in your thoughts to let His message sink in to you. Take that message from God with you as you go about your daily business. Meditate on what God has spoken to you through His written Word. Let that spoken message from God be fully absorbed and become part of you.
Smith Wigglesworth told his friends that they would never find him without a copy of the New Testament on him. When he was out in public, he always carried the Bible with him. That way, whenever he had a free moment, he could review what God had already spoken to him, meditating on those messages, and he could seek new insight from God’s Word during the day.
A Starting Point
Where do you start reading?
God can speak to you through any passage of Scripture, but if you are not sure where to begin, here is a suggested plan to get you started.
The book of Proverbs is packed with wisdom for our daily lives. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs. That’s one chapter for every day of the month.
You can start by reading one chapter in Proverbs that corresponds to the day of the month. For example, on the 1st day of the month, read Proverbs chapter 1. On the 2nd day of the month, read Proverbs chapter 2, and so on.
Also, the Psalms are filled with powerful messages of encouragement, comfort, devotion, and sometimes conviction. There are 150 Psalms. If you read five Psalms each day, you could read through the entire book in a month.
On the 1st day of the month, you might read Psalm 1, then Psalm 31, 61, 91, and 121—reading every 30th Psalm. On the 2nd day of the month, you could read Psalm 2, then Psalm 32, 62, 92, and 122. If you follow this pattern, you will read through the entire book in 30 days.
But what do you read on the 31st day of the month? I would suggest saving the 119th Psalm for the 31st day of the month and reading it by itself on that day. It is the longest chapter by far, and it is plenty for one day.
But that plan is just a suggested place to start. Again, don’t make it your goal to read a certain number of chapters each day. Make it your goal instead to read slowly and focus on hearing what God is speaking to you through His written Word. When a passage of Scripture comes alive to you, stop reading and meditate on that passage throughout your day.
There are days when I don’t make it through five verses of Scripture before God speaks. Then I stop reading; capture what God is saying in that moment through His written Word, and that is what I meditate on throughout my day.
May you grow closer to God each day as He speaks to you through His written Word!
