5 Principles for Hearing the Voice of God
On September 3, 2016, God clearly spoke to me and said: “I will heal your son, but not yet”. A few months later, He revealed to me the means by which my son would be healed. And on December 31, 2017, God impressed my heart that my son would be healed in 2018.
The most asked question I get when I tell the testimony of my son is, “How did you hear God’s voice? Was it an audible voice? Was it a sign? A thought? A feeling?” In my experiences, I have identified five principles that enable us to recognize the voice of God. I want to share them with you—the story of my own personal experience.
But first, let’s remember a few Bible promises. Throughout scripture, God repeatedly promises that if we call on Him, He will answer us. A few examples are:
- “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:12-13
- ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ – Jeremiah 33:3
- It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear.” – Isaiah 65:24
- “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” – Psalm 50:15
The Christian community believes these promises, yet we struggle to discern the voice of God. In a world filled with distractions and evil spirits wanting to deceive us, how can we be certain when God has spoken to us or if the evil forces are trying to separate us from God with lies? It seems we are living in a time when most people are so preoccupied with worldly pleasures. It is a time similar to that of the Prophet Samuel, in that God’s word is rare to hear: “And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” (1 Samuel 3:1)
God certainly wants to speak to us. However, along with knowing Bible promises, we must also believe them and learn to discern the voice of God. Here are the 5 principles I have learned for hearing the voice of God:
1. A Surrendered Heart
The most important necessity to hear God’s voice is a heart surrendered to Him. Psalm 51:17 teaches us, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.” When you present yourself before God, recognizing Him as Creator, Savior, and King, acknowledging your sinful nature, and asking for forgiveness, God will answer. Recognizing Him as the Supreme Ruler over our lives will sometimes imply leaving our preconceived beliefs behind and letting God teach us His truth.
In my case, this moment came when we sought medical wisdom through many specialists for my son’s health condition before we went to Christ. Although I prayed every day for 9 months for God to hear me and answer me, I could not hear Him while I kept seeking my own way. It was not until I fully surrendered my will and my preconceived beliefs to God that He answered me. When my spirit was truly broken and I was willing to hear whatever God had to tell me, God spoke those precious words: “I will heal him, but not yet.”
Before this revelation, my mind was too concerned with finding my own way the answer. If God would have spoken previously, and maybe He did, I would not have been able to discern His voice. It is crucial that we learn to fully surrender and depart from our own will or thoughts to hear God.
2. Seek God, Not the Blessing
True surrender will lead you to seek God and nothing else. We might find ourselves asking for a job, healing, financial stability, or better relationships, and this is not bad in itself. However, the problem arises when we seek God’s blessing more than we seek Him. John 17:3 says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” The ultimate blessing comes from simply knowing God and it is in hardship that we recognize our need for Christ.
When I stopped asking God to heal my son, but instead asked that I simply hear Him and know Him, God answered. It would take 2 years before my son was fully healed, but I had learned that what I needed most was just to know God.
We do not need to continuously present our need and pain to God, “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). God desires that we learn to trust Him and seek Him above all.
3. Faith – God Will Answer
We must believe that God will hear and answer. We have been promised, “whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24). Yet, we doubt. We have little faith. We repeat the same request over and over again as if God has not heard us instead of claiming His promise that he has already heard and is working on it.
For example, if we ask for wisdom to make a decision, we must believe that “it will be given to” us and God will guide our thinking process from then on to show us the way (James 1:5).
We may sometimes not get an answer right away, but remember—the main objective of prayer and surrender is to know God. It is in prayer that our hearts are transformed to His image and this should be the ultimate goal of any Christian. We must also blindly believe ones God has answered, even there seems to be no sign of it yet.
Sometimes our faith has to be tested to develop a character that is more like Christ. When I heard God promise me that He would heal my son, I never questioned it, not in that moment nor a year later when my son was more sick than ever.
We must have the faith of Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
4. For the Glory of God
We must desire to see the glory of God above all, and our prayers should reflect this. We must trust that what will glorify God is also what is best for us and those around us. Our prayer requests should be focused on God receiving the glory. If a particular prayer request will not glorify God, we need to continue in prayer and study for God to align our hearts with His desires—again, trusting that He has our best interest at heart.
It is wise to question the motives behind our prayer request and ask ourselves whether we are truly seeking to glorify God with it. James 4:3 reminds us that, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” We may sometimes whole heartedly believe that our motives are pure, but we must remember Jeremiah 17:9-10 and ask God to test us.
When I finally learned to fully surrender to God and let Him work in my heart, all I desired was to see the glory of God revealed in my son, whatever that looked like, even if I might eventually lose my son.
5. Prayer and Fasting
Fasting was rather common in bible times and unfortunately, we have lost the habit and blessing of fasting. We have record of Daniel fasting on two occasions: one asking for repentance and for God to restore Jerusalem, and secondly when he had a prophetic vision that overwhelmed him (Daniel 9:3 and 10:3). In Mark 9, we are told that the disciples were not able to cast out a demon and in response Jesus answers, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting” (v. 29). We also have multiple accounts of the apostles fasting. One of these instances is when Barnabas and Paul accept a call from God.
The Bible teaches us a great principle that sometimes prayer is not enough and we are called to fast. The purpose of fasting is to eliminate distractions, clear the mind, and learn to live by the word of God alone.
There are different types of fasts, such as abstaining from food, a juice fast, or a media fast. Furthermore, there are different reason to fast. Consider it if you are wanting to discern God’s voice clearly. If Jesus needed to fast, how much more do we need it?
What Does God’s Voice Actually Sound Like?
We each experience the voice of God differently and it will vary from one time to the next. While my son was sick, I discerned God’s voice three times and each experience was different:
- How God told me my son would be healed: In the midst of weeping and crying out to God, suddenly everything became still, and clear words were placed in my mind, “I will heal your son, but not yet”. Peace that “surpasses all understanding” filled my heart for the first time in nine months (Philippians 4:7). I knew it was the voice of God. Read the full story in my blog post “God Promises to Heal My Son“.
- When God told me how He would heal my son:
As I practiced daily surrender and studied my Bible, I prayed for God to teach me. As I was willing to leave behind my way of thinking, God opened my mind to understand His truth. I read my Bible intentionally seeking for God to teach me “great and mighty things” (Jeremiah 33:3) which I did not know, I saw God’s health plan for humanity written all over the Bible. This was my answer as to how God would heal my son—through nature. Read the full story here. - How God told me when He would heal my son:
I cried out to God asking for a sign that we were on the right path and that we were doing His will. My son had stopped walking for several months. On that day I prayed, he began walking again, and not a few steps, but for 15 minutes. I was in awe and overjoyed. Suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit come over me and tell me, “You wanted a sign, this is it.” I began crying in disbelieve and an impression was placed in my heart that this new year was the year God would heal my son. Read the full story here.
