Hearing the Voice of God

People who speak of hearing God's voice tend to mean vastly different things. Some people claim they got a feeling or a thought, some impressions, some get intense images or audio similar to a memory playing out or have an actual memory come up. And people who are new to Christianity or grew up in the church but never had anything they can say with confidence "yeah this was 100% God with 0 doubt in my mind" - this one is for you.

There are genuine things you can do to test if something is God or not that genuinely and truly do work in, not only my experience, but for anyone I have tested it with. You, too, can test it out.

1. Any entity or spirit (spirit meaning guiding force behind something here, so it includes you are your own internal guiding force driving your decisions and choices) within the will of God will always respond with Jesus is Lord. Internally - you can ask whatever the thought is to repeat Jesus is Lord and if it is not coming from the same place inside (everyone has different interpretations of this but for me, different feelings/thoughts have origin points from different places in my body and I can use that as a guide to figure out what is driving a thought or impression or feeling inside) - that bit probably is not within God's will so you can be sure it is definitely not God.

2. God is all about consent and all about free will. He is polite. He will not poke around in your internal workings - your mind or your emotions in a super intimate take control way unless He holds your consent for that time. You are always allowed to say "God, I ask and consent that you silence all voices within me that are not you and speak clearly". Ask your question and write down the very first thing that comes up. Note - He is a being of His own will and so He will not always answer questions how we want Him too. He also communicates to people differently. You might get a verse, some people hear a song like its a memory, some people will get a clip of a movie or see something in a way that is very similar to remembering an instance in your life. Sometimes He will only shhhhhh you and give a feeling of arms around you or warmth if it isn't something to be worried about right now. Sometimes itll be a feeling as though you just received a look from a parent that translates to something very specific for you. But - regardless, you can repeat the above over and over and whatever the first thing is will be the Lord. Anything after is most likely you and what you want/wish or believe the answer to be or what you might even believe His answer should be or would be.

3. If you believe you are getting a strong impression of an image, a good way to figure out if its your imagination or not is to do the following: picture an elephant in the room you are in. Make it run, make it jump, make it spin around. Notice how easy it is to do so and how it holds a similar feel to whatever impression you are getting. Notice the control you hold over it. Now try to imagine you can't move it and try to move it. There will be a glich? a particular way it behaves and you can play around with this to get a good idea of what kind of control you hold over your own imagination. Now - try to do any of that to your impression and say "Lord, I ask and consent that if this is from you, I will not be able to block or change it" and try the same techniques on the impression as you did with the elephant. If it is from God, it will not budge or itll be like placing a layer on top to get any kind of movement or change in it. If it is not from God, itll hold similar elements as the elephant that you manipulated around in your head.

4. Over time - as you pick out what is probably God using the above strategies, you should notice a pattern. Things actually from God will always hold truth. Commands will lead to no regret from you. Even painful commands, if you follow them, they should lead to your life only becoming more whole, more peaceful feeling, healthier relationships, and an overall better life. Now, this is something over time. You have to build up trust in, not only yourself, but with God and it can only be done with time and a lot of communication and understanding how He speaks to you. You will hold a larger amount of accuracy than pure guessing and it will only become more and more accurate as you understand in moments super quickly what God is saying and telling you. You can run the stats on it and see how often things become true from these methods and attempts at hearing God. They will show the truth in the matter.

5. God is testable but not testable like a science fair experiment. You must remember that He is more like a person who, regardless of belief or not, is much more amicable to being treated with respect similar to a person you just heard about than as an object you are able to push and pull and control. Regardless of belief - if God really did jump when you told Him too - would you truly believe it was an entity or would you search for another reason or possibility on why that crazy occurrence happened then? No, God is a King, a Creator, a Ruler, and does not bow down to the whims of man but He will come down to speak with you personally on a one to one basis. And that is the kind of daily communication that will showcase exactly what kind of God He is and whether or not He really truly is real or just made up figments of imagination.

6. Ask Him what a piece of scripture means. You will find things in scripture that are opened up in ways you never realized. You will be shown aspects of life that was true thousands of years ago and is still true today. You will get shown what kind of God He was then and the kind He is now and see so many things play out on a daily basis that all of a sudden hold scriptural truths in them with evidence to back those truths up. For example - I was reading Ezekiel 34 and sometimes people claim how God going through and scattering people or taking people down is mean or cruel. For me? I have personally seen and witnessed someone who held power horrifically harm many many people. I watched and saw this person be given many chances to have their beliefs pointed out to them, have it showcased how they were harming people, as well as be refuted in their actions in ways they ultimately could not argue against and so chose to ignore. I watched this person get brought down by God and watch all those who were harmed get gathered up and start the process of healing with God working day and night for each one to become, not only whole again, but stronger than before. And the entire time I was reading that chapter, I remembered each specific time things like it occurred in my life. I remembered things the person did, the things I got in prayer that I didn't think was actually God because I thought "God would never say this". I remember the things I got told in prayer that I obeyed that lead to one thing or another. I thought about the people God let me see later on in their life and I got to hear about how He pulled them close to Him and is still working to heal them all. This is how scripture gets opened up for you. You get to see the intimate sides of it. Sometimes - you might even get impressions while reading of how one person in scripture was or another as God shares those memories with you. Just do not make the mistake of tossing something out because you hold a particular view of a verse or another. Always double check every piece of understanding you believe you have on scripture as many people get taught interpretations that is not in line with how God sees/views it. You go talk to God yourself about what He meant about scripture and then you can work out your questions with Him guiding you through the thought process.

Overall - the voice of God is testable. There are active and practical steps you can do to help discern if something is God or not. I will always recommend you ask God for a buddy to learn with as it gets easier and helps soothe fears if you and someone else are learning together. Then you both can try things out and also ask God about the other person and get things confirmed right then and there. You can also see how it goes in a large group with everyone giving genuine consents and asking a question and then everyone writing it down to see what they got. You can do this for prayer, for a church direction, for personal guidance or clarity with a concept or teaching or what have you.

Please comment how these tips work out for you, I would love to hear all about the good, the bad, and the ugly. I might even post about my own ugly encounters in trying to pick out God's voice too.