Have you ever wondered what it means to hear God, to hear and understand His voice and know that it is indeed from God, from the Holy Spirit? does that actually still happen today and do we need to pray for a burning bush?
If you want to understand how God speaks, how to recognize His voice in your life and how to know when it is the enemy’s voice and how that shows up, then this, my first podcast is for you!
Not only has learning how God speaks been monumental in my own life, it is also the number one thing that I leads my clients to greater self-discovery, understanding healing and growth. Of all that I have learned as a Certified Catholic coach, as a Marian Servant in a charismatic community, with my spiritual director, from numerous Catholic spiritual books and from the School of Inner Healing in Marywood, Florida – learning how God speaks, the nature and character of his voice is more important than maybe any other skill or awareness we can have (in my humble opinion).
How clearly we can recognize who is speaking in our lives can make ALL the difference. Because that voice guides us, influences us, directs us, and causes us to feel the feelings and take the actions that either lead us to a greater good or tear us down and possibly lead to destruction of the life God wants us to have.
But most of us, I’ll even say the majority of us, don’t recognize God’s voice or how to begin doing so. We also don’t recognize the enemy’s voice and how he is tricking us into believing things that are not only NOT who God says we are, but they become adopted truths. And if we pick these lies up, we end up carrying them through the rest of our lives or a large portion of it, and become part of our identity until they are weeded out.
Many of us think God speaks in signs like some sort of morse code that we have to figure out. Or, again, a burning bush. We think that we have to put together scavenger hunt types of images and random words to receive a message from the Lord like some sort of puzzle. And while our God is a God of mystery, He is not a God of confusion. He is not a God that is not clear. He is not a God that is not direct. In fact, he is the opposite of that. He speaks clearly and sometime loudly, and directly to us but we don’t often hear or recognize voice.
There has always been so much mysticism around hearing God’s voice. For some of us, God does speak very clearly. Words that we hear in the quiet of our hearts, in our minds, outside of us through someone else and sometimes, for some of us, in very clear audible words perhaps delivering a very specific message or mission. Mary is an excellent example of this. There are many examples of this throughout the lives of the Saints. In Mary’s case, God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel, delivered a very specific and detailed message to Mary. For Mary, she received a mission. A mission that was not fully disclosed to her. She did not fully understand all that was to come or even how it would come about. Scripture tells us that Mary pondered on all these things. In other words she thought about the message that she was given with thoroughness and care. Because the message was of a huge magnitude. And the message was in clear, audible words spoken to her and the Lord even made it visible to her, allowing her to see the angel Gabriel. And I can imagine that the message was delivered in the manner of God’s character.
And while most of us (because I don’t want to speak for everyone and how the Holy Spirit is working in the world.) don’t hear messages in quite this same way as Mary,
There is a very practical way to learn how to recognize how God speaks, how to recognize HIs voice and even how to recognize the enemy’s voice , and when I say enemy I mean the devil, because he is always on the prowl. And so that we may take the right course of action and not be tricked or led down the wrong path, recognizing God’s voice is everything.
And even when it may just be your own voice and hearing the thoughts in your head or even the voice of the world around us, even if you don’t hear words of specific instruction or direction like Mary did, it is still very possible to understand when God is speaking, what he is saying and what He wants to lead you to. This is a most important skill to acquire and one of the most impactful things you can do for your life.
