How to Hear the Voice of God

How to correctly hear God speaking is something so often asked by people looking to grow their relationship with Him. It’s a valid question because if you are in relationship with someone it only makes sense that you should be able to communicate with them. I remember the times when I was first starting out my walk with God and I would cry because I couldn’t hear Him. I was listening to messages by people who were saying things like "you need to be hearing God”, or “I heard God tell me this” and it made me feel so bad that I wasn't hearing Him. I specifically remember sitting in my room crying one day and asking the Lord, don’t You want to talk to me too? If only I could go back and tell myself to relax and enjoy the process, I wouldn’t have been so anxious or doubtful in hearing Him. Here are some things that I wish I knew years before on how to hear the voice of God:

1. Relax

You will not be able to hear God if you are not in a state of relaxing. This is not just a physical relaxing but an inward relaxing as well. Having rushing thoughts or anxiousness in your mind will be a distraction and a hindrance to hearing God. The more at peace you are- the better you will hear Him. If you can go throughout your day and practice more moments of silence, it will make it easier to sit quietly and hear Him. Turn off the movies, the music, the podcasts, the videos etc. and spend more time in quietness during your days. This will help you to more naturally be more relaxed when it comes time to hearing Him.

One additional step that my previous mentor taught me is to ask the Lord to fill my mind with His peace over and over again until I feel it come upon me. This helped me tremendously when I was trying to hear His voice.

2. Get rid of the hindrances

One thing I also learned is that fear, doubt, and unbelief are hindrances to hearing the voice of God. If you are afraid that you’ll get it wrong, or have fear in general on you at the time then that will hinder you. If you are doubting that you will hear Him, doubting what you heard, or doubtful of Him speaking to you then that causes a hindrance. If you are in unbelief, and don’t believe that you can hear him or that He will speak to you then this brings a hindrance to hearing God’s voice as well.

Repent, ask the Lord to remove them from your heart (one by one) and then you will have more of an ability to hear Him.

3. Start simple

While the Lord can speak more in depth with us and give us longer words, most of the time He starts out simple. It’s like training wheels. He will grow you in hearing Him by starting off with simple words and then as you develop your hearing gift, He will open it up more to you. Everyone’s journey with this is different of course. Don’t get stuck on what the Lord has done for someone else that you miss the beauty of where you are with Him right now. 

You can also practice reading through different books of the Bible and hearing Him speak to you through His word. This is a great place to get to learn more about the Lord and about His character. It will help you to be able to discern which voice is His and which voice is not. 

4. Trust

Lastly, you have to trust. Trust that the Lord wants to speak to you and will speak to you. He is longing for people who want to be in right relationship with Him. There are many people who have turned their backs on God which believe it or not, hurts Him. Don’t give up if you feel like you aren’t hearing Him at first. Push through and keep trying. It takes awhile to be able to hear accurately and honestly any of us could hear wrong at any given point. 

Just trust in Him. He will help you to hear Him and to hear Him clearly.