Hearing God's Voice

I wrote this a few years ago, when a friend asked me what I thought about a certain situation going on in their life. I think they wanted a much different answer than I gave them, but I thought taking them to the word was the best thing a friend could do. Here it is.

There have been times in my life when I know I have heard God’s voice. Whether it be a specific event that He has spoken to me or a peaceful assurance. There have also been times when I was sure He was speaking to me and I have found out I was clearly wrong. A specific event that God spoke to me concerning was when I was 8 or 9 and God told me that He would heal me from a congenital kidney defect. Which He did in fact heal me of. The times of peaceful assurance were instances when I would pray about issues concerning me and afterward I could just feel Him telling me it would all work out. Specifically I can remember a couple times when my older sister lost her wallet, I prayed and then I just knew she’d find it and it would be alright. That is exactly what happened. But honestly how do we have any idea it’s really God we’re hearing and not our own desires, or fears for that matter.

First of all if it’s from the Lord it’s going to be 100% accurate and true. I know somewhere in the scriptures it tells us that a prophet was only from the Lord if his predictions always came to pass. We also know that God is incapable of lying:

Numbers 23:19

“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Titus 1:2

“in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,”

Another thing we must consider is what kind of fruit does this knowledge bear. Is it something that is drawing you closer to God and farther away from yourself? Is it something that is making you stronger in your faith or is it causing your focus to slip away to something incidental? If it’s from God your focus will remain on “Christ and Him crucified.” If it’s from God it will always glorify God and strengthen your walk with Him:

James 3:16-17

“16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

My assumption from this verse is that if it’s something spoken from God it will not bring you fear, impure thoughts, or anger. If you feel God has spoken something to you and it’s causing you to feel any of these things it’s not from God.

God promises that He gives us wisdom liberally if we ask it of Him (James 1:5). And yet, Christ also said, “ be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt 10:16). So how do we figure it all out?…

Psalm 119:11

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”

Hide His Word in your heart and remember God will NEVER tell you anything contradictory to His Word. If it’s from God it will be backed up in the Word.

Give Thanks

I have no real reason why this popped into my head tonight, but it did. When I was 12 or 13 I read The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom for the first time and I've read it a few times since. In fact I think it's probably a good time for me to read it again, if you've never read it you should. I would have to say it is my favorite book, and it has definitely been the most impactful book in my life, second to the bible. There's an incident that Corrie recalls while she and her sister had just been relocated to Ravensbruck the notorious women's concentration camp in Germany. (As a side-note: I grabbed my copy of The Hiding Place to find the passage I wanted to share and guess where I turned? To the precise page I needed, wow. To me that's confirmation God wants me to share this.) The women are forced to sleep in multi-leveled bunk bed so close together they could hardly move and just as they were getting settled in their spots Corrie gets bit by fleas and scrambles down from the beds to where there's a little light. Here is the conversation that follows:

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... I wailed. "Betsie, how can we live in such a place!"
"Show us. Show us how." It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more, the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.
" Corrie!" she said excitedly. "He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!"
I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. "It was First Thessalonians," I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light, I turned the pages. "Here it is: 'Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all...'" It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.
"Go on," said Betsie. "That wasn't all."
"Oh yes: '...to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus -"
"That's it Corrie! That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new baracks!"
I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.
"Such as?" I said.
"Such as being assigned here together."
I bit my lip. "Oh, yes, Lord Jesus!"
"Such as what you're holding in your hands."
I looked down at the Bible. "Yes,! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages."
"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded.
"Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."
"Thank You," Betsie went on serenly, "for the fleas and for --"
The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."
"'Give thanks in all circumstances,'" she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

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We all have fleas in our life, things we feel God has no purpose for, things we feel we're completely justified in being ungrateful for even bitter towards. Corrie even mentions that not even God can make her grateful for such a horrid thing as fleas. But just as her sister spoke to her God wants us to be thankful for all things, not just the things that we reason in our minds worthy of thanksgiving, but all things. I'm going to be very vulnerable right now and say I don't always want to thank God for my singleness or my loneliness, though I can see the benefit of it at times. I have to hold out that God sees the road ahead. He knows what's coming and nothing is in vain with Him. His ways are not our ways, they're so much better! There's more to Corrie and Betsie's story, here's the part that just leaves me speechless. You see Corrie and Betsie would read the little New Testament (that miraculously stayed hidden from every guard at every concentration camp they were sent to) in the evening when everyone was forced into their sleeping quarters. Amazingly the guards never stopped them or came near to see what all the women were huddled around doing. It got to be such a big gathering of women listening to what they were reading that they could hear women translating the text from Dutch to German, French, Russian, Polish, Czech and still no guards to stop them. Later on Betsie figures out why, and here it is:


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"You know we've never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room," she said. "Well--I've found out."
That afternoon, she said, there'd been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they'd asked the supervisor to come and settle it.
"But she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"
Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: "Because of the fleas! That's what she said, 'The place is crawling with fleas!'"
My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.

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What can be said but that God knows and He sees and everything, even the fleas, can be used for His purposes. Give thanks to God for all things and wait to see Him use the fleas in your life. It may take a while, but His greatest works have been done through our greatest trials giving Him great glory and you His great strength. Tina C.