The Voice

Listen...do you hear it? It's a whisper. We tend to miss it during our busy, everyday lives. We hurry through life and forget to listen. We pray for God to speak to us, then say "amen" and go about our day without waiting for his answer.

I believe God speaks to each of us, if we are truly seeking him. Jeremiah 29:13 says, "you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart". If we seek God with all our heart - not just halfheartedly, then he is ready for us to find him. He will not push himself on us or stand in our way, but if we are really looking - seeking - he can be found right there, in the middle of our lives.

We are desperate to hear from God. We wonder why he doesn't show up to tell us our next steps or to stop us from making a blunder in life. Sometimes, it almost feels as if God is playing hide and seek with us, except, we can't find him! It feels as if we keep looking and we continue to find the same thing. Nothing. Silence. Do you think we could be looking for him in the wrong place? Do you think we could miss it? That God wants to speak to us, but we just do not know how to hear him?

I have a friend who was seeking God. She didn't even know she was seeking him. She was struggling and wanting peace to come into her chaotic heart. She came to my house and said, "I just want peace in my life". Of course, I felt as if I had the answer for her - God! That is when I felt as if God put his arm out and stopped me from speaking to her. He basically said in my spirit, "I got this". So, instead of giving her the answer to her peace problem, I prayed with her and sent her home questioning. Still having no peace.

I prayed for her that night. We worked in the same place, so the next morning, I pulled into the parking lot and began to walk toward the front doors. She came running out to meet me. She had never done that before. She was usually hiding in her office by the time I arrived at the last minute! That day, she almost knocked me over and said, "something happened last night". She stopped talking and looked around as if we had just been given a secret mission by a spy organization. She said, "man, your going to think I'm crazy." Then she just stood there unsure if she should confess something she had been excited about a moment ago, only to realize it sounded totally insane when she was about to speak it out loud. Once again, she looked around, spy-like as she said, "I heard the voice". She continued with her story. She went home the night before without peace in her life. She was lying in bed, once again, asking God for peace. Then, she heard God speak to her. He said, "you won't find peace until you ask Jesus into your heart."

The voice. We can hear many "voices" in our mind each day. One is our own self talking. I have even argued with myself some mornings about getting out of bed for work! It sounds, in my mind, something like this -
"You have to get out of bed!"
"No, I don't want to."
"you have to get to work"
"but I am so comfortable"....and so on it goes. I admit that I am not a morning person!

The other voice we may hear in our mind is that of people. People in our past, present or someone who has just passed through our lives. They could be encouraging words that came at just the right time in your life, or words of anger - hurtful words. We need to be able to sort out these words, these voices, and only choose to listen to the encouraging ones. If the voice was hurtful and spiteful, then we need to pray that God would help to take that voice out of our mind. One way I have found to drown out the voices replaying my faults, is to begin to sing a praise song to God. Once we begin to praise God and focus on the words of praise, these voices will have no room to hang around in our mind.

A voice that can feel as if it is true when it whispers lies is the voice of the devil. He tries to destroy lives and families with small little whispers that turn into loud roaring lies. It may begin with a voice from a person saying something about how we look. It could even be innocent; a laugh about a bad hair day we had. That will be taken by the voice of the devil and turned into a lie of how ugly we are or that no one wants us around because we are not worth it. So many lies. It can begin with a small whisper, but if we chose to believe it, it can ruin our lives. A whisper of a compliment by someone at work can turn into a divorce. A whisper of hate from a hurting, angry teen can turn into a teen suicide. A whisper of someone in the past, telling you that your not good enough, turns into a life where you never try what you love because you know you will fail. A whisper from a mirror or magazine turns into an eating disorder. You can see how it begins. So small. So "innocent". If we begin to believe the lie, then the lie begins to take over. This voice is dangerous. We need to think about what we are thinking in our minds. We need to ask God to show us if it is truth or a lie. Reading the bible can help determine if what we are hearing is from God or not. If it does not line up with the truth we read in the bible, then we can know it is not the truth from God.

God's voice is the voice we don't realize we can hear in our mind. God can speak to us, but when we have so many voices and we are choosing to listen to the wrong ones, his voice becomes quieter. The more we practice listening, the more his voice will begin to grow stronger. Pray for God to speak to you. Listen for his voice. When you hear something in your mind and you know it was not something you thought up yourself, listen. It could be God speaking. God's voice can change your life!