Am I Hearing God? or Me?
We all want to hear God talk to us, and one of the biggest things that stands in the way of that is a concern that we won’t be able to tell if it’s actually God who is speaking. After all, we have our own thought in our heads too, and we know that the enemy of our soul tries to wile his way into our thinking as well.
So what are we to do? How can we be sure we are hearing God and not our own great (or not-so-great) ideas?
First, it is helpful to realize that there are only three voices that we can hear: God’s, the enemy’s, and our own thoughts. There are distinct ways we can discern one from the others, and also a way to set up our times of listening prayer so that only God’s words can come through. Let’s dive into both of those, beginning with the setup.
James 4:7-8 gives us really clear direction on how to silence the enemy’s voice in our lives:
“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you.”
Do you see the pattern? We humbly submit ourselves to God and resist the devil in Jesus’ name, and he must flee. When we invoke the mighty name of Jesus Christ, the enemy has no choice but to turn tail and run–he is a defeated foe. Also, being neither humble nor submitted to God, he can’t stand being around people who are.
So then, the very first thing we do when desiring to hear from God alone is to submit ourselves to Him, and resist the enemy in Jesus’ name. As we have seen from the scripture above, we can be confident that this effectively shuts down any input from the devil.
It is great to do this out loud, not just mentally. Believe it or not, while the enemy can seed thoughts into our minds, he cannot read our thoughts, so voicing our submission to God and rebuking the enemy is most effective when expressed with our lips, not just our minds. There is no need to shout or raise our voices. The authority to resist the devil comes through the name of Jesus Christ, not our intensity. Speaking quietly and purposefully in prayer is enough.
To shut down influence from our own thoughts, we make the choice (and declare it out loud) to die to our own desires and imaginations. This is part of submission to God, but it is helpful to express this separately to specifically and purposefully choose God’s will and thoughts over ours.
The setup prayer could look something like this (you will find very similar setup prayers at the opening of the guided listening prayer sessions in the Rhema NOW app):
“Lord, I submit myself to You. I resist the enemy in Jesus’ name, knowing that he must flee, and I die to my own desires and imaginations. I wait on You, God, to hear what You alone want to say to me.”
But what if we set it up, ask God something, and STILL have a question about what we get? Then we activate our God-given discernment through the Holy Spirit to determine which voice we are hearing.
This is not complicated, and it gets easier and faster the more we practice hearing God’s voice. We can learn to quickly recognize the voice of God, just like we know the voices of our loved ones.
Every voice that we hear (there are only three, remember?) has a particular “tell” that will help us determine its source.
God’s voice will always line up with His Word, the Bible. If you think you are hearing something that goes against the Bible, you can be sure it is not from God. His voice also brings with it a deep sense of peace, the absolute absence of fear or condemnation, and a settledness deep in our spirits. Even if we happen to be hearing something that isn’t what we wanted, there will be a peace that surpasses our understanding.
The devil’s voice is easy to spot: he is a liar, and comes only to kill, steal, and destroy. (John 10:10) Condemnation, fear, turmoil, rebellion, and pride are from the enemy. If this comes up when we are listening to God, we simply stop and rebuke the enemy, and tune back in to the Lord.
Our own voice sounds, very simply, like us. Our minds are great at regurgitating ideas we’ve had previously, and will often tend toward self-promotion and self-preservation. Again, if we are feeling bombarded with our own thoughts while trying to listen to God, we place ourselves once again in submission to Him and tell our own thoughts to quiet down.
We do not have to be afraid of what we might hear when we have a conversation with God. Both our own thoughts and intrusion from the enemy can be shut down from the get-go with a purposeful setup prayer, and discerned through the Holy Spirit.
The beauty about this whole process is we are building relationship and history with God. His voice gets more quickly recognizable the more we interact in conversation with Him.
If you want to understand more of the depths of hearing God’s voice, check out our premium course in the Rhema NOW app called “How to Hear From God.”