God likes to make Himself known amongst Man. He does this by talking to us. He has a personality we can get to know, if we listen. It was His design that we be in conversation with our God and grow into His likeness. That is why He sent Jesus.
Jesus pointed the way to the Father. He told us that He was the gate, the door to Him. As a Shepherd, Jesus said that we, His sheep, would know His voice (Jn 10:1-5). He is the link between our humanness and our ability to be God-like. It all begins with hearing.

Over many years I have been privileged to hear the Lord speaking. It is not because I am special, but because He desires for us to commune with Him. We are His desire. I feel led to share the lessons learned about hearing God’s voice. In our ideas we believe that God is wonderful. How much more would those ideas change us if we knew Him. This is His design, for just as the water covers the seas, so will the knowledge of the glory of the Lord cover the earth (Hab 2:14).

Lesson 1: Make ourselves available for the Relationship of a Lifetime

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Heb 11:6). There is reward in seeking God. When we seek Him, we show our desire for Him. The prophet Isaiah says that he seeks God early in the morning (Is 26:9, KJV). When we make ourselves available for conversation with God before the busyness of the day, it shows that He is more important. Soon enough our mind will fill up with all our day will contain! In getting to know someone we love, we listen to them. Our own thoughts become still and we open our ears and our heart to that person we care about. This is the beginning of our relationship with God; stillness. Peter writes that a bride’s adornment should be the “unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,”(1 Pet 3:4), and we are the bride of Christ. The Lord gave me suggestions on how to still my own thoughts so I could “hear” Him when I first began my relationship with Him, and I still practice them. They are

1. Do not speak when God is speaking. He already knows what is in my heart. But I do not know what is in His. - After practicing this for a while, a comfort comes into our hearts, knowing that we are known, and waiting on the One who loves us.

2. Do not have questions waiting while He is speaking. Be sure He is done speaking before you ask Him a question. - Questions preoccupy the mind and distract us from what is on God’s heart. David prayed that God would “Unite my heart” (Ps 86:11). He knew the importance of coming to God in all sincerity. Though God does not object to answering our questions, we are developing a relationship with Him and should give Him our undivided attention and desire.

3. Do not have a motive that will interfere or manipulate His word. - If we will trust Him to get back to us on what we want, then we find out what is on His mind first. My experience has been that the Lord often interrupts my thoughts throughout the day, asking me about those thoughts I first set aside in order to listen to Him. He shows me honor, caring about my concerns. Yet His ministry to me comes after I have sat quietly before Him, desiring the contents of His heart first. If I have only wanted to talk about a certain concern with God, my heart leads me into my own opinions and colors what I “hear”. Then the Word of God in me becomes a mixture, no longer pure.

After I learned to quiet my own thoughts, the Lord began to teach me about having a relationship with Him. Though we believe He will reward us when we seek Him, no relationship would last very long if we only sought our own benefit from it. He shared the following with me so that I could grasp that He is a personality, or a Person, first. He is a giver second. In seeking Him I was asked to do the following;

1. Do not seek to be ministered to first. - Jesus told a parable which we read in Luke 17:7-10. It tells of the preference of the master, whose servant was to wait on Him first and then himself second. God desires that we give to Him the very love He put in our hearts, without worrying about getting love back from Him. By giving to Him first we go from being a seeker of God to being a giver, like God. We give Him ministry, and are becoming like Him by doing so.

2. Do not seek to be affirmed; affirm God. - It takes agreement with what is written about God and what He speaks to us in order to affirm God. We read several passages that state God is good and holy. In a relationship we affirm the good we believe about the other person. That establishes goodness in our heart towards that person. In our relationship with God we establish our goodness by affirming Him.

3. Let praise and thanksgiving come from your heart (Ps 100:4). - Let our affirmation of God be verbal, proclaiming and singing His praise. When our ears hear our praise then our hearts will grow in faith.

4. Let faith mix with God’s words (Heb 4:2). Either we believe God speaks to us, or we do not. We will have the reward of a relationship with God if we mix His words with faith. God has always required that Man have faith in what He was saying. It is a miserable experience to try to have a relationship with someone when we doubt what they are saying to us. To doubt God will cause us to eventually turn away from having an intimate relationship with Him. But faith leads us into a rewarding relationship with Him. Jeremiah wrote “let him who boasts boast about this; that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” (Jer 9:24). We can have faith to know God, not just know about God. Let us determine today to have faith in God, and in what He personally says to us. Amen.