AlzLove: Learning to hear the quiet gentle voice of God; a prayer to hear His gentle guidance.

1 Kings 19:11–12, ICB

"Then a very strong wind blew… But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a quiet, gentle voice."

After leading several bible studies over the years, to include one at my mom’s facility, a common question often surfaces as a discussion point. The question is… 

“How do you hear the voice of God?”

I must admit that in this busy world that we live in, it is hard to hear His still small voice because the noise of life is everywhere to include distractions and heavy loads of responsibilities.

It is a great question. 

I would like to share with you how I learned to hear His voice. Keep in mind that Jesus speaks to everyone differently because it is a personal relationship. When you begin your Christian walk, you have the opportunity to begin a personal relationship with Him, too. Each person on earth has a different relationship with Jesus as no two people are alike. Jesus loves us individually. This fact alone truly makes the Christian walk with Jesus absolutely beautiful. Please understand that He will speak with you in the way that He knows that you will hear, listen, understand, and learn His voice. It will probably be completely different than the way He speaks to me.

I had an opportunity to attend a 3-day women’s conference many years ago. I was relatively new in my walk as a Christian. At the conference, we studied the bible, and I learned that Jesus took all of my sin and inequities past, present, and future when He died on the cross so that I could spend eternity in heaven with Him. Grasping Jesus’ love for me and the whole world was hard to embrace. However, as I started to draw closer to the Lord during the conference, by the third day, I felt a strength in my spirit that I had never known before. I felt a deep peace knowing that I was not alone in the world and that He loved me, my imperfections and all!

On the last day of the conference after soaking in the bible for three days straight I realized that I was not the same person that showed up for the conference three days prior. I felt cleansed, pure and full of positive energy. The leader of the conference asked us to show up to the final meeting with pen and paper. The instructions were simple: "Write a heartfelt letter to Jesus and tell Him what He means to you." I began writing and after about the second page, she politely asked us to stop writing and to put our pens down. We all looked up for more instructions and then she asked us to "Ask Jesus to write a letter back to us as a reply to our letter to Him." The request seemed absurd to me, but as I looked around the room many of the ladies had already started writing and you could see them wipe the tear drops from their faces as they wrote. I must admit that it felt like Jesus was sitting right beside me, so I said a little prayer, and I asked Jesus to write me a letter with the pen that I held in my hand. I then had the urge in my heart to begin writing. The words poured out onto the paper! I was reading and writing at the same time as I drank in the words before me. Jesus’s beautiful letter to me started off saying that I was created in His image and that I was a child of the Highest King. He wrote that I was beautifully and wonderfully made, and there was not another "me" in the world. He told me that He had great plans for me to not harm me, but to give me hope and a future. He said that I was held in the palm of His hand and that when I cried a tear, He cried with me. He said that He knew that I had a challenging childhood and that I learned at an early age that life was not fair. He knew that I had had my fair share of hard knocks in life, but to take heart, He had overcome the world! He said that He was proud of me for the life that I had lived. He was pleased with the love that I had shown others throughout my life, and that I mattered, even when it seemed that they did not love me back.

The letter was soaked with my tears by the time I put the pen down. I had truly heard the voice of my Heavenly Father, and it changed me forever.

It was an experience of a lifetime.

That was a special day when Jesus wrote back to me. The leader of the conference knew that we would be prayed up and ready to hear from our Heavenly Father after 3 days of soaking in His word. I felt well prepared and cleansed to go before Him and ask Him to write to me. My heart was ready to hear His voice. The leader of the conference did not offer this letter writing exercise on the first day of the conference. She held it to the end of the conference when we would be ready to receive what He had for us.

But the answer to my original question:

“How do you hear the voice of God?”

The best way to hear the voice of God, is to hear it from the Bible. God will speak to you through His word as you read the Gospel. If you read it in the morning, He will prepare you for the day ahead. It is a wonderful habit to get up early to read His word. Jesus loves for you to reach to Him. He loves to teach us all that He knows so that we can be prepared for the world we live in and be the hands and feet of Jesus. Once you learn to hear His still small voice, He will start showing up in other ways like in a song, or a conversation, or even a sign on the side of the road. Jesus has been known to speak to me in the wee hours of the morning when I look at the clock and it reads 3:16 AM. He knows that I know that sweet bible verse of John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in His should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Let us pray:

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that You are above the world and no matter what Satan throws at us through storms, earthquakes or fires You are with us. You are the quiet gentle voice through all of our trials. Please teach us to hear your still gentle voice and may it be louder than the screams of Satan. We are so grateful for You Lord Jesus that You give us ears to hear and that You lead us and show us Your ways. All that is good comes from You. Lord Jesus, thank you that You give us free will to choose You and walk with You all the days of our lives. Please continue to draw closer to us as we grow closer to You. Please teach us new ways to hear Your still small voice so that we can be victorious in this world. Thank you that you chose us to share the good word of the bible to people who do not know You. Thank You for giving us gifts and talents to do the works of your kingdom and thank You for walking with us all the days of our lives as we become more like You.

Amen.