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I don’t know about you, but I grew up in the church. Some of my earliest and warmest memories involve being in church and having my young mind filled with the stories of Scripture. Since these early days as a young boy sitting in a wooden pew, I’ve always envied the clarity with which certain people in Scripture heard God’s voice. The Old Testament is filled with these stories of people like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Jacob, and David hearing God speak to them in an unmistakable manner.

Maybe the chief example is Moses. Exodus 33:11 says, “The LORD would speak with Moses face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend…” Can you imagine that? Imagine the way your practice and experience of prayer would change if you could talk to God face to face the way you do a friend, or a loved one. My guess is, all that duty, discipline and will power we try to muster to spend any time in prayer, would be entirely unnecessary. In fact, the greater challenge might be doing anything other than sitting with God in prayer. But the reality is, we don't speak to God face to face and we often feel our “conversations” with God only run one way. Many of us are unaccustomed to hearing His voice. As a result, our prayer lives struggle. My point is simply this:

The inability to hear God’s voice is one of the great frustrations in the life of faith.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve both thought to myself and heard from others, “You know, this relationship would be whole lot easier if God would just speak to me!” We think things like, “God if you spoke to me in even 1% of the way you spoke to people in Scripture, I wouldn’t have any of these questions, doubts, or fears.” It’s understandably frustrating to read of an experience in Scripture that seems so far from and so foreign to our own.

So we’re left to wrestle.

“Why don’t you talk to me, God? Why don’t you talk to me the way you did Moses? Why don’t you talk to me the way you did Abraham, or Sarah? Why did David get to hear so much from you, but I don’t?”

Complicating the matter for me, can be the people I personally know who seem to hear God with the same clarity all these people in Scripture did. I have these two women in my life, Sarah and Brenda, who I love deeply. Sarah is my advisor in the spiritual direction program I’m being trained in at the moment and Brenda is part of my cohort. Every time I get around either of them, I hear about a host of experiences they’ve had, usually that very day, in which they have heard from God. And understand, they aren’t the kind of people many of us have met that claim to constantly hear from God, but clearly seems two clicks from crazy. These women are not that. They are solid, normal, and lucid. They also carry this incommunicable mark of intimacy with God that’s only formed through constant, two-way communication with Him. Even as I was writing this paragraph, I literally received a text from Brenda describing yet another experience she had just had hearing the Spirit speak to her. Each time this happens, I think the same thing:

I want more of that.

Maybe you’re in a place, similar I’d bet to that of a majority of Jesus-followers, where you’d say, “I just don’t think God speaks to me.” Now many people in our faith will respond saying, “If you want to hear God speak, read the Scriptures! That’s His very Word to you!” Which is true. Scripture is the primary way in which God has chosen to communicate with us. Yet we see in Scripture, throughout Church history and in the lives of people like Sarah and Brenda, that Scripture is not the totality of how God speaks through His Spirit. As a result many of us are left to believe that for some unknown reason, God simply doesn’t speak to us.

But…

What if we’re looking at this all wrong?

What if the issue has nothing to do with God speaking to us and everything to do with our ability to recognize His voice?

I think a lot of us are like a young Samuel.

If you’re familiar with this Old Testament pillar, you may picture him as the OG of prophets. If anyone was familiar with the voice of God, it was this man that spent the totality of His life in full service to Him. But let’s not forget, this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when Samuel did not recognize the voice of God.

In 1 Samuel 3, we read about Samuel as a young boy already serving God under the guidance of a priest named, Eli. One day, Eli was off resting and Samuel was doing the same. Verse 4 says, “Then the LORD called Samuel, and he answered, ‘Here I am.’” Samuel runs over to Eli and Eli immediately sends him away, explaining that he hadn’t called Samuel. Samuel goes and lays down again, but in mere moments he hears that voice calling his name yet again. And again “Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am; you called me” (v6). Now at this point, poor Eli has to be thinking, “Kid, if you wake me up one more time, you’re gonna see a miracle, cause this blind old man is going Mr. Miyagi all over you.” But notice he doesn’t say that. He simply tells Samuel that it still wasn’t him who had called and to go back to bed.

Verse 7 signals what was at play here. It says, “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, because the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” Samuel was hearing God’s voice for the first time and he hadn’t learned to recognize it yet. God hadn’t actually spoken to Him up to this point, so he’d had no opportunity to learn to recognize His voice. Finally after a third rude awakening, Eli begins to clue in on what’s happening and He gives Samuel good, sage-like advice: “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9). Samuel does as instructed and again he hears God call his name. He replies exactly as Eli told him and thus began one of the most profound relationships with God in Scripture.

Now here’s what I think we have to take away from this story:

Samuel’s problem was not a lack of communication on God’s part. Samuel’s problem was that he hadn’t learned to recognize God’s voice.

I believe this is the challenge facing each of us. God is speaking…a lot…like all the time, in almost countless ways. As mentioned, He speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. He also speaks through internal impressions and the “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). Scripture tells stories of God speaking through angels. Psalm 19:1-2 tells us that God speaks through creation as the “heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of His hands…” Almost 1/3 of the Bible comes to us in the form of dreams and visions that God had used to communicate with His people. God speaks to us through teachers, pastors, spiritual directors and friends who provide us with wise counsel and instruction.

Understand, this list is in no way exhaustive, but what I hope is clear is God’s longing to communicate with you and I. He doesn’t make a habit of hiding from us, nor giving us the silent treatment. He isn’t stingy with His words. He is God of revelation, illumination and communication. I mean, just think, His first act in the Genesis story was to speak. The problem is not a lack of communication on God’s part. The problem is our inability to recognize His voice.

To that end, here are some important questions for us to contemplate over the next few weeks:

Why is recognizing God’s voice so important?
What gets in the way of our ability to recognize His voice?
What are some normative ways in which God seeks to communicate with us?
How should we respond when God speaks?

We’ll dive into each of these and more. In the mean time, I want to invite you spend this week asking Holy Spirit to help you recognize His voice. Let’s turn Samuel’s response into a simple breath prayer this week. Set a timer each day and spend a few minutes in silence with God. Allow your breath to anchor you in the present moment with Him. On your inhales pray, “Speak Lord…” On your exhales pray, “Your servant is listening.” Let this be the guiding prayer of your week. Let’s trust that God loves to share His heart and mind with His kids and that He longs to teach us to recognize His voice.

Psalm 119:72 tells us this: “Instruction from your lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” There is nothing of greater value in this life than learning to recognize God’s voice. God’s voice gives life. So let’s give our full attention to learning to recognize it.

What are your biggest and best questions about learning to both hear and recognize God’s voice?

Drop and comment below and help shape the next few weeks of The Lighthouse!

The Lighthouse

Recognizing God's Voice.