How do you hear God’s voice?

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How do you hear God's voice? When I first became a Christian, I started to hear people saying, "God told me to do this." Or, "God called me to do this." And I always wondered, "How are you hearing from God? Is it audible? Is it like a feeling?" Most of the time, people would tell me it was a feeling that they got, and it was confirmed that it was God. So, in college, I tried to act on a feeling to confirm if it was God. Specifically, I told a girl, "I believe God told me you're going to be my wife." And man, that did not go well. So, how do you figure out if what you're feeling is actually from God? Well, in scripture, Jesus uses this picture of him being a shepherd and us being sheep. The shepherd takes care of us, guides us. And it says, "His sheep follow him because they know his voice. But, they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." So, how do we recognize Jesus' voice versus a stranger's voice? Okay, I'm going to share with you how this works for me. Because, fun fact, years later after studying this and moving in the things God nudged me to do, God eventually sent someone into my life that said, "God told me you're going to be my husband." I flashed back to that earlier moment, said, "I appreciate that, but God didn't tell me that." But then, within a week, he did confirm it for me. And now, we're 11 years in, happily married. But that would have never happened if I didn't learn how to hear from God. So, the first thing I did was study how God talks by reading God's words. In here, not only do we see how God spoke to people, but all of this is telling the story of how God communicates. Scripture says, "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Step one to learning God's voice, start reading the Bible. Step two, to hear from God, we need to make room to listen. In the Bible, there are so many examples of Jesus going off to be alone to talk to God through prayer. So, we can follow his example, finding a quiet space, maybe even laying in bed, and starting up a conversation with God, whether out loud or in your head, saying something like, "God, can you speak to me? Can you teach me how to learn your voice? What do you want me to do?" Then just wait. Then, what do you hear? Things God said in the Bible coming back to mind. Be strong and courageous. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Cast all your burdens on me, and I will give you rest. Sometimes, it's directions. When I'm praying, "God, do you want me to do this? Do you want me to do that?" I feel like I'm supposed to go in this direction. And then, scripture will come to mind. Like when God told Abraham, "Go to the land that I will show you. Go, and then I will show." So, then I'll move on things in faith. And then, after doing it, I see, "Oh, that was God." Which leads me to the third and final thing. There's this thing in your brain called the reticular activating system. The way that it works is, let's say you buy a car, and then you start seeing the car that you bought everywhere. Your brain just filtered down something you connected with, and you started seeing it everywhere. So, what happens is, when you start studying God's words, spending time with God in prayer, moving on it, and seeing confirmation, you're going to start seeing more of those confirmations everywhere. That was God. That was God. That was God. And as we see him in the little in the big things, we learn, "That was God." And then, we can tie it back to the feeling. When God nudged me to do this, he confirmed it for me with this. So, I'd recommend, what works for me, document the times where you've seen God in response to you being obedient to something that he spoke to you. Is it really going to be helpful if we hear God's voice but aren't willing to listen to it? He's going to say some hard things, but he actually cares for us. And if he's calling us to do something, we can trust he has a great reason for it. I'm praying for you today, friends. God bless.