How do you know?

 

Yesterday, we talked about the desirability to “go quiet” before the Lord, shutting out external influences — thoughts, memories, problems and (as much as possible) sounds. Then, you focus on the Lord and listen for His voice.

“Alright, smart-aleck,” I hear someone say, “how do you know it’s the voice of God?”

I know: it comes across as one of those weird-o scenarios, where some nutbar kills a whole bunch of people and says God told him to do it. (Hint: if it involves killing anybody, it ain’t the voice of God.)

But how do you know?

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

— John 10:27 (NKJV)

How do you get to know the voice of God? How do you get to know anybody’s voice? Sheep know the voice of their shepherd because they spend time with him. When Amelia calls me on the phone (say it’s from a number I don’t recognize on call-display), she only has to start talking and I know it’s she. I know it’s she, because we converse: we talk to each other; I listen to her and can identify her speech patterns.

So you get to know the voice of God by listening for Him — and listening to Him. And how do we do that?

… faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

— Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

The Word of God — the Bible — is there for us to get to know His voice. The more you read, the more you start to recognize when He`s the one doing the talking and that you’re not simply hearing, as Josh Bisnett at Westshore Alliance put it recently, “a slightly better version of you.” You start to get thoughts you never could have come up with yourself — identifiable by the fact that (a) they line up with Scripture and (b) the thoughts tend not to benefit you.

When I finally shook off my fear or preconceived ideas about the Bible and actually started reading it, I realized it isn’t a book of rules, so much as it is a conversation with God. The more we read, the more we hear and the more we hear, the more we trust in Him.

So while the other day, when He told me to close the Bible and go quiet, that was not supposed to be a substitute for reading it, but a complement: we read the Bible to gain direction and wisdom and to get to know His voice, but in “going quiet”, the conversation becomes more personal, more deep, more refreshing.