Recognizing God's Voice

Recently, a friend was holding my baby while I was on the other side of the room. When Abby heard my voice, she began to look for me. She recognized my voice and followed the sound of it looking for something familiar. Her actions, even as a baby, got me thinking. As Christians, we should be searching for God's voice in our lives just as Abby was searching for mine. In John 10:3-5 Jesus tells of a flock of sheep that know the shepherds voice. As a Christian, we need to recognize God's voice when he speaks to us. And he WILL speak to us.

While God can speak to you in an audible voice, it's not as likely to happen as God moving your spirit. Like I said in a previous blog, God told me to start writing again but he didn't speak to me through a burning bush or even through the radio. I felt a moving in my spirit to do this. You can question a moving of God all you want until you feel one. God moving me to do something feels as real as my baby girl touching my arm. The most difficult part of recognizing God's voice in a feeling is knowing when it is God's voice. John warns the church in I John 4 to watch out for misleading prophets. Rule number one to make sure what you are feeling is from God is to check it against his word. If what you are "feeling" might be from God doesn't align with his word, then it is not from God. This can be difficult to recognize as a young Christian but the deeper you get in your relationship with God and into the word of God, the easier it becomes.

The most successful way that you can recognize God speaking into your life is by communicating with him on a regular basis. The more time you spend with God in prayer and study the easier it is to recognize his voice. Abby knows my voice because I talk to her everyday. From the moment she developed ears in the womb I have been talking to her. A strangers voice will not turn her head like my voice will. She recognizes her mother. Jesus says that [the sheep] will never follow a strangers voice. "In fact," it says, "they will run away from him because they do not recognize a strangers voice." So that brings to question, as Christians, if we aren't following God's voice, then who's voice are we following?