When God Speaks

So it seems like I've had dozens of conversations over the past year or so with different people who say things like, "God has been speaking to me;" or, "I want to know God's voice;" or, "I feel like I can't hear God's voice." Stuff like that.

And it has made me wonder something: is God's voice really that hard to hear? I mean, do we just assume he's a divine low-talker? The Bible tells us repeatedly that God is a loving Father, which begs the question: if he is such a loving Father, why doesn't he just tell us what he wants? I'm a dad. I wouldn't expect my kids to know what I expect of them if I didn't tell them.

However, if I told them and they weren't really listening, that's a different story. Which has led me to believe that, most likely, God has been speaking to me and, if I can't hear his voice, it's not because he's not talking. Which means it probably has less to do with God's voice and more to do with our ears, doesn't it?

What I've come to believe is that, more often than not, the Holy Spirit is talking to us, but he's saying things we might not want to hear. He's challenging the way we think and live. He's pushing us further and stretching our faith. And that's difficult to do. So, instead of actually listening to what he is saying to us, we assume that we simply can't hear--until, of course, we hear what we want, and then: "God's been speaking to me!"

The problem with this is simple: what loving dad only tells his kids what they want to hear? "Okay, you can have as much ice cream as you want and stay up as late as you want for as long as you want." While that's what kids want to hear, there are times when it is necessary to tell them what they need to (yet don't exactly want to) hear.

I have come to the conclusion that God is always speaking. That his Spirit is constantly prompting us forward in our faith in Christ. That the issue of hearing God's voice has much less to do with God's voice and much more to do with our hearing!