How to Know God’s Voice When Making a Decision
If you’re a follower of Jesus, then it’s important to learn how to know God’s voice. But how do you know what He’s asking you to do vs. what your own feelings tell you to do? This blog post will give you 3 easy tips to better discern God’s voice from your own!
Are There Really Just 3 Ways to Know God’s Voice?
No there’s not ONLY 3 ways to know God’s voice when making a decision. There are lots of ways to get a better understanding of God’s will and to discern His voice from your own. But since my descriptions of each tip started to get long I narrowed it down to 3 tips. If this is a topic you’re really interested in though, leave a comment down below and I’d love to make a part 2!
1. Does it Align with the Bible?
This is NUMBER ONE! Do the actions you’re about to take align with the bible? We are already gifted with God’s Word in our bible. It’s so important that we as Christians are constantly in our bibles imprinting His Word’s upon our hearts. That will give us the best discernment of what God wants for our lives.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
If you “feel” like God told you to do something but it doesn’t match up with Scripture then that is NOT God’s voice. Let me explain this with a brief example. One of my friends, we’ll call her Sally, once received a very expensive appliance she ordered online TWICE. Sally tried to call customer service but they didn’t answer right away. So she took that as a sign from God. When I talked to Sally about it she said, “I really ‘feel’ like God wants me to just keep the second one”. I then told her very plainly, “That would be stealing so there’s no way that God is telling you to keep it.” You see, sometimes we “feel” like all signs point to yes, but if God’s Word (found in the Bible) says no, then the answer is no.
2. Pray and WAIT
Sometimes we’re so busy figuring out our own lives that we actually forget to stop, pray, and WAIT (this is the hardest part) for clear direction. If you want to learn how to hear God’s voice, you need to learn patience as well. Even when we want to follow Jesus, we sometimes replace His voice with our own feelings because we’re just too busy to wait on His.
Now I want you to really understand what I mean here. I have not personally heard a tangible voice from God in all my years following Him. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but it hasn’t happened to me. So what do I mean when I say wait? Do I mean to pray and sit there on your bedroom floor until you hear something or see a sign at that very moment? Nope. If anything that’s kind of like holding God to OUR schedule, which is never a good thing.
What I mean is after spending some serious time in prayer about a big decision, don’t do anything until God answers in some way (opens doors, provides an answer in His word, continues to push it upon your heart, answers through a brother or sister in the Lord, answers through your Husband, etc.). And can I tell you what? If right now you’re thinking, “jeez I can’t wait on God, I need to do this now!”, you might have your answer right there. If you are grasping this desire so tight that you’re not willing to even hear the words no from God, then it can’t be right for you. Anything that we desire MORE than the Lord is only going to damage us.
3. It’s not about WHAT we do but WHY we do it
If we look back on our lives I’m sure we can see all the wrong paths we took. But the amazing thing is if we’re following the Lord and continue to have a heart of repentance and humility, he can use any “bad” decision for good. The Lord finally put it upon my heart that it’s not so much about doing everything in this life perfect (because that’s an unattainable goal), but rather just taking the time to draw nearer to God in all that we do. Don’t get so hung up on doing x verse y, because at the end of the day most of what we do in this life is temporary. The only path that matters is the one that leads to Christ. And even when you feel like your path is zig-zagging remember Proverbs 3:5-6.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6
My marriage is a perfect example of this. My husband and I have faced a lot of challenges in our marriage because of his past struggles with addiction. Does that mean I made the wrong decision in marrying him? Honestly, I’m not even going to give a question like that a second thought. That’s not for me to ponder. Yes, we’ve faced struggles, no it hasn’t been perfect, but our God specializes in using broken lives for His glory. God has used our trials to shape us and draw us nearer to Him. So even though we were immature and probably not ready to get married, God has worked it together for good.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
I hope you enjoyed this post today and I encourage you to leave a comment or email me with any questions or thoughts! Please feel free to hit the share buttons down below if you think your friends could benefit from this article.
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