Almost every person I’ve ever met and talked to about their faith journey, including my own… this question comes up like: how do I discern or hear or know God’s talking to me? The voice of God, right? And, so I just want to share a couple of thoughts.
Number one, let’s let’s realize. Isaiah 30:21 God speaks, right? God wants to talk to us. Communicate with us. How he does that is, of course, different than if you and I are having a conversation, in a coffee shop. But he does want to communicate. So let’s establish that, and then, let’s be careful when we think about God communicating with us… that it would be in some kind of robotic way to do this, go here, eat at this restaurant, you know, live on this street.
Although we don’t want to say God can’t talk like that, in my understanding of Scripture or in my experience, we sometimes want to rush past “character” and “Christ-likeness.” The subjects that Matt Evans hears from God about the most is my own sanctification and my character. And looking more and more like Jesus in my marriage, in my parenting, in my role as a pastor, in my friendships, in my city, and in my community.
So we don’t want to rush past that because I think we automatically go to God speaking to us about a circumstance or a decision. But oftentimes, if we have the character of Christ, that is what will help us make a decision that honors God and is inside the will of God. I found this and kind of adapted, I think, from Charles Stanley, the Five C’s of Hearing from God.
1. Is it CONSISTENT with Scripture?
God is never going to contradict himself. He’s never going to contradict his written word. And in fact, I would say being in Scripture is the number one way that God speaks to us. You might have even heard me say this in a sermon or something. I never say God is silent when your Bible is closed, right? So God’s message is always going to be consistent with Scripture.
2. Is it going to CHALLENGE our faith?
Here’s another way to think about it. When I think about this, whatever this leading from God or my potential leading from God, voice from God might be, does it excite me in prayer but scare me in thought? When I pray about it? I get excited. When I think about it, I get a little scared. That means it’s a faith based decision. Scripture says in Romans 14, whatever is not a faith is sin. So God’s going to speak to us in ways that require us to exercise faith.
3. Does it CONFLICT with human wisdom?
It’s not just in the realm of common sense. Yes. You need to eat lunch. God’s not going to tell you to eat lunch. Yes, you need to sleep, right? Is that human wisdom or common sense? When God is speaking to us, it’s going to challenge our natural faculties and reasoning. We’re going to lean not on our own understanding.
4. Does it CLASH with the flesh?
Our fleshly nature. Does it clash with our sinfulness, our pride, our ego? We all battle those things, right?
5. Is COURAGE required?
Does it require some boldness? So I’ll just use the example that I shared this with some people. Really, one of the things I feel like God’s impressed on me through scripture and reflection and repentance is growth in this thing called meekness. This has taken me into some deep studies of God’s word. But when I think, am I really hearing from God? Well, you know, Jesus says, blessed are the meek. So it aligns with Scripture. It challenges my faith because I’m understanding meekness. Matt Evans is not a naturally meek person. And as you know, human wisdom of the world doesn’t encourage us to be meek or gentle, right?
According to the world, we’re supposed to be bold and brash a little bit. Sometimes we’re to be loud or boisterous. Does it clash with our fleshly nature? Yeah. As I’m understanding what meekness is, I certainly don’t know everything about it yet. It definitely clashes with my fleshly nature. And in particular, I see a lack of meekness sometimes in how I relate to my boys and to my wife, because it’s not natural for me.
And then does it take courage? Yeah. If you’re not going to be bold and you know, the world’s like, look out for number one… meekness is where you’re going to trust God with ourselves. It’s going to take courage for Matt Evans to walk in meekness. In saying that, I’m pretty confident I’m hearing from God.
And I hope you can have that confidence too, in your walk with him.