Prayer Unfiltered: How Do We Hear God's Voice? (Part 1)

Have you ever asked yourself: “How do I know if God is speaking to me?”
Or maybe: “Why does prayer sometimes feel one-sided?”

In this week’s podcast episode, which is Part 1, we continue our series on prayer by diving into one of the most personal and important questions in our faith journey: learning how to hear God and recognize His voice.

Through honest conversation, personal stories, biblical encouragement, and practical wisdom, they unpack what it means to develop a real relationship with God through listening prayer. Together they discuss:

✨ Why hearing God is rooted in relationship, not performance
✨ What Scripture says about God speaking to His people
✨ How God often speaks through peace, impressions, images, Scripture, and the Holy Spirit
✨ Why seasons of silence don’t mean God has abandoned you
✨ How to discern whether what you’re hearing aligns with God’s character and Word

Kimberly also shares a personal story from her twenties about a moment that deeply shaped her understanding of listening prayer and God’s guidance.

If you’ve ever struggled to hear God clearly, felt spiritually stuck, or wondered if God still speaks today, this conversation will encourage you deeply.

Subscribe for more conversations about prayer, spiritual growth, healing, identity, and walking closely with Jesus.

Transcript

When Prayer Feels One-Sided

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If it was a one-sided relationship, we would not be friends long.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I often believe that if I call Elizabeth, she's gonna answer the phone. But if I pray to God and ask him for this, I'm like, is he gonna show up? I don't know. God help me in my unbelief. Help me in my unbelief. But what we see consistently and what we talk about a lot here at the Father's Business is who God is. His character from Genesis to Revelation is that he speaks. He is there for us.

Why Listening Matters In Prayer

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Hey friends, I'm Kimberly. And I'm Elizabeth, and this is the Father's Business Podcast, born out of Sylvia Gunter's heart for people to know who God is and who they are in him.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

So wherever you're listening from today, we pray that you will sense his nearness and know that you are his beloved sons and daughters. We're really glad you're here with us today. Hi, friends. Welcome to our podcast today. We are continuing in our series about prayer. And today we are answering a question that I think a lot of people ask. Our friend Virginia wrote to us and asked this specifically, but we hear multiple thoughts coming in and out around this particular question. It's actually a couple of questions. It's how do I hear God and know that it's him? And the other part of that is how do I stop just talking to God or at God even, you know, and learn to listen a little bit differently, a little bit better. So today we're gonna talk about all of that. We're gonna talk about how do I hear God? How do I know it's him, and how do I learn to stop just talking to God? Because Elizabeth, our friendship really wouldn't be that much of a friendship if I just called you and talked to you and said, okay, thanks for listening. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

I mean, there are days that that works because then I don't get to reveal my stuff. So yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

But yes, you're right. If it was a one-sided relationship, we would not be friends long.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Right, right. And if you haven't gone and listened to the last conversation that we had on prayer, we continued to talk about how prayer is a relationship and it is a conversation based on a relationship. And so that's what we have to remember every time we come to these questions and these thoughts is prayer is a relationship, and relationships include listening because it's it's not a one-sided relationship. And so we don't just want to bring our words to God. We want to listen to him. But then how do we also hear him?

Scripture Says God Speaks

SPEAKER_00 2:12

We wanted to think about a couple of verses. One is in John 10, 27, which says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And that was Jesus speaking. And he is telling us and letting us know there that he's already speaking and he's already listening. We have to learn to listen and speak less. Another verse from Jeremiah is, Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Again, we see there Jesus is not describing his voice as rare. He's not describing that you have to perform for him. He's simply saying, Call to me, come to me. Now, the issue may not necessarily be God's silence, although that is an issue at times. We readily recognize that. But it's also for for the listening piece, it's more about how do I slow down myself a little bit? How do I quiet the noise in my life? How do I let go of my fear that he's not going to speak or he's not going to show up or what he's going to say? How do I calm down the uncertainty? And how do I recognize that I need to dialogue with him, that it's a conversation and it's communion. It's communion with him. That's a that's a beautiful word. So one of the things that I often say when we start talking about how do we hear from God and listen to him is that here's the truth, Elizabeth. We're not great listeners in general.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

No, we are not.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And I want to pause and say, can everyone repeat what I just said? Did you hear me?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I am not a good listener.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Right, right. I am not a good listener. Was having a conversation this week where someone was like, I I just didn't, I can't even tell you about the conversation because I didn't listen well. I tried, I tried to listen well, but it's hard to take it all in. It's just hard to quiet our own brains.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Kimberly, it it it is hard when there's so much going on in our own hearts and minds sometimes to get that to quiet down enough to hear another person, much less God who sometimes speaks more subtly.

Quieting Noise And Fear

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I I read through the scriptures of times both in the old and the new testament where God showed up in rather miraculous form, you know, Moses in a burning bush. That'd be nice. You know, even Paul on the road to Damascus, woo! Big light and the voice of the Lord comes down and speaks to him. I've never had that experience. Um, and that's not necessarily what is promised to us today. Not that he can't, but what we see now more is we have the Holy Spirit living within us, and our spirit, communing with God's spirit, speaks deeply to us. But it would be a whole lot easier to focus on a conversation, I think, if my uh bushes were on fire and the ver voice of the Lord was coming out of them. And then yet I think about the Israelites and Moses even, had all of those things, had God speaking to them, and yet they still missed him sometimes and didn't fully understand what he was saying. So this is not something that anyone should feel like, well, mature Christians have this mastered, and you just need to become a better listener and you know, you need a better prayer. This is a struggle for all of us, just as in our human relationships, those that you're closest to, particularly husbands or wives, parents, children, coworkers, you miss each other sometimes, and it's okay. What you do in human relationships, hopefully, is repair and go back and say, okay, I obviously did not hear you correctly, let's try again. And God allows us the same grace. Yes, he's our shepherd, the sheep know the voice, but when a sheep wanders off, he also says in scripture that he will leave the 99 to go get the one. So I hope today's conversation will offer a lot of grace that God is patient and he so desires to speak to us that he will take his time until he knows that we know that we understand him.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

From Genesis through Revelation, we see scripture revealing a God who speaks with us. He did that through the form of the Holy Spirit. God did that in the Old Testament through with Moses, like you were talking about, many times for the Israelites. The Holy Spirit and Jesus show up in the New Testament. They're there from, they're actually there from Genesis, let's just be honest, but that's a whole nother concept. We're not talking about the Trinity today, but they're all there all the time. What we see consistently in Scripture is God initiates with his people. He speaks to us. Jesus calls the disciples to follow him and they follow. We respond. The Holy Spirit speaks to Paul in jail. He speaks to them when they're, you know, missionaries to the early church. Like we have all these examples throughout scripture, and we're not going to cover them all. We've actually talked about some of this in a previous episode. If you go back to, it's an audio podcast when we were going through the Ruach Journey series, titled Listening Prayer, I believe. So you can look that up and hear more about that. You know, I just referenced that verse in Jeremiah 33, which says, Call to me and I will answer you. The second half of that, not to miss it, is, and I will tell you great things, hidden things that you have not known. I will answer you. And Elizabeth, I know you and I, if you know, we are honest with each other a lot, and we try to be as honest as we can on this podcast. I often don't know if I call to God, if he will answer me. That is a common thing that we feel. I often believe that if I call Elizabeth, she's gonna answer the phone. But if I pray to God and ask him for this, I'm like, is he gonna show up? I don't know. I have skepticism, I have fear, I have doubt. And other times I'm like, nah, he'll be there, he'll be there, you know? So this is where we go back to that constant prayer of God, help me in my unbelief, help me in my unbelief, right? But what we see consistently and what we talk about a lot here at the Father's Business is who God is. And he is true to his character. And his character is from Genesis to Revelation, is that he speaks, he listens, he is there for us. We see in Deuteronomy, he said to Israel, Hear, O Israel, hear from me. The Lord our God is one. In 1 Samuel 3, the Lord came several times before Samuel and said, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel said, Lord, speak, for your servant hears you. So Samuel was willing, even though I'm sure he was scared, you know, but he was saying, Okay, speak, Lord, your servant hears. In Isaiah, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. We have promises that God is speaking. So if God is speaking, we're just not even gonna say if, we know God is speaking. We know that he actually spoke the world into existence. We know that he actually said, I am the word, which means he speaks, because words have to be spoken, and I am the word in flesh, I am the the Bible, the word of God in flesh, all of these things, right? There's lots of connections that he is saying, I will speak, and he promises he will. So God speaks. What's it look like? How do we hear him? How do we know if it's really him?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Just as you're talking about God's voice, I'm just picturing Jesus walking with his disciples. You know, yes, he came in human form because he needed to in order to be the sacrifice for our sins.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

To show the way I'm trying to be serious here. So sorry. I it was so relevant.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

It was so relevant. So, yes, as Kimberly sings for us, Jesus came in human form because he needed to in order to be the perfect sacrifice, fully man and fully God. But as you're talking about all the different ways that God has been speaking to his people, I think about those three years of his active ministry plus the time before then. Jesus was ministering to people before he was fully called into ministry, that it's recorded in the New Testament. There's no way Jesus was on earth for 30 years and didn't do something for somebody. But his public ministry starts around the age of 30 and he calls his disciples. And while we have all of the miracles and the sermons and those types of things, what I would love to hear are the conversations that were going on as they just walked down the road, as they found a place to lay their head down for the night. They sat around a fire together to keep warm. Just those those times of relationship. I don't think Jesus needed three years to get prepared to go to the cross. I think he slowed down because he wanted to build a relationship with those men and and women that were his followers. And I think again, that just echoes the heart of everything you're saying, Kimberly, that as much as we want to hear him, he wants to speak more. Now, that doesn't mean that it's easy and that it's not got layers to it and the whole idea of how we hear it, how do we interpret it, all those types of things.

Seasons When God Feels Quiet

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And there are seasons where God is quiet. And so, yes, God is talking all the time, but he's also quiet because back to the verse you just mentioned about Samuel, when the voice came to Samuel, they they had not heard God's voice in a while. And so that's why it took them a minute to understand that that was God speaking, because God had not spoken in a while. And then you think about the almost 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and the New Testament. There are seasons where God is silent. They can feel like rejection, they can feel very painful, and yet they are also part of his purpose for what he's doing in each one of our lives and his timing and his seasons. And so I don't want anyone who may find themselves in a quieter season today to feel like, well, I'm doing it wrong because everyone's hearing but me. We're all on our own journeys of how much we're hearing, how much easy it is to hear. And even in my own life, there are seasons where it's been easier to hear and trust God than than others, like you just said. So I think it'd be helpful, Kimberly, for you to share a story. You've shared it publicly. That's why I'm asking you to share it. We have taught on listening prayer at a couple of different events, and you've done such a beautiful job. So I want you to share a story of a time that you heard from God and and how that unfolded.

A Walk In The Woods Story

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Sure. The particular story that I've shared is when I was in my 20s, I had a friend who was mentoring me and I was in a season where I was trying to sort through some next vocational steps. And she said, Okay, let's take some time and just go hear from God and what he has to say. So we head out to this conference center. So my friend said, Why don't you just go and ask the Lord what he has for you? Okay, sounds simple enough, right? Let's go out and ask the Lord what he has for me. I'm out walking in the woods and I'm like, okay, I want to, I want to hear from the Lord, what does he have for me? And I'm looking around and I'm thinking, okay, God speaks. He spoke, like you said earlier, through the burning bush to Moses. Surely he's gonna speak to me through something today, right? Speak, Lord, for your servant listens. And I see a squirrel, and I'm like, okay, God, the squirrel is like, God's directing me towards my nope, that's being forced. I'm forcing God into this image of a squirrel that I'm seeing with my eyes, right? And so I'm really trying. I'm like, God's like a tree. God's He's wanting me to, you know, I'm trying to make some connections. I'm really, I'm using my visual tools and I'm really trying to look around and go, God, what what do you want to say to me? And then I I hear the splashing of water off in the distance. And I kind of pause for a minute and I was like, what's that? Well, it sounds like a pool because it's not, there's no lake over there. It must be a pool. And I hear kids and I start to think, there's there's a pool over there, there's probably a lifeguard because this is a camp, a conference center. There's probably people swimming in it, having fun, maybe people sitting by the pool. And within an instant almost, I have this picture in my mind and my heart. It's kind of cemented deep in there. Like it was a quick picture. And I was like, I'm like the lifeguard at the pool, the spiritual lifeguard, where God says he's the everlasting water, and all analogies fall short. So a pool is just a contained body of water. God's bigger than that. But I start thinking, God's the water, and there's people all around the water wanting to experience God in different ways. Some people want to jump off the high dive, some people aren't real sure they want to do that. They'll jump off the low dive. Some just want to sit by the pool, they're not sure they want to get in the water and interact with God or relationship with God. Sometimes they sit off to the side so long, they get a sunburn, they fall asleep, and they forget about God. Some people just want to wade around in the shallow end or the kiddie pool and kind of hang out. And then some people just want to dive in deep. Some people want to swim laps and really do hard work and discipline. But the lifeguard's job is to watch over all of it. Like they need to go wake up the people who are sitting on the side falling asleep so they don't get too burned. They need to watch for the little kids of the kiddie pool so they learn to swim a little bit, but don't just stay in the kiddie pool and don't get hurt in the kiddie pool. They need to pay attention to the people diving off the high dive and swimming in the deep end, that they don't drown, that they come up for air. It's a lot, right? They need to make sure the people doing the disciplines don't tire out. And I thought, like it just came to me as like, God, you you're kind of giving me a picture of being a spiritual lifeguard. And the next season vocationally for me was some youth ministry, a long season of youth ministry, actually, in college ministry, where that's what you do. You pay attention to people spiritually and all the different phases of where they are. And so in that moment, that's how I heard God. And it it's hard to kind of talk about it, even as I share it. I'm like, okay, people are gonna be like, Are you sure you heard God did God say that to you? But I walked away that day. I went back and shared with my friend. I was like, this is what I think God is saying.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

So when you heard the pool, was it an immediate sense that you knew this is absolutely God speaking to me? Or did that is that something that kind of unfolded over time?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

It was an immediate picture. The clarity of the picture came very quickly. And I would say I wasn't sure that that was God speaking to me, but I knew the picture made sense.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah. So what helps you get to a point where you didn't think this was just a random circumstance that happened on a walk, but something that God was trying to highlight

The Lifeguard Picture Explained

SPEAKER_01 15:19

for you?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, I think I knew that God was highlighting it because of a couple of things. One, I was asking him to show up. I was trying to listen in the best way I knew how in those moments truly was. I really was trying to look at squirrels in the beginning and go, for you know, we're I was like, God, please, I want to hear from you. Are you trying to say something through that? That's the first thing I see. And oddly enough, even I I do use my eyes a lot to take in, I use my five senses, but primarily I'm a visual person.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

But God used the auditory that day. He used the ability to hear something in the wild to highlight, I honestly believe to highlight his voice to me that day. Uh-huh. So I I do believe that God uses the senses that he's given us to speak to us. But I think how I knew it was him was one, I was asking and seeking, and two, it lined up with two things. It lined up with how God normally speaks to me, which is often through water and movement of water, because I love, I love the ocean. I love all bodies of water, but in particular the ocean. And it also lined up with scripture, meaning God had used scripture in the past to direct me vocationally, to direct me relationally towards loving people, serving him, walking with him. And this picture was not just go be a lifeguard and work at a pool for the summer. This was invest in people spiritually. So it lined up with who he is and who who his word says that he is and who he had called me to be.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, I think that's important because you didn't think your calling was to be an actual lifeguard. It was it was a metaphor and very quickly you saw everything going on around you, but did not go, well, I heard God at a pool, therefore I should work as a lifeguard. So I think that's that's an important part of it. But I love going back to what you just said that you heard the pool first. I mean, I could just picture you there. I know, I know which comfort center you're talking about. So I can I can picture you there. And you were trying so hard with your eyes to figure out what God was saying to you that he didn't use your eyes. He didn't let you see the pool first, he let you hear it. And I think that is just the tenderness of a good shepherd who knows, okay, this little sheep is trying real hard to make a squirrel and a tree and whatever else is on the ground be me. And that's not what I have for her today. So let's come at it a different way to where he could really speak to your heart. And I just think that is absolutely beautiful. So after that day, obviously you said you told your your mentor, your friend who was with you, what did you do with it?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I pretty quickly went and journaled about it to capture all the different pieces of it that I so I wouldn't lose it. And in the process of journaling, I was much better about journaling back then than I am now. I don't slow down enough these days, but I did a lot of journaling back then. And I did journal about it. And I even started connecting songs and other things that I had heard recently to this picture. I can share dive if you want me to. I was about to say, I was about to start. I'm diving in, I'm going deep about it. And I started also looking back through some of my prayers that I had already been journaling. You could see these patterns of prayers of asking God to show up. I remember specifically, I I had written, I was longing to see the treasure of who he was. I was longing or who he is. I was longing to see the treasure of the depths of a relationship with him. I was longing to know more of what it looked like to serve him and to allow others to know the depths of who he is. And so I had this word depth, which was in that analogy. I had the word treasure, which I started having this picture of like, and I don't want to make this all about pictures, but there were connections in my relationship with God, is what I'm trying to articulate here. I had this word treasure, which I started thinking about when people dive deep into the ocean. They dive to go find treasures, whether it be the beautiful sea turtle or the lost ship down sunken underneath. And so all these pictures started coming together. And that was the time, Elizabeth, you and I were new, fairly new friends at the time. And that was the season that Stephen Curtis Chapman sh came out with the song Dive. Um I start well enough to start and I want to start singing.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Do you want me to sing until you're ready?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Sure. That was the same time that Stephen Curtis Chapman had come out with his song Dive, which he also just did a 25-year reunion. It was probably a little bit more than 25 years reunion tour, which Elizabeth and I got to go to. Yes. Which was a lot of fun. When I when that song came out, I remember going to my computer and creating through PowerPoint or some outdated software system.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

You're dating yourself.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah, I know, I know. I'm I'm owning it here. This image that I could create of under the ocean surface. And I just like it was like this picture made so much sense to me. I think when I well up, I've had to edit a little bit of this podcast so you don't see my ugly cry, but I've had I'm welling up during this story because that's the tenderness of God. That he knows his sons and his daughters so much, that he speaks to our hearts in ways that only we can fully understand all the connections to it. And I will also say we could sit and talk about other stories where I was longing to hear from God, filling up journals and asking him to show up and feeling like there was nothing, that it was void and silent. So it's not just about him showing up and on. I know that he shows up every time. I know he shows up because the moon's round and we talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

But what we're trying to address today is how do we know his voice when we do hear it? And I knew without a doubt that day that that was his voice, and it took time to process it, and he did unfold more to it, and he was giving direction, and it lined up with scripture, it lined up with his character, and it lined up with all the other things he had been showing up and saying that I had to piece together because we don't listen well. And he's not sitting right in front of us, he's not a squirrel or a tree, but he's not often face to face, like we got we get to see Moses being face to face with him at times, you know. And so that is how I I knew that it was him, and I and I knew deep in my spirit that I had peace with that. It rested deep upon my spirit, soul, and body. This is God speaking to you. He is directing you, and he is with you in this.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah, and I I remember we we were new friends, but we had become fast friends. And I remember you bravely, maybe not so bravely, asked if you could share it with me. And I remember listening to it, and I remember I was like, absolutely, this is you. This is so you, this is so absolutely you. Of course, this is how God spoke to you, just as much as you know, God speaks to me through ice skating. Because that's part of the dream of my heart and what makes my spirit come alive is Olympic ice skating. So God does know us tenderly. He is a good shepherd who knows each of his sheep. And I think there's several things in this you've highlighted, Kimberly, that we may want to kind of wrap back around and make sure that people heard is one, you had already been in the

Clues That It Was God

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Word. You already had the scripture in your heart. You had already been searching through his word to hear him about what next steps look like for you. And then I think your friend and mentor gave you the space and the time to really be still and listen. You you took time out of your schedule to go find him. You were. You are speak, Lord, your servant is listening. You were intentional to make it happen. And not perfectly, and that's okay too, because that often happens as I go to spend time with God and want to hear from him. First, I I want to give him multiple choice suggestions of what he wants to say. So, God, is it a squirrel? God, is it a tree in your in your story? So that and some of that is getting our minds, our bodies, our souls just to dial down and kind of get out of the way so that our spirit can really hear what God wants to say. Because I think even in times where we feel like God's not saying anything, can't believe I've been there and it's awful and it's hard when you have filled journals with questions and they are not answered. Even in those moments, as you so beautifully said, he is speaking. And the theology that we bring around this is the idea of spirit, soul, and body being in a line with Father, Son, and Spirit. And I think even in those moments where it feels like God is not here, he is not speaking to me, I believe his spirit is speaking to our spirits in words that our human minds and our emotions cannot understand yet. And so I don't think there's ever a time when God says, nope, I'm not gonna answer. I just think there's a lot of times that my finite human understanding is not ready for the deep things that God is speaking to my spirit. And so you sat with it, you journaled it, you took it to people that you trust. And it wasn't just me. There was a lot of people who've been in your life a whole lot longer that you went to and you and I remember everyone across the board was like, absolutely, yes, this is you. And your parents, I mean, everyone you went to gave you that affirmation. And and as you said, there was this deep settleness that this wasn't just a random walk in the woods and it wasn't just a pool. There was something there. So there's a lot of key principles in that when it comes to really hearing God. Obviously, not everything is the word of the Lord, right? Right. Um, and we can we can tilt that way as well, where we think everything is a symbol and everything is a word of the Lord and everything is intentional. But I think I rather tilt a little that way, more so than believe that God's not speaking. But there are often times that it comes as an image, like you said, an analogy. I mean, of of course he spoke to you in an image. Jesus spent his entire ministry speaking in analogies. Like the disciples would ask him a question and he'd start talking about a farm. And I'm just like, just answer the what are you talking about a farm for? You know, or a field, or even the the prodigal son is a parable. He spoke to them, but not directly. He gave them an image that they could hold on to. And I think part of that is also it does involve all the senses. Kimberly, you in your mind can remember what the weather felt like, probably what you were wearing. Like all of your senses are involved in that memory that you hold on to that that spoke so deeply to you. So I think a lot of times it is a flash of an image or an analogy comes to mind. Sometimes it's directly from scripture. And then sometimes for me, it's almost like a a headline that just kind of flashes through your mind. It's just a thought, and it it has a different weight to it than my thoughts. And it's usually just a few words. And uh I'll tell one of mine that we tell at Ruach

The One-Word Nudge Dehydrated

SPEAKER_01 25:48

all the time. I was asking him, as I often do. Um, it'd been an active time of ministry, and I had like a couple of days, and then I was gonna do two more weeks where I was speaking and doing a lot of things, and I was like, okay, God, let's just do a check-in on how we're doing. And so I often will ask God, how is my spirit doing? How is my soul doing? How is my body doing? And usually I go spirit, soul, body that day. For some reason, I chose body first. And so I said, Okay, God, how's my body doing? God did not answer me audibly, but as I sat there and just kind of thought about it, I was eating well, I was getting sleep at night, I was taking care of myself. And I was like, okay. And I felt peace as I just sat with that question for a minute. I was like, okay, I think my body's doing okay. And I was like, okay, how's my soul doing? I just spent some time thinking about all my relationships in my life. Is there any tension anywhere? How was I feeling emotionally? These types of things. And again, God didn't really say anything there. It just felt peaceful. And from what I could tell, from my understanding, there there was no repair I needed to go do in a relationship. There was nothing that I needed to really take care of for my soul. My soul was doing all right. And so I thought, hey, how home, home run here. Body's fine, soul's fine. I've been doing all this great ministry. My spirit's got to be doing great. And when I said to God, how's my spirit doing? It's kind of like the room went quiet and I just sat and listened for a minute. And then I heard one word, dehydrated. And I thought, what in the world does that mean? I don't I don't mean I heard audibly. God did not call down from the heavens to say dehydrated. It was just a knowing as you were talking about, a knowing deep down inside of me, as the Holy Spirit does speak to us. And I just heard the word dehydrated. And I sat with that for a minute and I didn't try to figure out what it meant. I asked another question. What does that mean? And then the only thing I sensed in my spirit was too much exercise, not enough water. And in that moment, much like you and the pool, the image, it like all downloaded at once, I realized, okay, what he's saying is I've been giving and I've been giving and I've been giving away. And I have not been allowing myself to be replenished. And if I go into this next season of ministry giving away to more people without replenishing my own spiritual walk with him, I'm gonna be in trouble because I'm dehydrated. It'd be like exercising when you're dehydrated. Not a good idea. And so I knew what I need to do. All right. We need to cancel the my appointments for the day. I spent time with him, got a blanket out in a park with my Bible, some worship music, and just enjoyed allowing him to refill me through his word.

How To Discern God’s Voice

SPEAKER_01 28:15

So there are times where you may hear a phrase or you may see an image, but at no time will those ever say anything different than what scripture says, right, Kimberly?

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I think for sure, like God, God will not speak and say something counter to his word. I was taught early on, and I was so grateful that my parents taught me this and my community taught me this, that when God wants us to do something, when he says something to us, when he leads us, when he guides us, it will be in alignment with scripture. He will not tell me to go do something that's not in alignment with his with his word. And the other way that he will confirm that he's speaking to us is through those people that know us well. It will be in alignment with scripture and it will be affirmed through the body of Christ around us that God has given us. And it will line up with good fruit. It will line up with peace, with kindness, with goodness, with faithfulness, with love. And so, Elizabeth, you had said this one time. If you're if you're sitting with the Lord and you sense a thought like reach out to that friend, and you're kind of like just getting distracted right now, or is the Lord kind of directing me to reach out to a friend? You ask a couple of questions. Does this align with scripture? Yes. God's word says love others. Is the fruit good? Yes, that's a that's a fruit of kindness. Does it sound like God? Yeah, God would want me to reach out to my friend and check on them. Is there peace that I have in my spirit when I think about reaching out to that friend? Yeah, there's peace. Then act on it. You don't have to be afraid of getting that wrong. So, so sometimes it's that simple. And I think a lot of us have those moments of like, I should reach out to a friend, and then life gets busy and we don't, right? But sometimes when we do reach out to that friend, they're like, Oh man, I so needed that. And we're like, yeah, God was prompting me to do that. It's the subtle little things. It's not always the big pull analogy, right? Or whatever. God speaks in the big and the small, but it will align with scripture and it will be affirmed by people around us. Those are the things that God's not going to be contrary to those things. He's consistently speaking. If we believe, like we said earlier, we've set the stage, framed the picture here, that he is consistently speaking, it will be in alignment and it will be in agreement with the things that he says. It will not be like over here and over there and over here and over there.

God As Father In Silence

SPEAKER_00 30:28

And as you were talking a minute ago, Elizabeth, I was thinking about God is our father. He is our good father. We talk a lot about God being our father in this ministry. And so it's kind of like parents with children. We have different seasons of parenting in the way that we speak to them and the ways that we listen to them. So when we're parenting our young children, we are speaking to them a lot more because they need direction. They need guidance. They need to be pulled back from danger. I look out my window and I'm like, what if a kid was gonna go get a ball in the middle of the street? We'd be screaming and running after them to rescue them, right? But as our children get older, we may still have the sense of, oh, I feel like they're about to run out in the street. That's the image we use. But again, that's a metaphor for how we feel like they may be making decisions. And so you see a lot of parents of teenage kids or older children where you're saying, okay, I have to give them a little room to figure this out and sort it out, but I still need to speak to them. I still need to give them guidance. And you know that teenager is rolling their eyes, you know that young adult is rolling their eyes like, I don't want to hear it, but you don't not speak just because they're gonna roll their eyes. I mean, that's my encouragement to you as a parent. Don't not speak because they're gonna roll their eyes. You still give them guidance and wisdom. And sometimes they have to process it and figure it out. And sometimes as a parent, you have to remove your voice so that your child can process it. And that's what I thought about when you were saying earlier. Sometimes in those moments of silence, when we're honest, we have lots of feelings in those moments. When we get away from it, we can pull back a little bit. Sometimes I can look back and go, no, I know without a doubt God was not abandoning me. But it, I think he was trying to let me process and learn and trust him and figure it out too, because he loves me enough to not leave me in it, but let me mature a little bit, let me grow a little bit. If we are treating prayer like a relationship, then we have to grow in our trust of that relationship. We have to grow in our depth of that relationship. And all relationships take work. Relationships are messy. And so sometimes it means me taking some time away to go, all right, what do I really know about God? And him going, I'm over here. Like I I've often said I would tell him to get in the back seat of my car at times. I didn't want him in the front seat with me. That was my analogy. Just get in the back seat. I want you nearby, but I need to just think about this for a minute. And he would say, sometimes he would just say, Okay, I'm right here. I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not abandoning you. I'm here if you need me and you want to talk to me. But I would just need to process it. And other times I'm like, could you come back in the front seat? Where'd you go? So it, yeah, we we fully admit that this is complicated and it's not simple. God is true to his character and he's our father and he loves us. And a good father sometimes chases us, and a good father sometimes sits back and says, All right, I'll let you figure this one out and I'm right here.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Okay, but that's such a beautiful analogy and something that we all need to be reminded of so much. Yes, God is other than. Yes, he is holy and magnificent and the creator of the universe, but he is first and foremost father, and that's how Jesus taught us to pray, our father who art in heaven, and he is a loving father who longs to hear

Part Two Preview And Next Steps

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from us. So we are going to wrap up our podcast part one on how do we hear God. And we're going to come back next week with the more practical suggestions, things that we've tried in our own lives and things that we have learned from others on how do we get to a point where we are speaking less, hearing more, and more confident and knowing that who we're hearing truly is God's voice. So we hope you'll join us next time.

Donate And Follow The Podcast

SPEAKER_01 33:55

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