One of the most revolutionary discoveries of my life has been that God still speaks today. My life is different in so many ways, both big and small, because of very personal words that I believe God spoke to me.
I don’t think I’m in any way special. God desires to talk with everyone. But for all of us there is a learning curve to listening. It takes practice to distinguish the voice of God from the noise around and inside us. There are a few things I’ve learned from trying to listen for God through the years that have genuinely surprised me–ways God, and God’s voice, are different than I once expected. Here are a few surprising (to me, at least) things I’ve discovered that have helped me better recognize God’s side of the conversation:
1. God is non-anxious and even playful.
Once I was deeply stuck in a broken pattern. I was investing way too much time pursuing something that didn’t really matter. I knew my obsessive behavior was making my own life worse and doing no favors to anyone else. But I couldn’t seem to get out of my rut.
One night I cried out to God in deep frustration and near-despair, “I get that you’re saying to let this go, and I’m trying, but I can’t!” I was startled to feel something like soft laughter ripple through the room. And I heard a gentle whisper: “Yes, I know.”
Did God just…laugh at me?
Through the years I’ve met other Christians who describe an almost identical experience. Many of us expect God to mirror our intensity, our anxiety about performance, our impatience with ourselves and with the slowness of change. But God is not anxious or frustrated. God treats our stumbling with the patience and humor of a loving parent watching their beloved toddler try to run with shoes on the wrong feet: “Yes, buddy, I can see that you’ve got yourself in a bind here. But don’t cry. We can figure this out.”
2. God’s judgments are marked by invitation, not condemnation.
It took me far too long in life to begin to figure out that the voice in the back of my head endlessly cataloguing my shortcomings and reminding me what a failure I am isn’t actually God’s. I mean, it sounded so righteous and authoritative, I just figured it had to be God.
It was reading the biblical prophets that helped me recognize my error. In both Old and New Testaments, God does judge in the sense of declaring some things right and others wrong. God sometimes sends messengers (i.e. prophets) to let people know where their current choices are leading them—toward life or death, toward flourishing or disaster. But the primary purpose of such judgments is a gracious invitation from God to make course-corrections. The bright red sign that tells you that you’re driving the wrong direction down a one-way road isn’t there to condemn you—it’s there to change your direction and thereby save your life.
God’s truthful judgments are always rooted in love, in mercy, in hope and in invitation to a journey of transformation. Any voice that condemns, that disempowers, that sows paralyzing feelings of worthlessness flat out isn’t God’s. That’s what the Evil sounds like when it’s deep-faking God. Condemnation does exactly the opposite of what God desires—it freezes things in place rather than provoking change. No matter how authoritative the voice seems, condemnation is it’s tell. Note that this is true whether the condemnation is directed at you, your neighbor, or your enemy.
3. God often gives options and not just orders.
I used to imagine that hearing from God was mostly about being given turn-by-turn directions. A few times in my life I have made cross-country moves because I believed that God had told me there was somewhere specific that I should be. But once when discerning a major life change, I had a vision of a map with arrows pointing in many directions. I sensed God saying, “Start somewhere, and we’ll work from there.” Another time when praying about a big opportunity, the Spirit showed me a forked road with one gift down one fork and a different gift down the other. I understood clearly that I had a choice to make.
God speaks to us because God desires relationship. As Jesus puts it, he tells us what is on God’s mind because he wants not just servants but friends (John 15:15). God desires to work with us, not instead of us. Relationship with God matures in the direction of deepening collaboration as we grow in our alignment with God’s mission and desires. Sometimes God gives specific assignments. Often God shares bits of insight and offers possibilities. In both cases, we are invited into a real, back-and-forth conversation where our choices and say-so have real weight.
