What Is God Saying to You?

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What is God saying to you?

Over the last week you have been asked to spend at least 20 minutes a day in a quiet place listening for God to speak. Did you hear God speak during that time?

If you were finding it hard to hear God or if you did not hear Him at all, then you may find yourself frustrated and discouraged. For many, a lack of hearing directly from God can lead them to a belief that He is not there for them. This is simply not the truth.

God loves you very much, and He wants to speak with you. He wants to share Himself with you, to build that strong relationship.

What Does Quiet Look Like for You?

This is in no way intended to be an accusation but, if you are not hearing from God, maybe it time to be honest about what your “quiet time” really looked like. Was your phone next to you and you were constantly glancing at it to ensure that you did not miss a text message? Was there lots of noise surrounding you, disturbing your time with God? Were you extremely tired after a long day to the point that you were nearly asleep?

Be honest with yourself. Were you creating a situation where God could speak to you? If the answer to that is no, then it should not be surprising that you received no revelation from Him.

Lamentations 3:26 tells us, “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” We need to wait quietly to hear God.

Consider this for a moment. You are sitting down with a friend to have a conversation. The friend keeps looking at his phone, glancing around to see what other people are doing, and is craning his neck to hear other conversations going on around him. Would you really feel like he was a part of your conversation?

This is what it looks like to God when we are allowing all the other distractions to interfere with our conversation with Him. Give God the respect of giving Him your undivided attention.

Was your “quiet time” with God really a quiet time?

What could you do to remove distractions?

Ask God into Your Heart

If you are wanting God to come closer to you, to speak to you, then invite him to do so. Psalm 139:23 declares, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” Ask God into your heart. Invite Him into a conversation. This is one of the biggest challenges because we allow the distractions surrounding us to encompass our thoughts. We are not really inviting God in at all.

Begin your time with God by asking Him to search your heart. Let Him see the joys and sorrows you are facing. Let Him feel welcome. Invite Him to have a personal, intimate conversation with you where you are completely honest and open with your Father.

Are you inviting God to search your heart during your prayer time?

What do you think He would see if He searched your heart?

You May Already Be Hearing

One thing you may not realize is that God may be speaking to you and you are completely unaware of it. If you find that during your quiet time that thoughts are crossing your mind, especially on a repeated basis, then it is likely that He is trying to show you something.

You may not even understand what God is saying to you. This is a time to embrace Psalm 19:14, which tells us, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Meditate on the things that God is showing to you, not just at that time, but throughout the day. Even throughout the week. Let God reveal to you what those thoughts may be about.

Use a Passage to Begin

Some people find it hard to remain quiet and simply wait on God to speak to them. If this is where you were at, then a solution could be to choose a passage of Scripture, read that, and then focus your thoughts on that passage. Ask yourself what God is trying to say to you through the passage. Ask God to reveal to you what He wants you to know in the passage.

If you incorporate this into your prayer time, you will find that it will not only help you to understand the Bible better, but will make your prayer time more valuable. Soon you will find that you no longer need a passage to help you to focus. Your prayer time will be you and God, and the outside world will stay outside!

Don’t Expect God to Speak or Answer as You Desire

One last point we want to make to you in this lesson is to not enter your prayer time with God with your own expectations as the focus. Some expect God to answer only according to what they want or believe. You have been taught that God will answer according to that prayer (Ezekiel 14), but will not give you what you are looking for. He knows that you will only accept one answer, so He is just responding according to your fleshly desires. However, He is not going to deliver on that prayer.

The same is true of how you expect God to respond to you. If I am doing something wrong, while I want God to console me and assure me that everything is going to be all right, I should also expect Him to correct me. If I am entering into His presence only wanting God to be gentle and merciful, He may not respond to me at all.

Let God be God. Do not come with a preconceived notion as to what God should say or do. You can want God to do certain things and ask for things to happen for you, but you should not expect Him to respond only in the way that you want.

Open Your Heart to God

It is easy to get caught in the cares and challenges of the world. It is difficult to concentrate when there is a lot of noise and chaos going on around you. If you are finding that this is hampering your time with God, then step away. Find a quiet place where God can speak with you.

Most importantly, invite God into your life. Ask Him to search your heart. Invite God to know everything about you. Truthfully, He already does, so why not just show your total commitment to Him by asking Him into every aspect of who you are.

In the end, this will change your time with Him. You will find that you know Him like never before because He will be speaking to you in so many amazing ways. Your relationship will grow and your love for Him will flourish.

So, are you ready to hear from God? Then let us pray.

 

Bible Passages for the Week:

Monday – 1 Kings 19:1-13

 

Tuesday – Job 38:11

 

Wednesday – Psalm 77:18

 

Thursday – Zechariah 4:6

 

Friday – Isaiah 50:4-5

 

Saturday – Pick a passage from Scripture that teaches you about how God speaks.

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