I have been a christian for 6 years but i still cant hear god speaking to me through prayer or reading, i do find this really hard.
There has been people had messages for me out of church and things like that, but i would love to hear more
Hi, Uhaire. I read your post and can only share with you two of my experiences that concern hearing from God and two passages about it. I hope you find some hope in this:
1. In 1998, I had an encounter with God and began to pursue Him for the first time in my life. I kept praying to hear and know His voice so that I could do His will. I kept specifically praying to know His voice as
we can hear Him and not know it (keep that in mind). One day, watching Christian TV, I started falling asleep. Right in that point between wakefulness and sleep, the man on TV was reading from the Bible or prophesying and said,
"... and you will know My voice." When He said that, God said simultaneously to me in a booming voice (not audible though),
"You will know My voice." I sat straight up and looked around as this electric energy ran through me. Because I'd been asking to
know His voice (not just hear it)
so I could do His will, God had said together with the man on TV,
"You will know My voice", telling me in a clever way that I would be able to distinguish His voice (know/discern it) from the voices of others as surely as He'd just distinguished it for me from the voice of the man on TV. (It was pretty cool for Him to be so practical.)
2. On June 8, 2007, a lady was giving me a prophetic word (this is the main message I want to get across to you as concerns 'knowing' God's voice) and said this to me (I still remember it word for word):
"You hear God. You think that 'Maybe I don't hear You, Lord', but you hear Him..." In following years, I realized that she was right (in fact, when she was speaking to me, I felt that she was right); I'd been hearing God for a long time, but I didn't know it since I didn't know how to distinguish His voice yet from other voices around me.
3.
"Why do you say of Him that He answers none of man's words? For God does speak-- now one way, now another-- though man may not perceive it" (Job 33:13-14).
I believe that you hear God already as I was hearing Him... but that you don't know what He sounds like or how to listen. When He spoke to Samuel several times, Samuel didn't know it was God (he heard but didn't know) until he was told to and did say to God,
"Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening." It took an older person in God (Eli) to
teach Samuel not to hear God's voice (as Samuel was already hearing) but to
know it. You probably aren't being taught
how to know God's voice, because He speaks often; but it's us who
"may not perceive it." God speaks to everyone who wants to hear and especially
do His will. He has been speaking to you, but you don't yet know it. I would encourage you to start this way: pray and ask God to show you how He speaks to you or how He wants to speak to you. Does He primarily speak to you through thoughts, impressions, dreams, visions, your pastor, etc.? If you can find where God speaks to you first (His primary way of speaking to you), you will begin to hear and realize He has been speaking to you all this time.
One more thing as an example: I knew a minister-- two of them-- who had pretty much become apostate and no longer served God. When I came to their church, God spoke to me about some things in their church that needed attention and confirmed it through several others there and several times. When I wondered why He didn't tell the ministers instead, I learned that He had been telling them... but that they weren't listening anymore (like King Saul in his last days). In fact, the lady minister, after I shared something God told me about some people in her church who were wolves in sheep's clothing, shared with me later that God gave her a dream:
in the dream, she was eating with these people, and their dog ate about 2/3 of the journal where she wrote what God said to her. What was the meaning of this dream? Jesus told a parable about a sower who went out to sow seed; some of the seed fell on hard soil (unreceptive hearts). Unable to sink into the soil, the seeds remained on the surface where birds (the enemy) then came and
stole them. The lady's dream meant that because the woman wasn't receiving or hearing or responding to God's voice, the enemy (the dog) was eating it up. The lady knew and acknowledged the meaning. Ask God
how He primarily speaks to you. If He uses someone in your life and you reject what they say for whatever reason (maybe you don't like or trust them), then the enemy will snatch away His words so you can't perceive them. But if He is speaking to you through someone primarily and you
receive His words from them, then you will begin to hear Him. Is there anyone that has maybe been telling you something that you may not like to hear-- something about your life that you are rejecting? It can be anyone: a friend, parent, an ex, etc. If you receive His words, no matter who is speaking, then His voice will be released to you. He often doesn't move us to the next step till we do the first step. It seems to me that you may very well be rejecting His voice through a source you don't approve or a source you don't expect Him to speak from.
Strongly consider this possibility. As Paul said to Timothy,
"Consider what I say, and the Lord will give you understanding in all things" (2Tim. 2:7).
