There are many people across the Christian faith that have talked about hearing God.  About God putting something on their heart and being able to hear that still, soft voice in their heart.  There are many that look at this as crazy, even in the Christian faith.  They either don’t believe converses with His children directly or only speaks through those in clergy positions.  I used to not be able to make heads or tails of this.  For most of my life, I either did not hear God, although I believe He did communicate, or I just was unwilling to listen.  I often wondered what it would be like to have God speak to me.  Low and behold, I realize, there are many instances I have experienced where I now know He was there, but I didn’t realize it until I was more willing to surrender and go all in, allowing Jesus to dive deep into my heart.

Did you know that this two-way conversation was the way God always intended things to be?  Dallas Willard points out this ongoing conversation with the examples of God’s visit to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God, and Moses in his face-to-face conversations with God.  These are just ordinary situations.  Willard explains, “They are examples of the normal human life God intended for us: God’s indwelling His people through personal presences and fellowship.”  This is the way it was always meant to be.  We are meant to live in this ongoing conversation.

For many this sounds just too far fetched.  They see God as that distant cosmic sheriff in the sky and can’t bring themselves to accept the idea of God talking to them directly.  It just seems to far fetched.  Quite frankly, I blame the religious establishment for this. They have spent all this time trying to re-create the Holy of Holies even though God tore that curtain with His own hands.  They have put a barrier up between us and God that makes God seem more and more distant.  God ripped that curtain, however and for good.

Evan as I write this, I find the enemy on my heart trying to tell me that people won’t accept this.  I know there are many of you out there that won’t for one reason or the other.  The only thing I can offer, however, is my own personal experience with this.  Like I said, I never fully felt God speak to me directly.  I have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in different times, but never took the time to listen what I was being told.

When I was in Colorado, God opened me up.  When I was fully away from the world I know, my heart was fully open.  God gave me, I believe, just as Solomon prayed for, a hearing heart.  He enabled me to be fully locked into what He was telling me.  I would ask questions and the answers about myself, my wounds, my identity to Him, and so much more just began to flow.  It was the most amazing experience I have ever felt and I know it was God.  It came with gentle authority and were things I never thought about before.

I at first felt I would have a hard time discerning what was really God or other things.  When it came, however, it was unmistakable to me.  One way I found to know the difference is that God is not going to put things on your heart that will cause conflict.  It comes in that still soft voice with a gentle authority, not antagonizing and not conflicting.

It’s been amazing to learn this in the last many months.  I’ve learned to find different ways God speaks to me through different circumstances and through conversations I’ve had with people.  It’s truly a two-way conversation, not just us sitting here talking.  He truly does talk back to us in many ways and I can definitely testify to this.  Now that I have learned to discern this more in my own life, I look forward hearing from God more and more.  I’m accepting of this fact and know that I can hear Him if I can cut out the noise of the world and just focus on Him.