How do you hear God – and more the point, how do you actually know that what you’re hearing is actually God?

I imagine it’s both easier and harder than people make out. Some people seem to hear God speaking every moment of the day – at least that’s how it feels. Maybe it is that easy for some… Others – and I would be one of them – hear (what I would discern clearly as God), less frequently – in fact rarely would be the word I would use to describe my distinct God encounters. I’m sure he is ‘speaking’ all the time thru scripture – I get that – but the moments where you go ‘hello!… this is weird and it ain’t me!… are so infrequent that I keep a journal record of all of them.

There was the time Dave Stanford spoke to me at a weekend camp and invited me to join an evangelistic basketball tour. He felt God directed him specifically to me – and he didn’t know that I had specifically prayed about going on that tour just two days previously. It was a bit bizarre and Dave and I still laugh about it even today. Of course I signed up for the tour the very next day.

There was the time I wanted to sell our dog who was driving me crazy with her anxiety. I wanted out. We found a buyer and she was due to be picked up the next day, but that night I sensed God saying ‘nope… you need to keep her and learn to love her…’ I know for a fact it wasn’t me thinking that because I was so over her I would have given her away. But then a God moment…

Late last year an email came into Quinns Baptist asking if I could make contact with someone who was seeking me. They noted that they were bivocational so I presumed they wanted to chat about the bivo life. When they came for coffee we had been talking for about 15 minutes when this person said ,’I guess you’d like to know why I’m here…’ I presumed it was to discuss bivo stuff, but then they told me that they hadn’t read my book. It turned out this person (who i didn’t know) had a vision involving me. (He had to google my name to see who I was) So they gave me their vision and I was left to process it. I have no doubt this person had a God encounter because some of their vision has been right in line with the track we seem to be on.

Then yesterday I was walking Tahnee, our 7 month old retriever / border collie and I had another of those strange God moments. I had been praying in the morning and reflecting on what the year ahead holds. As I walked out the door the image of a ‘coiled spring’ came to mind. I thought to myself ‘yeah – after the year of grief and trauma and relatively little ‘ministry output’ I feel link I’m ready to launch’.

As I was walking Tahnee and reflecting on that image I realised that I am a ‘door pusher’, in that if I’m not sure of direction I tend to push a few ‘doors’ to see if anything opens. As I was pondering this thought she was misbehaving, lunging at people, tugging on the lead and it was taking most of my effort to just keep her steady. She’d dive at a dog across the road, then back at the JW’s who set up a stall each morning, she’d pull towards the steps to the beach, then next minute be headed for the bush and something she had smelt in there. I don’t know if she was enjoying the walk but I was finding it difficult. I can’t imagine she was enjoying having me pull her back either.

For some reason in that moment I had a sense of God saying ‘this is what it’s like trying to guide you sometimes!’ Chuckle… yeah… It probably is. I can get fairly easily drawn to new opportunities and ideas, especially when there is a blank canvas to fill. I got the message. It was really simple. ‘Walk gently and allow God to lead you. Trust that the good shepherd is going to lead you into good places.’ Of course Psalm 23 prang to mind and I went home after and spent some time just reflecting on how I walk with God.

Psalm 23 depicts the kind of walk that is characterised by peace, trust and surrender. Maybe the good shepherd still had to continually herd the sheep back in line, but it feels much easier than what I was experiencing yesterday morning.

So the message (as I interpreted it) was simple; ‘Relax and enjoy the walk, trusting that the good shepherd will take you into good places (and he will walk with you thru the dark places). You don’t need to pull him around – he’s leading you and he’s got this.’

So we will see what the year ahead holds. Maybe the ‘spring’ will stay coiled for a bit longer, or maybe we will be invited into some good places and spaces. At the end of the day I can trust that – however it works – God is going to leading us.

So I share that, not because it was a ‘highlight reel moment’, but rather because people often wonder ‘how do you hear God?’ And this was one of those moments when I knew it wasn’t just me making stuff up in my head. If you aren’t sure how to hear God then I suggest it’s about tuning into his frequency and then trusting that what sounds like God (and if it lines up with scripture) could very possibly just be God.

As you were 🙂