“My sheep hear my voice.” (John 10:27)
An older woman was widely regarded as a saint — servant-hearted, wise, and joyful in the Lord. Then one Sunday she heard her rector preach that God spoke to him about a direction for their congregation. She lamented, “I wonder why God never speaks to me like that.”
You Can Learn to Listen
Do you share that lament? Many faithful Christians feel locked outside the conversation, watching others hear God, while they hear only silence, but here’s good news: you can learn how to listen to God, the same way you learn how to fast or tithe. I say that with confidence, because of the promise Jesus makes in John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” Like many promises of God, this one needs our cooperation to reach fulfillment. Listening prayer, like fasting or tithing, takes time and insight, discipline and practice, and childlike faith.
You’ve Probably Already Heard Him
If you’ve walked with Jesus for any length of time, you’ve probably already heard him speak — or felt Him guide you — more than once. You may not have recognized his leading or known what to call it. In this newsletter series, and in our fall Zoom class on Listening Prayer, we’ll learn how to seek, identify, and name those experiences, so you can grow confident that you do, indeed, hear God. We’ll also learn and practice both ancient and fresh disciplines for connecting with Him more reliably and for building a genuinely conversational relationship with the living God.
The Shepherd Who Calls, Not Drives
Picture the shepherds of Jesus’ day. Several flocks might share a watering hole at night, where the sheep mixed freely together. At dawn, each shepherd simply called out, and only his own sheep peeled away from the mixed flocks and followed him, because they had lived with him day after day, season after season. They knew his voice, because they had learned it and trusted it — by living with him in the fields, day after day, season after season.
That’s the opposite of the movie version we may carry in our heads. In the movie, Babe, for example, shepherds drive the flock ahead of them with dogs and shouting. Jesus does neither. He almost never shoves you forward or yells at you, as though you were an ignorant sheep. Instead, He calls you and leads you to green pastures. But to follow him, first you must learn to pick His voice out of the noisy crowd calling for attention in your head.
The Four Voices in Your Head
Christians need to learn to discern four sources of inner voices: the world, the flesh, the devil, and God. Paul names the first three in Ephesians 2:2–3. The world is the noise of social pressure, worldly ideology, and the remembered voices of parents, friends, or books that still echo. The flesh is our own brokenness, and the selfish, carnal desires that rise unbidden in every one of us. The devil and his allies tempt, accuse, and lie, always seeking our harm.
We renounced these three at our baptism and confirmation, but they’ve not gone quiet; we can still be deceived by them. If a voice is coming from any of them, it is not God. Reject that voice, quiet yourself, and listen again.
Six Tests for God’s Voice
So how do you know if a voice you hear is truly God’s? Here are some helpful criteria to test it:
- It agrees with the Scriptures, rightly interpreted.
- It aligns with the character of God: just, wise, and motivated by love.
- It draws you toward Christ, never away from Him.
- Even when the word is hard, it brings a godly peace, not anxiety.
- It produces good fruit (Matt. 7:16; Gal. 5:22): love, joy, etc., instead of shame, fear, or condemnation.
- It will be confirmed by other mature believers.
If a word you hear or discern fails even one of these tests, reject it, set it aside, quiet yourself, and listen again. This isn’t a special privilege for the few. It’s part of the normal Christian life for those who follow the Good Shepherd.
There’s so much more to learn — this is just the beginning! We’ll keep exploring together in the weeks ahead.