Hearing God's Voice

OK, so in my last blog entry (which was only made a few minutes ago, because I'm afraid if I wait to write this later I'll either forget or be too lazy to), I mentioned how my dad and I had recently taken Wednesday evening classes at church called "Hearing God's Voice". Most of it involves us watching this Canadian preacher's sermon on hearing His voice, how hard it was for him at first and how it took him many years to learn how, and him describing each step on how to do this. The rest of the class, unfortunately for me, is getting into groups and discussing what we wrote in our "question journals", which is where you ask God things or talk to Him and write down what He says to you.

So, follow these steps (no skipping any):

1. Stillness: Find a quiet place where you won't be distracted by people, phones, the TV, etc.

2. Vision: Fix your eyes on Jesus, and use your eyes and heart to hear Him.

3. Spontaneity: It may be hard to believe that God doesn't speak in the thunderous voice of a mountain that many expect Him to have, but God most often speaks to us in our own voices, like a small, spontaneous thought in our minds.

4. Journaling: Write out the flow of thoughts and pictures within you.

The preacher (forgot his name) recommends that you try to imagine yourself actually with Jesus, sitting with him or whatnot, talking to him, then ask the question.

Though you may think it doesn't make sense to feel uncomfortable about sharing my questions with the group yet now with blog readers, but I don't personally know many of you nor will I probably ever see you in real life, so it's much easier. I first tried this the morning after the class when I stayed the night with my grandma and tried this up in her bedroom while she worked downstairs. Here is the first question and answer I got:

Q: God, what am I supposed to do this whole semester? I'm discontent with my work, miss school, and live so far from town.

A: Take the time to get to know Me. I'm here for you. Don't be afraid to ask anything. What I want you to do is stay at [your job], save up for school, and in the meantime learn about Me.

There was actually a lot more than that but I couldn't type it all out. But let me tell you, I was very surprised and impressed that it worked! I really felt like it was God speaking to me. And when I for a second thought maybe it was just my own personal thoughts, I looked back at all 6 pages in my medium-sized notebook I'd written in and pointed out to myself that I could not have come up with all that spontaneously and so quickly and still have it make perfect sense like it did, in such an amount of answers. Especially on my very first time trying this.

So how about you? Will you try it out? Believer or not, give it a try, if you really believe it could work.