How does God speak to us?

Having written a book on obeying God when he gives us an impression to do something, I often get the “but exactly how does he do that?” question.

The most common way God communicated to the prophets and major biblical characters was audible. Like Moses and the burning bush they actually heard God speaking to them audibly. But, what about the average person in the Old Testament or people like you and me living in the New Testament? How does God communicate to us? And, if you’re a spiritual mentor or parent, those you teach will have the same question and we ought to have an answer for them.

The most common answer given by Christians is that God speaks through scripture. But, how exactly does he do that?

Humans think, or daydream in words, numbers, and pictures. That’s how we organize and process our thoughts. Right now, you may be forming this thought, “I’m not sure I’m interested in reading any more of this blog.” That thought is expressed in words. But, what triggered that thought?

While we organize our thinking using words, numbers, and pictures, humans organize their priorities, and what they do with those thoughts based on our passions or convictions! (Our feelings.)

What we love, hate, fear, value, or have the most confidence in, will determine what we do with all the information we know. So, if you have other, more important things to do right now or things you enjoy more, other than reading this blog, you’ll stop reading. It’s not information that drives our behavior, it our loves, passions and feelings. Your feelings and priorities set your agenda.

So, how does God speak to us?

As we begin reading and studying the Bible, the Holy Spirit is building our database of truth. As I wrote in The 10-Second Rule, the Holy Spirit, like a spiritual Google search, helps retrieve all the spiritual and biblical information we’ve ever read, or sermons and podcasts we’ve ever listened to and he helps us apply what we’ve learned to real-life situations.

While the Bible doesn’t actually describe this process, here’s how I believe it works. It generally begins with an impression. Either we see a situation, like someone in need, or feel moved in some way that calls for us to act, or we are angry, or afraid and immediately are tempted to react negatively. The Holy Spirit quickens our spirit and causes us to form the correct words and images which we need to process that thought before we take action. The Holy Spirit will then either remind us of some clear teaching of scripture, or some principle that will guide us to a decision that is the will of God for us in that situation. He even causes us to want to do good, or to keep ourselves from sinning. He’s done his part!

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. All that belongs to the father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” John 16:13-15.

However, “the world” also speaks to us. The devil, and my own sinful nature are also reminding me of their “truth”. I have a memory bank of sinful images, hurts, fears, and wounds that make me wary of obeying that which the Holy Spirit is telling me, or reminding me to do.

Paul puts it this way: “The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.” Romans 7:21-23, MSG

So, we have these dueling voices in our heads and hearts fighting for our allegiance in all moral and spiritual decisions, including how we use our time and money (which are moral choices). As Christians, we generally know what we ought to do, but why don’t we always do the right thing? Because almost everything Jesus ever taught us is counter-intuitive to our sinful nature. Each good decision literally is an act of faith and the more we are obedient like excersizing a muscle we get spiritually stronger. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Ongoing disobedience leads to spiritual apathy and religious activity.

Decades ago, I took Betsy and Tyler, our two youngest children, for a walk. They ran ahead and climbed up on a wall about 6’ high. I urged Tyler, then about four to jump into my arms. He knew at some level I would catch him safely, but just couldn’t overcome his fear and wouldn’t jump. Betsy jumped so fast I almost didn’t catch her.

Why did she jump with such confidence? Betsy was two years older than Tyler. She’d been jumping off lower walls and I’d been catching her safely for years. She learned to overcome her fear of falling by testing my faithfulness to catch her.

So, test my theory. The next time you have an impression that feels like it’s from God, see if the instinct for self-preservation doesn’t instantly kick in. What does following Jesus mean, if it doesn’t mean overcoming that instinct and just doing the next thing you’re reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do? Living by the 10-second rule is simply a way to train yourself to overcome your natural inclination for self-preservation. Listening and obeying God in small things trains us to trust him in the bigger things.

Question: Would you share with us the next impression you think is from God and how you either obeyed, or why you think you failed?