This past weekend I actually googled “how to hear God’s voice”. Really. After growing up in the church all my life.

Let me back up a little.

I grew up in a church that some might call over emotional or sensational. To me it was normal, and I believe the core of what we believed and did was true and pure. Then I attended two different Christian colleges affiliated with the same denomination as my home church. The phrases “led by the Holy Spirit” and “divine intervention” were common and I knew they were true as well. Then I attended (and still attend) a church where things are a little more subdue on a Sunday morning. Maybe it’s just a Minnesota state of mind rather than the southern church I grew up in. Whatever the case, it tends to be more intellectual than emotional – which is why I was drawn to it in the first place.

Somewhere along the way I became cynical, critical, skeptical and bitter.  I still haven’t figured out how this happened. I do know it was a very slow journey to that rotten attitude and way of thinking.

I started relying on my own voice and my own ideas and never took them to God. Never prayed about any decision I needed to make. I knew I was capable of making wise decisions. Besides, God gave us a free will to choose – so I was choosing my own path.

Then, this April, my life was turned around. Turned back to a life where I put God first, pray and read my Bible daily, and strive to be more like him each day. My bitterness and selfishness are gone and I want to hear his voice and be led by Him.

So over the last few months I’ve been praying for God’s direction in my life. Praying for where I should be involved in at my church, if we should move to a new home soon, and taking every little decision to the Lord.

But then I’m not sure what to do after that.

How do I know His voice?

I’ve relied on my own for so long I worry that I won’t know for sure if I’m hearing God.

So yeah, I googled “how to hear God’s voice”. Here’s what I found…

In an article on Relevant Magazine by Phillip Cary he says

“…you don’t have to get anxious about figuring out which one of your voices is God. None of them is. The revelation of God comes in another way, through the word of God in the Bible, and this is something you can find outside your heart. And that’s good news.  Since God speaks to us as a person, then we can find Him by listening to His Word. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to our hearts. But it does mean we get to admit that all the voices of our hearts are our own.”

He explained that this idea of listening for God’s voice in your heart is new and flawed. Hmmmm…Ok then.

Rick Warren wrote a series of seven articles about how to recognize God’s voice. He says there are seven biblical ways to test an impression to see if it’s from the Lord. I like that wording…an “impression to see if it’s from the Lord”. That lines up with the first article too. Our own voice in line with God’s word.

The seven tests?
1. Does it agree with the Bible?
2. Does it make me more like Christ?
3. Are there other people who can confirm what I believe God is saying to me?
4. Is it consistent with how God shaped me?
5. Does it concern your responsibility?
6. Is it convicting or is it condemning?
7. Do I sense God’s peace about it?

So what do I take from all this?

I still know God’s voice. Or, how to test an impression to see if it’s from the Lord. I shouldn’t doubt that “still small voice” of the Holy Spirit I grew up knowing. It hasn’t left me.

All these decisions I’ve been taking to the Lord? Well, I’m not ready to share them on here quite yet. I will say I’ve been letting go of excess and things that didn’t pass the tests of being impressions from God in order to make room for new and exciting things he has in store for me.

So how do you hear God’s voice? What are the ways you respond to the impressions on your heart?