How Do You Hear God's Voice?

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me.” Have you ever heard Christ speak to you – maybe to console you, to get your attention, to call you to something? How do you know that it’s Christ’s voice speaking to you?

There are so many things vying for our attention these days. My phone constantly notifies me of things I do and do not need to tend to. There are always emails to answer. Also, outside stimuli aside, there are constant thoughts running through my head, disrupting my prayer and turning my attention to worries, plans for the future, and an assortment of random, inane things. So many voices! And most of them are not Christ’s.

In Scripture, Jesus warns of false prophets who claim to be the Christ. These were inauthentic messengers who drew people away from God. People had to stay vigilant so that they’d know who was genuinely speaking for God and who was not. I don’t think that was a challenge limited to Jesus’s first followers, though. We, too, have to be on guard against false prophets with ingenuine messages. We too have many voices clamoring for our attention, and we have to figure out which ones come from God and which ones don’t.

How do you do that? It would be so much easier if Jesus were around today and available to ask: Hey, Jesus, was that email from you or was that just another scam trying to get my personal info? Jesus will never ask you for your passwords in an email. J

As hard as it is with all the noise around us all the time, there are some ways to figure out if something is coming from God or not. It’s a fancy, churchy word called discernment. Discernment is a way of sifting through the clamor to get to the voice of God. It’s a way of paying attention to what’s happening within us to help us to know where a voice is coming from. It’s a process that we can use every day in our prayer to see if the subtle or obvious shifts within us are coming from God or something else, and it’s a helpful tool we can lean on when making a decision and seeking to know the will of God in the big picture of our lives.

Although God might sound unique to each one of us and may catch our attention in different ways, there are some consistencies when it’s God who’s speaking. You know I’m a Providence person, but I’m going to share a few things right out of the Ignatian playbook because I’ve found them to be super helpful. St. Ignatius was a master of recognizing the voice of Christ in his own life, and he advises us to pay attention to both our thoughts and feelings. Some of us may mostly lean into our logic and reason and some may rely on our emotions, but Ignatius invites us to look at both. So, for instance, I tend to be a heart person. I have lots of emotions, lots of fluctuations in my feelings, and it’s helpful to name them – otherwise I get swept up in them. Naming them moves me to my head and shows me if there’s a pattern to my feelings, which helps me to recognize how God is speaking. When I’m discerning with someone who’s a head person, I constantly invite them to notice their emotions. I once heard that it’s a long journey from the head to heart, and wow, can that be true. Even if it’s hard, though, we have to be able to check in with our heads and our hearts to hear the voice of Christ.

Ignatius says that there are characteristics of thoughts and feelings that show us whether they’re coming from God or not. Thoughts that lead to confusion, or a lack of faith, hope, and love, are not from God, but thoughts that lead to in an increase of faith, hope, and love are from God. Likewise, feelings of peace, joy, and even sorrow for sins or regret tend to come from God, and feelings of worry, anxiety, spiritual laziness, and sadness come from something else.

Our thoughts and feelings tend to fluctuate over time, even throughout a day, and the more we pay attention to those movements, the more we see what pulls us toward and away from God. Sometimes when I reflect over the day, I notice that my peace was disrupted, that I was annoyed by someone or something, that I reacted in a way I wish I hadn’t. That’s normal. It helps to come back to that later and reflect on what caused it. Or, I might notice moments during the day when I felt close to God. It’s good to notice that too so that I can do more of whatever got me there. We all want more of that, right? There’s a prayer called the Examen that helps us to walk back through the day with God to notice these movements. You can listen to a guided Examen here.

God usually draws us toward happiness and satisfaction. When we discern and seek to know God’s call in the bigger picture of our lives, we look at what brings us peace and happiness, and we look for patterns. A one-time happy moment may nor may not be a call from God, but consistent joy and peace likely is. For me, when I was discerning religious life, I felt both fear and joy. I was scared to move toward religious life because it was so different from what other people were pursuing. My fear wanted to move me in a different direction. But I couldn’t. Why? Because being around sisters, praying with them, and even reading about religious life made me so dang happy that I couldn’t leave it alone. When you have Sister Act on repeat and you’re playing church music in the car, it’s safe to say something is going on. It might not seem logical to move toward a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but logic was at work when I took the long view to notice the pattern of my emotions. I was consistently happy when I was around sisters. There was something about them that resonated with me, and my feelings of fear were more random. Over time, I came to see that, partly because I had a good spiritual director who showed me that fear does not come from God, so fear can’t guide my decisions. Now I know that a call from God usually does scare me a little, but fear comes from me, not God. When I was discerning my vocation, I was able to recognize that it didn’t make sense to move away from something that made me feel that happy – even if it was scary and didn’t make sense to other people.

And the other thing is, if we get it wrong, if we miss-hear or misunderstand the voice of God, all’s not lost. In this Gospel reading, Jesus says: “No one can take them out of my hand.” He says it again, “No one can take them out of God’s hand.” Ah, yes. God has a hold of us. Not a tight grip, but a comforting, reassuring, strong hold on us, and nothing can make God let go. So, even if we move away from God (accidentally or on purpose), God is still holding us. God is with us in whatever we do, and even when we can’t hear God, we can trust that, somehow, some way, God has a hold on us.

Christ assures us that he knows us. I believe that’s true. Christ knows us, and so Christ knows how to speak to us in ways we can understand. And we can learn to hear God speaking to us – through our thoughts and feelings, the circumstances of our lives, other people, our prayer, even creation. We hear and recognize Christ’s voice, our God who knows us, loves us, and holds us, and we follow.

For Reflection:

• So, again, have you ever heard the voice of Christ speak to you? What does Christ sound like?

• What brings you peace, joy, love, and an increase of thoughts about faith, hope, and love?

• What stirs up feelings of anxiety, worry, and sadness? What turns your thoughts to confusion? What decreases thoughts of faith, hope, and love?

• Do you trust that God is holding you, that God loves you whether you listen to God or not? What helps you to trust? What makes it hard to trust?

Would you like to listen to this reflection? Check out the podcast version!

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, meaningful conversations, and dancing.