Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you can’t catch what they’re saying? Maybe you leaned in closer to hear better and asked them to repeat themselves a couple of times, but no matter what you tried, you were left wondering what they were saying.
For many of us, this can feel true when God speaks. Sometimes it’s clear, other times it feels like a mystery. The truth is that God speaks to each one of us. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not yet know about things to come.” Not only is this a promise of God’s voice, it shows God’s longing to share his heart with us. He’s always speaking, leaving treasures for us to find. This is why we need discernment.
In its most simple form, spiritual discernment is hearing the voice of God. It’s identifying what he’s saying and where he’s calling us to go. Not only does discernment help us recognize good from bad, it also helps us know good from almost good.
Discernment is an art, and a true work of art takes time. Scripture tells us that the sheep know the voice of the shepherd — over time, we can become intimately familiar with the voice of God. It’s a vital part of our life with him.
Before we dive into a few practical handles on how we can be led by the spirit of God, we have to lay the groundwork for who the Holy Spirit is.
We see the Holy Spirit all throughout scripture, but he shows up differently in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. For the believers in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit often showed up to speak through physical signs like a burning push, pillar of fire, or a cloud. After Jesus came in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit descended on the believers, no longer as a temporary physical sign but a permanent gift to those who give their lives to Jesus. Those who lived in Old Testament times longed for access to the Holy Spirit that we have now.
The Holy Spirit is the fully divine third member of the Trinity. All of the grandeur and majesty that we believe about God is also true for the Holy Spirit. He’s the one who whispers God’s truth and instruction.
There are three Greek words that show up in the New Testament before a discussion about the Holy Spirit:
1. Para means alongside
2. En means entrance or in
3. Epi means upon
The Holy Spirit walks alongside us, indwells in us, and can come powerfully upon us. It’s his voice that will instruct us on how to bring heaven down to earth, and his power that will equip us to do it. If we can’t discern his voice and understand what he’s saying, we can’t step into the fullness of our calling.
We can ask the Holy Spirit to help us learn his voice, and he delights in teaching us! But before we can know what he’s saying, we have to understand the ways he chooses to speak. There are different ways we can experience the voice of God.
1. KNOWERS
God speaks to knowers by giving them a word of knowledge. It can’t be explained or reasoned — a knower will have something in them that just knows. Sometimes it’s a gut feeling about someone or something, other times it’s knowing something will happen before it actually happens. This is one way the Holy Spirit speaks.
Acts 16 gives an example of a knower. Paul decided to take Timothy on a missionary journey. To everyone else, this was a bad idea because Timothy was both Jewish and a Gentile. But Paul had a knowing that God was beckoning Timothy, and we see the fruit of the ministry they did together.
Knowers have many strengths. They will push through barriers that others see as walls. They are often right about what they feel, not because of their own ability, but because the Spirit of God is speaking. When it’s time to take action, very little will stop them. On the flip side, knowers can have such strong conviction about what God is saying that they often leave others behind. They can overvalue knowing and not pause to make sure it’s what God is still saying.
2. SEERS
It sounds counterintuitive, but seers hear God’s voice with sight. God speaks to seers in prophetic dreams while they sleep or through visions that show in the theater of their mind.
Many of the prophets in scripture are described as seers, like we see listed in 1 Chronicles 29:29. Their role is to share whatever God shows them, whether it’s a sign, a word, an image, or another symbol God chooses to give.
Seers’ strength is that they can impart faith for the impossible. They can see beyond the current circumstance and share vision with those around them. Seers’ weakness is that they often grow weary in the waiting and begin to question the vision they received.
3. HEARERS
Hearers will audibly hear the voice of God.
We see this in 1 Samuel 3. God calls Samuel’s name, and Samuel initially thinks it’s coming from Eli. He runs to Eli’s room to respond before discovering that it’s not Eli calling him, it’s the audible voice of God.
Acts 9 also gives a beautiful example. As Saul is walking to Damascus with a group of men, Jesus crosses his path. Saul fell to the ground and heard the voice of God. Verse 7 tells us “The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.”
God speaks to hearers so they can speak on his behalf. God will speak to a hearer about their own life so they can use their voice to communicate what God wants to say to others. The challenge for hearers is that they can confuse God’s word with their opinions.
4. FEELERS
Feelers hear from God by experiencing him empathetically or physically. They can feel what others are dealing with. For example, if a feeler is talking with someone battling depression, the feeler might experience depression come over them.
In scripture, David was a feeler. So many of the psalms are David expressing what he felt. In Psalm 22, he prophetically writes what Jesus would feel at his death. Feelers’ greatest strength is that they are sensitive to people and things, and they can shift atmospheres. The challenge is that feelings can be deceptive.
When God can trust us to speak out his words, he will be faithful to move. No matter how God chooses to speak, the key is to always go back to his word. Whether we hear from him biblically through scripture, corporately in church, communally in small groups, or individually in the secret place, we must come into agreement with the truth that God speaks. We are designed to hear him — as we tune our ears to him, everything within us will stop to listen.
