Hearing god

God is teaching me a lot in this season. I’m not even fully sure yet what it is, but I can feel it’s something big. 

During this time, I've been praying a lot to hear from God. I've always been curious how people *hear* God and felt a little sad that I didn't always hear him audibly.

As I got older, I had trouble hearing as clearly as I did when I was young. I felt like I wasn’t as close to God, because I don't hear him in dreams or epiphanies or with my actual ears. :)

But, ironically enough, the Holy Spirit impressed a deep thought into my heart recently as I was studying scripture. He said “I’ve made you a certain way, so why would I not speak to you in the way I specifically made you?” 

I’m honestly not a very emotional person. On all personality tests, I’m a very factual, reason based gal. For you personality test junkies, I’m a type 1 enneagram, D with high C on the DISC assessment, and an INTJ on the meyers-briggs. I like to work in systems and don't always trust the way I feel. 

And, as much as I thought I didn't have epiphanies, I felt an amazing peace. Of course! Seems simple, but God truly does speak to me through the way I am made. He speaks to me using the tools he's given me to hear.

And he speaks through out the Bible to people in different ways: through burning bushes, supernatural manifestations, natural manifestations, circumstances, bright lights, scripture, nature, wise counsel.....and all to reveal his thoughts to us (Amos 4:13). Why would I not also expect him to be specific with me? 

I was expecting God to use random bursts of emotion to speak to me. Flashes of lightning. Fits of inspiration. Rainbows and music and meaningful dreams. And yes, there have been a few very prophetic times he has used those things for me.

But, can I admit it? I just don’t hear him clearly that way most days. Why? Because God didn’t make me that way. What an incredible relief. I most often hear God through logic and reason, through studying history and the word. And that's okay. 

I like facts and I like things to feel sensible, and when I realized that, I understood the whispers that had been God's voice all along.

It doesn't mean God can't ever blow my mind and write a sign in the sky or speak through a dream. And sometimes he DOES work outside of sensibility.

But on an everyday level, I hear God now because I know how he made me. And because of that, I also feel loved and cherished that he speaks to my heart in the perfect way I know how to hear.

Are you trying to hear God in the way someone ELSE hears God? Are you judging somebody else for not hearing God in the same way you do?

Often we get caught up in waiting for big signs and wonders, which I believe are possible and incredible through God and his Holy Spirit working within us. But often, we forget that God has designed us and communicates in the way that we were uniquely created. How has he created you?