Should I Admit I Hear God’s Voice?
Ch 2 in Listening for Guidance: A Little Known but Life-Changing Spiritual Practice
Sometimes, being a minister is a lot like being a doctor. Here’s what I mean. Every so often, someone I’ve recently met will find out I’m a minister. Upon hearing this, they just have to ask me about something that’s been going on with them. They aren’t asking about their health, of course. They’re asking about spiritual experiences.
Like they’ve heard an audible voice calling them to follow, but no one was there. Or a surprising thought came into their head suggesting they take some action that ends up solving a big problem they were facing. Stuff like that.
Maybe you’ve heard an audible voice when no one was there. Or maybe you just recognize certain thoughts as coming from God. (Feel free to substitute the name for your Higher Power here.) If you’ve been in either situation, you’ve probably asked yourself, Was that God? If so, should I admit I hear God’s voice?
Alternatively, maybe you’re aware of the spiritual practice of Listening for Guidance. But you’ve been afraid to even try it. The thought of initiating a conversation with God can be intimidating. Or you think, What if it’s not God I hear? What if it’s only my own inner voice?
In today’s world, admitting to hearing God’s voice can open you up to ridicule or worse. An episode of the old TNT show called Perception provides a clear example.
A Neurological Condition?
According to the Amazon summary, the theme of the show is “mind over murder, as an eccentric neuroscientist with a unique view of the world teams up with the FBI to crack difficult cases.”
Broadcast between 2012 and 2015, the show starred Eric McCormack as the crime-solving, schizophrenic neuroscientist, Dr. Daniel Pierce. What I liked about the show is that it taught me a little about neuroscience, while entertaining me with a mystery story, mixed with a bit of romance.
One episode in particular, “Messenger” (S1 E5), caught my attention. According to the original episode description, “when a young man in a cult claims to be hearing the word of God, Pierce must determine if it’s actually the word of God or a life-threatening neurological condition” (bold mine).
Of course, scientist Pierce determines that hearing voices amounts to a life-threatening neurological condition. The boy has the same condition (a brain tumor) as some historians think affected Joan of Arc. Fortunately, we don’t burn anyone at the stake anymore. At least not literally.
And yet this episode illustrates perfectly what we fear when we consider admitting our own spiritual experiences. This fear can even hinder us from seeking a closer connection to God.
I grant you, skepticism can be a good thing. It protects us from charlatans and false prophets. However, skepticism and fear of ridicule shouldn’t keep someone from seeking spiritual truth.
It’s More Common Than You Think
I have been asking myself this question for over three decades: Should I admit I hear God’s voice? If so, who is it safe to tell?
Over the years, I’ve told a few close friends, mostly other believers in my local church. But it took me quite a while to be willing to talk about it on the web. And why wouldn’t I be hesitant, given the common view that hearing God’s voice is a sign of a serious health problem?
However, once I started to look around, I discovered plenty of other people (Christians and not) talking and teaching about this, both on the web and in print. (I listed some in a previous chapter.) In addition, I’ve been discovering more and more podcasts, webinars, and blogs where people just casually slide in a comment about something God told them. Like it’s no big deal.
Any number of books by highly respected Christian authors (like Charles Stanley in his book How to Listen to God) cover the topic in detail. And as I have been more willing to raise the topic in conversation, I have discovered that lots of people I know have had experiences hearing from God. It’s just that they, like me, have been keeping it to themselves.
In her 2006 dissertation [no longer online, but originally available on holosuniversity.org], Delphine Ciafardone Rossi cited studies that found spiritual experiences are more common than we think.
In one study, 35% of the respondents reported having an experience in which “you were very close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself.” Rossi notes that Abraham Maslow (the Hierarchy of Needs guy) also thought spiritual experiences were common and universal.
So, it seems many people are having experiences like hearing God’s voice or being visited by an angel or being enveloped by a bright light. If this is the case, why is it such a taboo subject?
Why You Don’t Want to Admit to Hearing God’s Voice
Rossi mentions a study that found 10 reasons people are reluctant to discuss their spiritual experiences:
It was a special and intimate personal experience they didn’t want to discuss
It might be devalued or put down
It cannot be adequately described
It wasn’t identified by the receiver as being a peak [spiritual] experience
Discussing it would result in loss of personal power
Others would think they were crazy or unstable
It would result in embarrassment or shame
Such experiences violated religious beliefs
Others would think they were lying
Such experiences should only be discussed with elders or master teachers
This is a sobering list, considering Rossi also reports what at least one expert suggests:
There are no other variables…that correlate as strongly with psychological well-being as does frequent mystical [spiritual] experience.
In other words, these experiences are good for us. In fact, Rossi’s research showed how spiritual experiences help the healing process for women with cancer.
We in the western world like to think of ourselves as open to any topic. Many previously taboo subjects are now okay to talk about in our modern society. Isn’t it about time we opened up the conversation to include experiences that many of us have and that contribute to psychological well-being?
God Doesn’t Want You to Be Afraid
At the conclusion of “Messenger,” the boy who heard God’s voice in his head admits that he no longer hears an actual voice after the surgery to remove his brain tumor. He then rejects Pierce’s non-belief, and goes on to say, “I still hear God every second; the way anybody can if they just listen.” So, fortunately, the episode’s writers didn’t want to leave us with just one perspective on the hearing God issue.
That boy’s hard-won conviction is rare. Many of us are still fearful of even trying to detect God’s voice, much less admitting to hearing it.
But we shouldn’t be afraid of something that can grow our relationship with God. As reported in an article from Holy Spirit Interactive Youth,
It’s an interesting fact that the command repeated most often throughout the Scriptures is “be not afraid” or (its close grammatical relative) “do not fear”. The command not to fear (given to us by God) is repeated even more times throughout the 73 books than the command to love. That should tell you something about how badly God wants us to live in Him and not in fear.
Have you asked yourself this question... Should I admit I hear God’s voice? If you have been afraid to even try to hear God’s voice, or if you have been afraid of telling someone about it, I hope you’ll be encouraged by this article.
And just know, you’ve found a safe place here.
Note: This post was updated on June 7, 2024, to use more inclusive language. It was updated on June 12, 2024, to expand the introductory paragraphs.
Let me know: Have you been listening for God’s voice? Have you heard God’s voice? What, if anything, scares you about this?
I believe that when we hear from God it is meant to be shared with others. Sometimes He will speak something meant for a specific person or for the church itself. I have found in ministry that when I tell others about things I have heard or seen that it causes a lot of them to become curious about all the things I tell them and they decide to start finding out for themselves. The word says "If you seek me, you WILL find me..." It is an honor and an extreme joy to know that my Father is listening to my prayers..He knows my thoughts and my heart. Lots of people in the Bible heard God's voice and they were afraid too. Moses, Abraham, Mary the mother of Jesus...but they spoke what they heard from God and just trusted Him. The enemy wants us to fear speaking about but he doesn't scare me...there are so many other scary things to fear in this world today. I love Jesus and its more frightening to think that I may be the one God chooses to tell another lost soul about His love and offer of salvation...because I it might make me uncomfortable. You'll be surprised if you give it a try because most people are longing for some kind of hope!