A friend asked me this question a few weeks ago, and it really got me thinking.

I’ll pray, and I’ll pray, and I’ll pray, but sometimes it just seems like I’m not getting an answer from God.

Why does that happen? And more importantly, how can we get that part of our relationship with God back online when it seems to be so quiet?

Hearing From God

First, let’s talk about that sentence. What does it really mean to “hear” from God?

For a while, I thought hearing from God was something that only happened in the Bible. I grew up a Christian, but the people around me didn’t “hear” from God. They prayed, and then they made decisions with the best information they had. I didn’t have any examples of people talking with God. I only had examples of talking at God.

But then I met my dear friend, Shelby. We were hanging out in my room, talking about life, when she said something that literally changed my entire life.

“Oh, I was talking to God, and he told me—”

“Wait—” I interrupted her. I sat up, leaning forward. “What do you mean by ‘he told you‘. He actually talks to you?”

“Well…yeah,” she shrugged. “Doesn’t He talk to you?”

That started me on a journey. I wanted to hear God. I wanted to know what He would say to me. I wanted to hear his voice.

Through that journey, I learned that God’s voice wasn’t always audible. That sometimes it was an intense feeling you got in your chest, or a thought that pierced through your mind that could have been yours, but probably wasn’t. That he could speak to me through other people, or in visions with my imagination. But most of all, we learn who God is and what he’s saying by reading and studying His Word. (I’m gonna be real, that wasn’t my favorite revelation ever. I have a hard time understanding the Bible, so sometimes this one feels like pulling teeth.)

But most of all? I started hearing from God because I started asking Him to reveal Himself to me. In prayer and in the quiet moments, I started searching for him. I asked him to teach me how to hear his voice.

That’s the first step. Ask God to start revealing Himself to you, seeking his voice, and reading the Word. Open yourself up and give him permission to speak to you in whatever way he wants, then wait and be ready.

I’ve done that. What now?

Let’s say you’ve done that, and you’ve given it good effort. Or maybe you’ve heard from God before, but he’s suddenly really silent about your life. Maybe you haven’t heard from him in months, or when you do hear from him, it’s once every blue moon, or only when you’re in a spiritually thick place, like a summer camp or a Christian Conference.

What then? When you’ve tried, and you’ve come to the end of yourself, and you still don’t hear from God on the regular…why can’t we hear from him?

The Reasons Why

In my personal experience, and after many conversations with my mentor, I’ve come to recognize four different categories of silence. Now, right off the bat, I want to be clear that this is all from my personal experiences. I’m sure there could be different reasons, or better reasons, but I don’t have those reasons. I just have what I’ve experienced.

Why is God quiet? Trick question. In my experience, it isn’t God that’s the problem.

I serve a God that loves me. A God that is madly in love with me. A God that would (and did) die for me. It just doesn’t make sense that a God who would send his only son to the Earth to die for me would then leave me in silence.

So why can’t I hear him? Well, I’ve found a few different reasons. Today we’ll focus on just one.

1. I experienced something painful and started to believe a lie.

When we believe lies, we shut out the truth of God.

For a long time, I believed that I wasn’t really worth very much. It wasn’t like I thought this, outright, all the time. But, through a series of very painful experiences, it’s what I had started to believe.

I chose to believe that everyone else was worth more than me. In that moment, when I heard that lie and agreed with it, was the moment I shut out God’s voice.

Things like “I’m worthless” or “Everyone probably hates me” will ruin your ability to hear the truth. If you actively think those things, agree with those lies, you accidentally (or maybe even intentionally) shut out the truth.

When you shut out the truth, you shut out God’s voice. Why? Because He is the truth.

Pain is like this. You sit, holding your hands tight over your ears, squeezing your eyes shut to try and block out the pain, to block out the lies of the enemy. But when we do that, we leave ourselves in complete darkness, where we can’t hear or see anything other than the pain and lies. God is whispering to you, just like he was whispering to me. He’s just waiting for you to open yourself up, to remove your hands from around your ears, and to open your eyes and look upon his glory.

So what do we do?

There are other reasons why we won’t hear from God. I’ll expand on those in the coming weeks, but for now, and if this is the particular problem you’re experiencing in your life, I have something that might help. I wrote an article a little while ago about the 3 steps to overcoming a lie. For an in-depth discussion on it, read the blog here!

It sucks when we don’t hear from God. Something I’ve learned since I started this journey is just how sweet his voice is. But once we start taking our pain, and the lies we believe to him, it gets easier. 🙂

Stay tuned for reasons 2, 3, and 4! To get an alert for these articles, sign up for my newsletter here!

A great way to get rid of lies is to start affirming the truth. Check out some great truth here with my 21-day free devotional!

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The post Why can’t I hear from God? Part One appeared first on Alli Prince.