Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God

by Mark Batterson

You want to hear what He has to say. Trust me. The Song of Songs says, “His mouth is sweetness itself.”11

When He wants us to repent, what does He do? He doesn’t threaten us or nag us or yell at us. He shows us kindness.14 And if that doesn’t work? He resorts to more kindness.

You are His beloved, and He’s especially fond of you. You just have to let Him love you.

when you love someone, you love the sound of his or her voice. And you long to hear it. A relationship with God is no different.

There is a theory in organizational development called appreciative inquiry that I subscribe to as a leader and a parent. Instead of exclusively focusing on what’s wrong and trying to fix it, you identify what’s right and try to replicate it. Appreciative inquiry is playing to people’s strengths. It’s catching people doing things right. It’s celebrating what you want to see more of.

Some Hebrew scholars believe that the name of God, Yahweh—or without the vowels, YHWH—is synonymous with the sound of a breath. On one hand, the name is too sacred to pronounce. On the other hand, it’s whispered with each and every breath we take. It’s our first word, our last word, and every word in between.

God is as close as the breath we breathe.

But there is one place where God finds Himself on the outside looking in, and that place is the door to your heart. If you want to hear His voice, you have to answer the knock.

According to rabbinic teaching, it was to show that no place is devoid of God’s presence.

But we actually undermine Scripture’s authority when we discredit God’s ability to speak to us now in the same ways He did in the pages of the Bible.

It’s hard for us to imagine that the solution to our problems is listening, but listening is the litmus test.

“Let God be as original with other people as He is with you.”47

But this I know for sure: His tone of voice is always loving.

But God also speaks via body language: His body, the church. I call it the language of people. And God speaks through different tones of voice, including the language of desires and the language of pain. But when it comes to interpreting body language and tone, we desperately need the gift of discernment.

It takes discernment to spot closed doors and open doors.

It takes discernment to recognize God-given dreams. It takes discernment to know wh...

It takes discernment to obey the promptings of God. It takes discernment to put pain into perspective. It ta...

God will never lead us to do something that is contrary to His good, pleasing, and perfect will as revealed in Scripture. That said, Scripture doesn’t reveal the logistics. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit. Scripture doesn’t reveal whether we should go here or there. It doesn’t nuance whether we should do this, that, or the other thing. And although its truth is timeless, it doesn’t reveal

now or later. Scripture gives us guidelines, but the Holy Spirit is our Guide.

“Never lose a holy curiosity.”

We don’t just read the Bible; the Bible reads us.

When we read Scripture, we’re inhaling what the Holy Spirit exhaled thousands of years ago. We’re

According to rabbinic tradition, every word of Scripture has seventy faces and six hundred thousand meanings.7 In other words, it’s kaleidoscopic. No matter how many times we read the Bible, it never gets old, because it’s timeless and timely.

Yet despite the fact that it touches on hundreds of controversial topics, it doesn’t contradict itself.8 In fact, it reads like one book from start to finish. And that’s because there is one Author, the Spirit of God.

But let’s not forget that ancient scribes would devote entire lifetimes to making one

copy of the sacred text, and translators such as John Wycliffe and William Tyndale gave their lives to provide us their translations.

the goal isn’t getting through the Bible; the goal is getting the Bible through us.

There is a very subtle form of idolatry called bibliolatry. It involves treating the Bible as an end in itself instead of a means to an end. The goal of Bible knowledge isn’t just Bible knowledge. After all, “knowledge puffs up.”11 The goal is learning to recognize and respond to your heavenly Father’s voice so you can grow in intimacy with Him.

here’s a more serious equation: Holy Scripture – Holy Spirit = bibliolatry. When we take the Holy Spirit out of the equation, we’re left with the letter of the law. And the letter of the law isn’t life giving. What you end up with is rule lawyering like the Pharisees and a lifeless religion called legalism.

One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is quickening, and it’s the difference between information and transformation.

Ironically, quicken is the same word used to describe physical resurrection.15 In mu...

Spirit defibrillates our spirits with His Word so we experience a little resurrection eve...

Christ.” If you’re in Christ, all of God’s promises belong to you. Each one has your name on it, and the Spirit will quicken different promises at different times. It’s one of the ways God whispers.

When the Bible says something more than once, we ought to listen to it at least twice.

When you hide His Word in your heart, you never know when the Spirit of God will make it go

off. And that’s a good thing!

plan. I start reading and keep reading until I come to a verse that gives me cause to pause. Sometimes I find the text confusing, so I’ll do some additional research. Sometimes I find the text convicting, which leads to confession. And sometimes the text sparks a prompting that I pray into. One minor caution

our questions are often the wrong questions because they are based on such a small frame of reference. You and I aren’t smart enough to ask the right questions because we think in finite categories.

although we may never get to the bottom of the Bible, the Bible does get to the bottom of us.

The picture frame reframes who they are—boys and girls who become kings and queens.

The Bible is our picture frame. It redefines possibility: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”26 It reframes reality: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit.”27 And it reminds us of who we really are: “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of

G...

I’m afraid that for some the Bible is like a painting that hangs on the wall. We occasionally give it a glance, but it’s nothing more than a pretty picture to look at. It’s as static as the status quo. Why? Because all we do is read it. We don’t do it. The Bible comes alive only when we actively obey it.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”32 Whatever you wish? Yes, whatever you wish. But here’s the

catch: if the Word of God truly abides in you, you won’t want anything beyond the boundaries of God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

the Word of God sanctifies our desires until the will of ...

God is not a genie in a bottle, and our wish is not His command. Quite the opposite. As we grow in grace, His...

The word abide is repeated nine times in the Ki...

of the fifteenth chapter of John. It’s a present imperative verb, which indicates continual action. And it’s one of those biblical words that has seventy faces. It means to “be moved”; it’s one way the Spirit of God stirs our spirits. It means “to stand still”; it’s planting our feet on the promises of God and refusing to back down or back off. It means “to stay ...

If you want to hear the still small voice of God, abiding is key. And the final key to hearing is doing. Hearing without doing is hearsay at best and hypocrisy at worst. We can and must do better than that.