How can I connect with God? Will God speak to me?
>How can I connect with God and will God speak to me are among the most common questions readers of this blog send me. In truth, it’s a prevalent question among people, even Christians, everywhere. If you are in a Christian church setting, discipleship in this area is often sadly lacking. During the years when I was doing a lot of Christian education in a church setting, it was the norm that most Christians, if they prayed, never participated in a conversation with God. They spoke to God and then stopped the interaction. They saw answers to prayer experientially in their lives, but they didn’t even know it was their birthright in God to converse with Him. Non-Christians have no idea who God really is and that He longs for them to know Him.
Non-Christians can talk to God
Yet even non-Christians can speak to God. If that were not true, no one could be saved. To be saved one must address God, confess one’s sins, acknowledge that Jesus died as a substitute for the death each and every one of us deserves, believe that Jesus rose from the dead defeating death, hell, and the grave, and commit to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior (if you need more information about salvation, see Statement of Faith and Salvation). In order to be saved, God has to hear us. That means that God is listening – always. Furthermore, in response to that simple prayer, God not only transfers one from the Kingdom of Darkness into His Kingdom of Light, but He sends Himself, the Holy Spirit, to come and live inside, in communion with our human spirit. God is always listening to all people in all places in all times.
It is commonly believed that God only listens to righteous people. There are many verses in the Bible that say that God does not hear the cry of the unrighteous, i.e. those who will not turn to Him and give up their sin, BUT He is always ready to have a conversation about who He is to those who are seeking to know Him. John 3: 16, 17: ” For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him” In Romans 5:8 one of the early Christian teachers, named Paul, said that “God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” An early example of this is the story of Cornelius in the book of Acts. He prayed earnestly to God, even though he didn’t know God at all. God answered his prayer by sending an angel to him to tell him to call a man named Peter to come explain to him about Jesus. After hearing Peter explain about Jesus, he became saved. The angel said to Cornelius in Acts 10:31: “Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered before God.” Therefore, it is established that God is listening and will respond, if you want to know Him – whether you know Him now as Lord or not.
Talking with God is all about Relationship
God created us for the purpose of being in relationship with Him. He longs to be in communion with all people. Rev 3:20 shows us that Jesus wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him, like talking with family around the dinner table: “Listen, I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me.” Prayer (talking with God) is so much more than crying out to Him in our need and asking for things. Prayer is all about person-to-person, intimate communication. So when people tell me that they don’t know how to connect with God or they can’t hear God, I first need to know how they tried to communicate and what they were expecting to happen.
All people have sin in their life and sin does inhibit our ability to perceive and communicate with God. Before we commit our lives to Him, He answers our cry to get to know Him and to follow Him. Once we’re saved, we must commit our lives to cleaning up our past and living a righteous life, empowered by Holy Spirit who now lives in us. So for all who are reading this and wondering if they can get help from God, hear His voice, and get free from whatever difficulties they have, the first step has to be believing the good news of Jesus Christ. NO ONE can come to the One True and Living God except through Jesus. John 14: 6 says, “Jesus replied, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” God is completely HOLY. To commune with God, one must be cleansed of sin, which was done once and for all by Jesus dying on a Roman cross. If you need more information about that please see Statement of Faith and Salvation. However, once you have accepted Jesus, EVEN IF YOU ARE A DID/SRA/MC SLAVE, you have access to God. I know. I was there once. Jesus is the open door that leads to freedom.
Hopefully now everyone agrees that it’s possible not only to speak to God, but that He wants to speak to us. Usually a huge part of the problem for most people is that they don’t believe God wants to talk to them, specifically. We’ll get more into the blockages to hearing God in the next blog. Right now, let me state that there are no exceptions to God speaking to a person if they honestly WANT to have a relationship with Jesus. The first steps are usually tentative and unsure. Especially for abuse victims, shame and worthlessness drive most of what we do, so it’s hard to imagine that the God of all creation could even look our way. Nonetheless, it’s true. Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he delivers those who are discouraged.” Jesus came SPECIFICALLY to heal and to save the lost. So if you’re in a place of brokenness, God especially wants to talk with you.
How does God speak to us?
At the very beginning of our walk with God, we really have to accept that God exists by faith. Heb 11:6 says “Now without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” I think most people have no idea that God wants to have a conversation. If you look up the innumerable resources available on hearing God, all of them will speak of the many ways that God communicates with us, and all of them are absolutely true. God DOES speak to us in a myriad of forms. Most people will admit that they sense the Presence of God and can be moved to love and appreciate God and commune with God through nature, through music, and through some circumstances. The majority of Christians will say that they hear from God most often through reading the Bible.
The Bible from cover to cover is about Jesus, although His Name isn’t specifically mentioned until the New Testament. However, the Bible is God’s Word to guide us on how to live life according to His principles. So there is a general statement of God’s Truth in the Bible written for everyone through all time. BUT the Bible is also a LIVING WORD. Once one houses the Holy Spirit (after accepting Jesus as Lord, as described above) the Bible comes alive to them. The more one loves God and seeks Him, asking Holy Spirit to reveal Himself in the Word/Bible becomes an ongoing personal experience of God speaking Truth and Love directly into our hearts. And it never stops! The more one reads the Bible, asking Holy Spirit to give revelation about it, verses that one might have read a thousand times suddenly have a new and PERSONAL meaning. It just happened to me this morning. I LOVE when God does that.
God also speaks to people (ALL PEOPLE) through dreams and visions. A dream happens while one is asleep. Visions happen while one is awake. They can either be in your mind or the world disappears and a scene opens up in front of your eyes. The Bible has lots of examples of God giving dreams to folks who don’t know Him at all. For Christians, dreams and visions can become a regular part of your life, especially if you ask for them. Not all dreams or visions are from God. They can also come from Satan. Also, dreams may be part of your subconscious mind processing recent events. The interpretation of dreams and visions is beyond the scope of this blog, but just be aware that God does speak to people and answer prays this way.
The Many Voices in Your Head
The real issue is that we want to hear God’s voice. I think that’s what most people mean when they say they want to hear God. So let’s explore a bit what that really means. As one seeks to “hear” God, the hearing is internal. Very few people ever hear the audible voice of God, although it’s certainly possible. Generally, one must learn to discriminate three voices: self, demonic, and God. However, in DID there can be myriads of internal voices from one’s parts, and there are usually a lot of demonic voices that come up on a frequent basis.
Honestly, there is no fail safe way to tell one from another, but it’s absolutely possible to do so with some confidence over time. The more you know your system and the voices therein, the more you can be sure when the voice you hear is from “you”. In the beginning, esp. if you’re not coconscious, it’s a mess. All I can recommend is that you journal, speak inside, and work on getting to know your parts. The emotions associated with parts can be all over the map. It takes time to sort it all out.
Demonic voices feel “bad”: condemned, worthless, shamed, depressed, angry,.….. Demons will exacerbate all the bad senses, feelings, and emotions that drag you down. When they speak, it feels “dark” or threatening.
God’s voice is soft, sure, caring, and loving. IT NEVER CONDEMNS. God’s voice and His words will comfort, protect, and lift you up. You NEVER have to fear hearing God speak. He’s talking to you only because He loves you. The God of all creation would have no reason to speak to you if He didn’t want to. He wants to because He loves you. Demons speak to control and destroy you. God speaks to heal you.
God is Three In One
[What I’m about to talk about WILL be controversial in some Christian circles. That’s OK. I am NOT a theologian but a survivor who has been brought out of Satanism and government mind control by the POWER and LOVE of God. I really don’t give a rip what theologians think or say. I’m speaking here out of my own experience. I believe that the Bible is Truth……but let’s face it; massively different interpretations of the same words on paper have led to thousands of denominations. They can’t all be right. Here I speak about what I KNOW. I KNOW what I KNOW. It’s consistent with scripture as I understand it. Once you have an experience with God, and you KNOW it’s God, no theologian can take that from you.]It’s a mystery that no one truly understands, but while God is ONE being (there IS only ONE God), He presents himself as three persons, usually referred to as Father, Son/Jesus, and Holy Spirit. I’m not even going to try and explain that, but I know it’s true because they can be known individually, and they are recognizably different. The church refers to this triune God as the Trinity.
Holy Spirit
Upon salvation the Holy Spirit enters a person and communes with their human spirit. Jesus said that “The Kingdom of God is within you”. Most people experience Holy Spirit speaking as a still small voice, an impression, a knowing, or if it’s to stop you from doing something, a “spirit check”. God is so personal that He speaks in ways that are unique to each. The first part of hearing God is to listen inside. God is not “out there”. If you are saved He is inside you, so you need to direct your thoughts/ prayers/ needs/ concerns/ worship inside to Him. Most people early on sense God’s response to them as a deep feeling of peace or an awareness of Holy Spirit guiding within.
This beginning way of hearing God is foundational and not to be disparaged. In my experience in the heat of battle (eg. when SRA programming has run amok and the pain of hopeless despair is overwhelming), learning how to hear that still small voice can be the difference between life and death. The Bible talks about the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit”. Pages could be written about what that might mean, but for our purposes here, it is that one needs to nurture a relationship with God’s Spirit inside you. When things are a bit calmer, seek Him. Ask to feel that peace. Praise Him for anything that’s good in your life (which can be hard to figure out, but at least you’re alive), and tell Him that you want to know His love. If you know His love, you can love Him back. You can’t do this in two minutes. Sit for longer and longer periods of time, speaking to Holy Spirit within, waiting and expecting His peace. This is the beginning….a sense of presence and peace. Ultimately, with healing and wholeness Holy Spirit actually transforms us – but that’s another topic. Learn how to get to that place of peace as often as you can in the better times of life, when you’re not screaming for help and thinking that you’re going to die.
The more one communes with Holy Spirit, the more one can hear from Him. Oddly, when He speaks He sounds like your voice in your head. With experience you can distinguish your voice from His voice. God’s voice is always loving, even when He’s correcting you. You feel the love. He never contradicts His Word/Bible (although He may contradict someone’s interpretation of the Word). Sometimes His voice is an action. He may suddenly change something about you. For example, if you struggle with an addiction, suddenly there is a distaste for it or circumstances change that you no longer can do whatever it is. The recognition that this is Holy Spirit “speaking” will increase your sense of peace and trust in Him. The more you thank Him, the more you come to love Him. Finally, if He does speak, it’s usually something really simple. As we grow in our faith, God gives us little assignments, little words of wisdom for others, and simple words of encouragement. If we do what He says, we show God that we can hear and obey – huge characteristics that determine our capacity to live life in God’s Kingdom. As we obey, we hear more. As we spend time with Him, we hear more. It’s like all relationships, there is a cost – time and desire or expectancy. Both are essential.
Baptism of the Holy Spirit
A HUGE number of Christians miss out on the fullness of God because they think people don’t get baptized in the Holy Spirit anymore. If you’re in that kind of group, go somewhere where people have the Truth. I believe I’d still be in deep captivity if God hadn’t shown me the Truth, that He’s the same from the beginning of time to forever. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is an enormous filling of your spirit with His. There are thousands of books and websites by charismatic or Pentecostal Christians from whom you can get lots of information. I received it by going to a church that I knew believed in it and asked for them to pray over me. My husband received it supernaturally in the middle of the night because we were praying for it. During this baptism, one receives gifts from Holy Spirit that can be extremely helpful in the healing process. For me a HUGE help was the gift of speaking in other tongues. This gift allows Holy Spirit to use your spirit to pray in a spiritual language. You usually don’t even know what you’re saying (although you might). It builds up your spirit. It allows you to cry out to God when you can’t even focus to pray. It helps you to focus on God’s realm, instead of the demonic realm. It helps you to better hear God’s voice. Even if only one part of you is saved and she/he can get baptized in the Holy Spirit, you’ll have a huge advantage over the enemy. Holy Spirit is POWER. You need that to get free.
Jesus
I know many Christians that never knew they could hear from Jesus, but it’s absolutely true. In fact, some people actually see Him and speak with Him face-to-face in the natural realm. I long for that. The goal of ALL Christians should be to die to self and become like Him. In that process one hears from Him more and more. Jesus is our Lord and Savior. If He is Lord, we have to know what He wants us to do. More importantly, we need to get to KNOW Him. Ultimately, He is our bridegroom (I know that’s weird to many people and again a topic for some other time). He LONGS to be with us and commune with us. He is always present everywhere in all time. He is God. There are beyond billions of things to know about Him, but the desire is to KNOW Him, intimately….His thoughts, His feelings, His longings, His plans. It’s possible. The necessary step to get to that point, beyond salvation and asking God to keep filling you up with Holy Spirit, is to ask Him to speak to you.
In the Bible Jesus spent a lot of time talking about us as sheep, He being our shepherd. He said many times that His sheep WOULD HEAR HIS VOICE AND KNOW HIM. That’s a promise. In John 10: 27-30 Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
How do we hear from Jesus? Of all the many, many great resources out there for hearing God, I really like the material from Mark Virkler because it has a deep connection with the healing ministry many survivors go through. I’m going to paraphrase what Virkler talks about, but I encourage folks to go to his source material directly: Found here.
The four keys in this material are as follows:
1. Get quiet – be still physically, mentally, and emotionally to the extent possible. Believe me, this takes practice, but it is well worth it. [For survivors who do work in grounding themselves, this is a good time to practice being still before God. Come into a sense of being present IN THE MOMENT, and ask God to meet your there.] This is important to learn to hear from Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
2. Fix your heart/thoughts on Jesus. What does that mean? We all have a spirit, although few of us relate to it. We all have spiritual eyes, which the Bible often refers to as the “eyes of your heart”. Satanists are experts at using their spirits for evil and seeing into the demonic realm. When our spiritual eyes are opened against God’s will (God forbids it for our own protection), it’s often referred to as the third eye. We’re not talking about illicit opening of spiritual domains of darkness here, although if you’re an SRA survivor that will be an issue for you. (I’ll write about the third eye and how to close it someday.) Virkler is saying that when we want to hear from Jesus, we need to think of Him, even visualize Him (however He might look to you), and expect to hear from Him. People get all twisted up on the visualization part because very few people actually know what Jesus looked like in the flesh. If you’re Chinese and to you Jesus looks Chinese – go for it. It doesn’t matter. If you’re familiar with conjuring up demons or higher-level evil beings, THIS IS NOT THAT! The point is expectancy that you’re going to hear from a man – THE MAN JESUS. He is there with you, in you, and He will speak to you.
3. When you ask Jesus to speak to you, you often get a spontaneous flow of thoughts in your heart. OK….heart? Mind? My voice? His voice?….. Honestly, whether you’re hearing from Holy Spirit or Jesus at this point is immaterial. At the beginning you may not know. After all Holy Spirit is always pointing to Jesus. The point is that you hear words spoken inside you, flowing from God.
4. Capture what you hear on paper, what Virkler calls two-way writing. (Some of us do/did spontaneous writing, which is driven by the demonic and out of our control. This is not that. God NEVER takes over our free will. If you start writing and you can’t stop, it’s not God!) In two-way writing we’re simply recording what we hear after we ask a question. At first this may seem clumsy, but eventually, it will click. HE IS TALKING TO YOU. Go to Virkler’s material to get all the details, but this is what I do when I’m “talking” with Jesus. (Actually, this is a minor part of my time with Jesus. Mostly, we don’t talk.) Once, 1-3 is accomplished, with paper and pen in hand I write down a question. Then I write, “Jesus:” and just write out whatever comes into my mind. At this point I don’t question or judge it in any way. I keep writing until the flow of thoughts stop. At this point I have to analyze what I’ve written re whether it is consistent with God and the Word/Bible and fits the context of what was asked. Before long internally, you will KNOW HIS VOICE.
At this point I want to diverge a bit to give survivors some HOPE. Eventually, in the process of healing I long for all survivors to be able to work with Jesus as their healer. In that process one gets to know Jesus as healer, comforter, savior, deprogrammer, demon-buster, and King over all powers of darkness. Despite the horror of the journey, in the end a survivor has the privilege of knowing Jesus at a level and depth that 99% of Christians cannot even imagine. For those who asked the questions at the beginning of the post, it seems hard to believe. But believe. Jesus is THE HEALER. All healing comes from Him. We’ll talk more about this in future posts.
The Father
Obviously, there is a huge amount more to know about the material already covered. Hopefully, if you have specific questions, you’ll ask in the comments below. But I want to declare that there is even more to hearing God. The Father, Himself, WANTS to talk to you. He is our loving Father. It is HE who thought of you before time began. It is HE who wants you to be perfected in Jesus and married to His Son. When The Father speaks to you, you KNOW it. It’s a special thing, to know the Father. As we mature in Christ, we come into unity by our spirit with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How do you hear from The Father? You ask Him to speak to you. Amazingly, He does. So look forward to hearing from God, being secure in knowing that He loves and cares for you.
Comments or Questions:
I would love to hear comments and questions about this material in the comment section below. If you need help connecting with God or have any other questions, get hold of me from the Contact Me page.