audible.

I think for a lot of people when we hear the phrase “God spoke to me...” or “Jesus was speaking to me and...” we immediately think of an audible voice and either 1. think whoever just said this must obviously be crazy or 2. question how we can “get” Jesus to speak to us if it’s something you think has never happened to you before. HOWEVERRR, thinking that this idea of God speaking to us is something that only happens audibly, is not always the case!!!

It wasn’t until more recent in my life that I became aware of the many many ways God speaks to us. For some people, like Noah or Moses, yes, this “speaking” really is an audible voice. In other instances though, God speaks to people in SOO many different ways. This could be anywhere from you reading something in the Bible and a specific verse standing out to you - to you praying and hearing God. It can be anywhere from feeling a certain way during a worship song - to realizing how breathtaking God's creation is. It can even be a friend or mentor talking with you and God using them to convey His truth to you. Yes! It’s true...God can “speak” to us in one or all of these ways. Speaking to Him isn’t something that always happens during prayer, but can also take place while walking through school or work, watching the sunset, or even driving home in your car listening to worship music.

I had a friend tell me the other day that he had a hard time praying for more than 5 minutes and thought that was why he had never heard God speak to him during prayer. I first told him that God does not expect us to pray for certain amounts of time in order to “get something out of it”. For some people, this may be something they love to do, but for others of us, a quick 30 seconds of prayer makes God just as happy to hear you talking with Him. Earlier in the conversation that I was having with this same friend, he had mentioned a certain verse standing out to him and feeling as if it applied perfectly to everything that was going on in his life at that very moment. After later talking about the ways in which God speaks to us, I pointed out to him that him feeling this way about this specific verse IS a way that God speaks to us!

For me personally, I always had a hard time becoming aware of these things or being able to point out when God was speaking to me. People had always told me to pray about this and ask God to make me more aware and open to these moments, but for some reason I never did. Once I finally reached the point of so badly wanting to hear Jesus speak to me, I realized this really was something I needed to ask the Lord to make known to me. After praying for this, overtime I truly did begin to hear God speak to me in so many different ways. It’s still something that happens to me today and something I believe I have to continue to pray for in order to keep an open heart. Every once in a while, God speaks to me in a new way that I either have never thought of or been aware of and its SUCH a cool thing. Quick little story:

I was in Starbucks a few months ago, working on homework with my headphones in listening to music, when I looked up from my laptop and saw a little girl dancing in front of me. She gracefully twirled around in a circle, looking down at her dress with the biggest grin on her face as she watched her dress puff up all around her. I looked to my left as I saw her parents quietly sitting at the table next to me watching their daughter with smiles on their faces. Almost immediately Jesus put this image in my mind. I saw the little girl as us - humans - FREELY dancing in the presence of the Lord as He looks down at us smiling. I saw this as the parents looking at their daughter with no sense of concern for her disrupting or distracting others in Starbucks, but rather letting her simply dance in freedom. Since that moment, this idea of dancing in freedom is something that has constantly been on my mind and something that has revealed so many different things about God to me. I have placed my life in this idea of being able to FREELY dance in front of Jesus after being ridden of the chains that used to hold me down and keep me from being bold in my faith. From not only this little girl in this story, but many other little children I encounter, God repeatedly speaks to me through His children. (Side note! This may not happen to everyone, it’s just a unique way that I have seen Him speak to me!). God has spoken words such as restless, carefree, fearless, bold, loud, and obedient through children or circumstances I have encountered and has used these words to reveal certain attributes that He sees/wants in me and all his children.

So simply being said: God speaks to us in many different ways. Sometimes audible - sometimes in things we see around us - sometimes in things we hear from sounds, music, or the words of others. If this idea of Jesus speaking to you is something you have always wanted to experience, but feel like you never have or you never have been aware of it, I urge you to ask Him to open your eyes, heart, and mind to these things and ways He may be speaking to you. Once I finally did this, the things I began to hear/see/(everything!) were seriously amazing and honestly just fun to discover with the Lord!

That’s it:) Just something exciting and so cool that I had been wanting to share. Thanks for reading!

xoxo,

b.