Learning to Hear God's VoiceSample

As humans, God has created us to be able to recognize the sounds and tones of different voices. Why is this important? Because He created us to know the sound of His voice, not just His written word. He created us to recognize the whisper of the Holy Spirit.

Voice recognition is different from speech recognition. Voice recognition is recognizing the voice (the sounds, character, and tone) of the individual speaker, while speech recognition is just understanding the language and recognizing the words said.

Newborn babies have voice recognition well before they have speech recognition. Within a few days of birth, infants begin to recognize their mother’s voice, because they have heard her speaking from inside the womb.

The more we spend time with someone, the more we will recognize that person’s voice. Jesus speaks about this in John chapter 10, where He states that those who follow Him will know His voice. When we spend time with the Lord, we learn to identify the whispers of the Holy Spirit. We begin to recognize the tone of our Heavenly Father as He speaks.

Voice recognition is about recognizing the Person of God. This is different from knowing the words of God. We can read the words of Scripture, and yet not recognize His voice or who He is. Some of the Pharisees and spiritual leaders in Jesus’ time did not recognize that the Messiah was speaking, even though they studied the Torah and words of the prophets daily.

Look for who God is in His Word. Look for the endless facets of His character and nature. God wants to reveal Himself to us. If we don’t cultivate voice recognition, we might understand the language but miss God’s heart towards us. We might read the words but not understand what the Lord wants to show us.

Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you throughout your day. As you spend time with the Lord, ask Him to help you recognize His voice. The more you know Him, the more the Spirit of wisdom and revelation will bring revelation to what God is saying.