Listening to God

Yesterday, I was meeting with a friend of mine who asked me, "How do
you know if God is speaking to you?"

Wow, what an amazingly difficult question to ask. I wish there was a
simple answer, but there isn't. Here are the thoughts I shared with
my friend:
1. God speaks to me through his Word. Study of the Bible will yield
direction and discernment in hearing God when we pray.
2. God speaks to me through gut feelings. I will just have a
pressing sense of what to say or pray or do. I always check these
gut reactions through the Word to ensure they are congruent, and
usually they are.
3. God sometimes speaks to me in visions and pictures, and even rarer
in an audible voice giving me choices. There have only been 3, maybe
4 occurrences of this in my entire walk over the past 20 years.
4. God speaks to me through others who reaffirm a direction or even
challenge a thought or action by their words.

How does God speak to you?