Given that God is the all-powerful Creator and Ruler of the Universe, I always figured that the voice of God would be as loud and dramatic as one might expect from the “omnipotent, all-mighty King of All Creation.” Yet, Scripture points to the fact that God often speaks in more subtle ways. We might expect God to speak with thunder and lightning and pyrotechnics, and yet Scripture indicates that God often speaks with a “still, small voice.”

But if the voice of God is so quiet, how do I know for sure that it is God speaking?

If I have a prompting to do something in my life, how do I know that it is God?

And honestly, why can’t God always speak loud and clear? Wouldn’t that be so much easier for everyone involved?

The more time I’ve spent asking God to speak to me with a megaphone, the more I’ve come to realize that he cares about me coming close to him, sometimes even more than the decision that is being discerned. 

It may seem that life would be much simpler if God always came crashing, loud and clear, into our minds with his will for us in any given scenario. However, God often invites us to hear his voice through a more subtle path of discernment. God wants to lead us to good things and often the process of hearing God is just as important as what he wants us to hear. Instead of looking for loudspeakers or emblazoned billboards, we can grow in our ability to identify the voice of God by growing in our understanding of God’s nature  and engaging with the wisdom of the Church. 

 God Doesn’t Ask You To Be Alone In Your Head

A priest friend of mine, Fr. Kris Schmidt once said to me that “you cannot discern in isolation.” God has made us inherently relational beings and he speaks to through our relationships with other people, especially those people we know who are farther down the path of holiness than we are.

Much of modern philosophy has erroneously taught us that we can determine what is true and good entirely in our own minds. Yet as followers of Christ, we know that it is not “good for Man to be alone.”

Am I confused about what is the voice of God, and what is not? Speak to a priest. Find a spiritual director. Turn to people in your life who know and love the Lord. Get the voices in your head and get them out of your head! If there is confusion in your heart about how to know the voice of God, speak your confusion to people who know the voice of God and what they reflect back to you may carry the clarity that you seek.

It can be particularly helpful to find a spiritual director who can help you grow in your knowledge of how God speaks to you. 

(Two resources that may help in the search for a spiritual director is a video from Fr. Mike Schmitz or an article from Blessed is She.)

 God Will Never Lead You Towards Sin, Nor Will He Ask You To Sin

St. Ignatius of Loyola is known for outlining the principles of Christian discernment, most notably in his Spiritual Exercises and his 14 Rules of Discernment. One of the principles that St. Ignatius outlines is that discernment – the process of knowing what God is saying to us – is never a process of choosing between good and evil. Discernment is always a process of discerning between two goods.

God will never ask you to sin, or to move towards sin. If the prompting that you are sensing within yourself is leading you towards temptation or if it is requiring you to sin, you can rest assured that the voice you are hearing is not the voice of God. It is important to make wise choices between good and evil, but if you are finding yourself deciding between sin and virtue, then know that the voice of God speaks through virtue alone. God never asks us to sin.

God Speaks Through Peace

Anxiety, and even a sense of panicked urgency, can often impact how we make decisions. I can relate to feeling anxious about making a decision and allowing that sense of anxiety to dictate what decision I make. But when we are learning to hear the voice of God, it is important to remember that one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace. God is peace.

Sometimes stress is a natural part of life, but the Lord also admonishes us saying “do not worry. . . your heavenly Father knows what you need.” (Matt 6) The voice of God isn’t anxiety. The voice of God is peace. God will often convict us and allow us to feel an appropriate amount of pressure to help us make a decision, but God does not inspire panic or anxiety.

Your circumstances and your present emotional state may be chaotic. Perhaps parts of you or your life feel unstable. Perhaps you are outrageously busy. Perhaps your mind has been very noisy lately.

In the Gospels, Jesus says “peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)

Peace is not merely a sense of calm or an exterior sense of comfort. Peace - as a fruit of the Spirit - is rooted in a surrender to God and a profound trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God as our Father. Life may not be calm, but we can have peace, even when the storm is raging. We have nothing to fear because God is sovereign. 

What does the voice of God sound like? It sounds like peace.

It may not be easy what he asks of you. The voice of God may not be “calm,” but it will be peaceful. That “still small voice” will stand out in peaceful contrast to the anxiety, pressure and clamor of the other voices in our head.

If necessary, turn down the noise of your life (sometimes literally), and attend to the voice of the One who is peace. 

 Do Not Doubt In The Dark What God Has Revealed In The Light

The fifth rule of St. Ignatius’s 14 Rules of Discernment says that “in times of desolation never make a change, but be firm and constant in the. . . determination in which one was the day preceding such desolation. . . .”

Essentially, St. Ignatius is reminding us that when God says something to us in times when we are doing well and feeling good, we should not start doubting what He said when we enter a season where we are not doing well. 

St. Ignatius shares that in times of “consolation,” God’s “Spirit guides and counsels us more,” and in times of “desolation,” we are much more susceptible to temptation and to the voice of the Devil.

God’s voice is consistent, and while our moods and emotions can change quite a bit, for many reasons, God is constant. God is not moody. He doesn’t change his mind about what he has said to us, simply because we “don’t feel good about it anymore.” What does the voice of God sound like? It sounds consistent – and it’s consistent even when our own determinations shift with the ebb and flow of our emotions.

It's a noisy world – and many of us are anxious. The clatter of noise and anxiety can make the endeavor of identifying the voice of God seem like an insurmountable task. However, the Lord has given us a Church which offers us a rich tradition that allows us to identify the voice of God with confidence. God may not give you the neon sign that you’re craving right now, but if you are attentive, rest assured that God is speaking and he can be heard.