I’ve heard it, and I am sure you have heard it at times: “God told me this, God told me that.” Can you actually hear God talking to you like you’re conversing with a friend over a meal?

The answer is technically NO; however, a Christian will hear God speak to them.

This is a deep subject, so I am only going to touch on what I know to be true from my experience. I am not a trained pastor or a theologian, so I will not even attempt to give you that side of it. This is a subject that, if you want to get deep into, I would suggest talking with a pastor who can give a much clearer picture of just how God speaks to His children.

I am speaking for myself and my own personal experience.

When God speaks to me, it’s not a voice-to-voice communication, like you and your spouse would have over an upcoming decision. God speaks to me in gentle ways. Here are some examples: When I am studying (reading) the Bible, many times what I’m reading reflects a similar situation in my life, and I see or am reminded of how it was handled. Like Paul, having an illness and asking God to heal him, and yet God chose not to. Another way God speaks to me is when I am trying to make a decision and certain things fall into place easily, making that decision easy to see.

Of course, none of these things can happen if you don’t read the Bible or spend time in daily prayer. I think that any true believer in Christ will tell you the two most important things you need to do if you want to truly know who God is and how He speaks to you: Daily studying of the Bible and spending time in prayer. You don’t develop friendships with somebody if you never get together and talk with them. Your friendship develops over time when both of you share events that have happened. The time spent just communicating with each other allows you to share joys and shed tears together. You learn about each other’s interests, whether they’re your interests or not. You take joy in their successes, and you support them when they’re in sorrow. In the same way you develop your relationship with a friend, it is very similar to developing a relationship with your Heavenly Father.

God loves us more than we can even imagine. He wants to have a deep, meaningful relationship with us, but in order for that to happen, we have to put work into it as well.

I want to encourage you, so you can know it for yourself. Set a time during the day when you can be uninterrupted for just 30 minutes. Spend 15 minutes reading the Bible or just doing a devotion. Then spend the rest of the time in prayer, talking to God like you would talk to your loved one or friend. Yes, it’s OK to talk out loud; I do all the time. It might sound or feel weird at first, but after a few times, you will understand why. When I talk to God, many times I’m by myself, speaking as if someone is in the room with me. If I am upset, I’m explaining why I am upset and what I don’t understand. The other side is when something exciting has happened, or accomplishments have been made. Those are spoken out loud too. This helps me to actually voice it out loud so my mind doesn’t go off track and start thinking of something else.

I have never heard God physically talk to me; however, I can definitely feel His Holy Spirit in my presence. It is very difficult to explain when I know God’s Holy Spirit is with me. I look at it this way: those moments that people say “I was lucky,” you know, times when you narrowly avoided a traffic accident or any accident, or you had just left somewhere minutes before a tragic event happens,—that’s not luck.

I don’t call those things lucky. I wholeheartedly believe it’s the Holy Spirit working in my life, keeping away or bringing into my life what God has planned. I don’t believe God does anything by chance. God definitely has a purpose; nothing is left to chance.

Good luck, bad luck—there is no such thing, or there shouldn’t be, in a believer’s life anyways.

Everything comes from God. The only way we know for sure is by reading His Word and being in communication with Him through prayer.

1 Corinthians 2:10-12 (KJV): But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.