Today I like to speak to you by asking you this question, “whose voice do you hear and obey?” In times of difficulties, I don’t think there is any doubt that you would hear different voices. However, the voice you listen to and obey is critical to whether you come out of the difficulties, stay there for more than normal, or perpetually remain in that season of life. It is imperative that you know and understands that there are different voices and in every season of life there will be one or more voices that you could hear but keep in mind the voice you obey determines whether you are on the right track. Dag Heward-Mills, in his book titled “The art of hearing,” identified twelve kinds of voices: “the voice of God, the voice of the flesh, the voice of the mind, the voice of the devil, the voice of a prophet, the voice of the Bible, the voice of your friends, the voice of your parents, the voice of your spirit, the voice of your spouse, the voice of circumstances, and the voice of your own will” (2014, p. 55-56).   

In difficult seasons, your deliverance and breakthrough depend on which of the voices you obey. Romans 6:16 says “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living” however you can only know whether the voice you hear is the voice of God if you have a relationship with God. Remember in episode 5 when I spoke about “The Comforter” where I said “the importance of relationship cannot be overemphasized, therefore you can only enjoy God at the level of your relationship with Him” wherever you find yourself in life, the relationship is critical to your success. 

If you want to hear and obey the voice of God which is the ultimate voice everyone should aspire to hear and obey, you need to know Him. Romans 8:14 “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God”. Before you can be led by the spirit of God you have to be the child of God. You are not and should not be familiar with the voice of a stranger. Likewise, if you don’t know God even though He created you, your voice is strange to Him. Proverbs 15:8 says, “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.” What you hear is important, and whom you obey matters most. Until you pattern your life in a way that you obey God consciously and unconsciously His voice to you would be like that of a stranger. If you don’t know the kind of voice you hear, you may end up obey any voice whereas any voice besides the voice of God may take you on a journey that you don’t plan for, hence you should be intentional about God, the more you know Him the more you will want to know Him. God created you to have a relationship with you, but you must be willing to be in a relationship with Him as well. 

In hard and difficult times, you could be tested and most likely you would be tested by the devil with things that you need. Jesus was tempted with food by the devil after His forty days of fasting (Luke chapter 2). This is why it is important for you to be able to communicate with God and as John Tetsola said, “to deny God’s ability to communicate with [a] man is to deny His ability to relate to man” (1998, p. vi). If God cannot relate with you then there is a problem. Any time manufacturers are unable to service and maintain their products you know there is a problem. This is why most of the smart equipment nowadays is updated frequently to keep them safe and secure. Know that there is a problem when God who created you is unable to ‘service’ and ‘maintain’ you by way of listening to you and if He is not listening to you there is no way you can hear from Him. Relationship with God is like a two-way radio ‘you speak to God and God speak to you.’ Keep in mind that it is not because God cannot service or maintain you, it is because His eyes are pure and cannot behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13) hence the need for you to make the necessary adjustment. Doing so would help you to hear when God speaks, if you don’t know or if you are unable to tell when God speaks danger lie ahead. Imagine if Moses was unable to hear God the children of Israel could have stayed permanently in Egypt, the land that enslaved them. The ability to hear God would not only favor you, but it could also make you a deliverer to God’s people.

Bibliography

Heward-Mills, D. (2014). The art of hearing: How to be in the Perfect Will of God (Second Edition).Parchment House.

 Tetsola, J. (1998). Speak thy servant heareth: An insight to discerning God’s voice and understanding His guidance systems. End Time Wave Publications. Bogota, NJ.

          © Solomon Oluwabiyi, April 10, 2021 

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