Hearing God

Last night, we started a new small group study on the topic of hearing God. We are watching and discussing DVD's from Bill Hybels; The Power of a Whisper, Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond.
When I try to hear God speak, I usually wonder if the words I hear in my head or heart are really from God. Is that God, or something I just made up in my mind, or is it the voice of my mother from my memory???
In the first session, Hybels shared 5 "filters", questions to ask to help us know if the words we hear are truly
words from God.
1. "God, is the prompting truly from you?"
2. "Is the whisper scriptural?"
3. "Is it wise?"
4. "Is it in tune with my own character or wiring?"
5. "What do the people I most trust think about it?"

Our discussion mostly centered around those questions.
One thing we discussed is whether we are too quick to try to "filter" what we hear and believe is God speaking. Most of us have something in our background that warned us about being too emotional or we have heard other people toss around the "God said" trump card and have become very guarded. We too often have dismissed God's whisper because we decided it probably was not God speaking.
Regardless, I believe that some kind of filter is necessary. I automatically use filters when I hear anyone speak. Even last night during the discussion, my mind was continually asking, "Is that right? Do I agree with that statement? Is what he is saying scriptural? Was what she said something that God is speaking?
So, some filtering is needed, but we need for our default to be that what we heard is probably really God's whisper.

I considered the next filter a lot. Of course, God never says anything that contradicts the Bible. The problem is that sometimes He will contradict what we THINK that Bible says, so we shouldn't be too quick to disregard a prompting that seems unscriptural. For example, Les and I spent years in a church that believed it was against Biblical teaching to use any musical instruments in worship. So, if Les had heard a whisper that he should take his guitar into the Sunday morning service, he would have immediately rejected that whisper as not being scriptural. In Acts 10, Peter had a vision of a sheet descending  from heaven full of all kinds of unclean animals. A voice told him to kill and eat, but Peter refused because that would be against God's law. God repeated the command three times, telling Peter, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." The vision was preparing Peter to be ready to take the gospel to the home of Cornelius, a gentile.

And, sometimes...sometimes, God tells us to do something that is unwise by any logical reasoning, sometimes outside of our wiring and natural character. Sometimes He speaks so clearly that we know we have heard form Him, no matter what anyone says.

One key word that Hybels used in discussing these filters was "yellow flag". If the whisper we hear does not seem to agree with what we think the Bible teaches, seems to be not wise, is something that is not in line with our natural make-up, or our close friends advise against it; then we need to pray some more to be really clear.

One thing is certain, I want to hear God speak. I want to have ears to hear what the Spirit is speaking. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and they know me and they follow me."